Humblearts Journal

Ready, set, re-run!

In case you missed it the first time, here is your chance to see my national television debut again.  My episode on HGTV will re-air this Wednesday.  Check your local listings for the time. 

So behind the scenes I'm trying to get new work up.  New beads, some one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces and even a few prints.

It will be a fun week.  I feel much more relaxed about the whole thing this time around, knowing that they didn't make me look goofy! 

Take care of yourself today. Celebrate in your successes, whether big or small.  And if you are doing anything today to live your dream as an artist, take a minute and reflect that you are living your dream life, right now!   (That's a message for myself, maybe to you too, but something I need to remember today.)

Crafting as a Business

Warning: Artist thinking out loud!

So this week I've been trying to do things differently.  I've set up a schedule for each day and what I need to accomplish for that day.  One day is marketing, 3 days are beads/jewelry and one day is catching up with whatever I didn't do the week before or that has unexpectedly popped up.  It's been a very productive week.  I've managed to stay off the computer until I've finished the tasks for each day.  Oh and I only have 8 hours to work each day.  I need some division between work and the rest of my life. 

I have been reading two very good books this week.  The first on is SARK's Prosperity Pie.  I've found this book incredibly helpful in my journey to not have my world evolve around money.  My favorite quote from the book, "Worrying is not preparation!"  I don't know how I manage to get anything done with all the worrying I do.  So I've been trying to be more thoughtful to those stray little ideas and turn my mind towards more productive fodder. 

The second book is Crafting as a Business, by Wendy Rosen.  Best book in the world if you are serious about making money selling your crafts.   Now I've read this book a few times.  It's one of those you can read over and over, and depending on where you are at in your business you learn something new or it applies in a new way every time! 

I'm in the middle of re-organizing my business and deciding which direction is best for me.  One thing that I've noticed is that it takes less time to make 20 of one thing than to make 20 different things.  I enjoy doing production work as long as I can balance it with other more creative endeavors through the week. 

So I have a few different jewelry lines I'd like to work on.  One I want to sell through a catalog.  Another one to art museum gift shops.  I only want to do a few shows a year to sell off samples and experiments.  I don't want to market my jewelry for retail anymore.  I'm not willing to do lots of little shows anymore or outdoor shows at all right now.   They are just too time consuming and too much of a gamble. 

I want to sell directly to stores and galleries, shops and catalogs.  I'd rather hire someone to do the little piece work that takes so much of my time and focus on the part I love, which is making the beads.

I'm also going to start marketing my beads to stores and designers, offering wholesale.  Again, much easier to make a bunch of one thing than re-invent the wheel every time I sit at my desk. 

So those are my thoughts on my business at the moment.

Oh and illustration I'm working as my part-time job.  I sketch or work on my mailing list for 3 hours a week while my oldest daughter has choir and my little one plays on the playground. And then in the evenings and on weekends I carve and print.  But usually after the girls have gone to bed, so that they don't think all I do is work! 

The main goal is to make a living wage and to balance my family life with work.  It's hard to stop working, but having a set number of tasks for each day has been very helpful.

New Beads

And in case you were wondering what I did with all that clay, here are some new beads.  Tiger lilies and lavender are a few new designs that I've been working on.  These are all up on ebay right now.

Isn't it just amazing what you can do with polymer clay.  I love that stuff!

Studio Friday - Practice Makes Perfect

This weeks Studio Friday topic is "practice makes perfect."  And what becomes more perfect with practice than a color palette?  Polymer clay, as you probably know comes in very bright primary colors.  I rarely use a color straight from the package.  So the first step in my beadmaking process is a color palette that I work from.  This week it's an early spring bouquet of muted colors. 

Here are two links for more on polymer clay and color:

Color 1 & Color 2

Illustrating Overboard

My little brain has been feverishly planning out what do next for my portfolio and promoting my work.

I'm waiting for my postcards to arrive.  I used Vista Print and I'm a bit anxious to see how they turned out.  I'll let you know.  Polishing up my mailing list, I try to add a few everyday.  I put up a portfolio on portfolios.com.  I also want to put a downloadable PDF of a sample sheet on my website.

I have so many pieces I want to work on, sketches waiting to spring to life.  So I thought if I wrote them down here, I might actually try to get them done!

1.  Do a series of drawings of Hispanic children.  (this is my family after all!  I'm also on an all things Mexican kick right now; foods, arts & crafts and trying to learn to speak Spanish.  That is a whole other post though!)

2.  Dummying up The Little Red Hen as an easy reader.

3.  Images of flowers and foods to expand my portfolio beyond the Children's market.

4.  "Beads!" dummy and samples.  This project has been on my shelf for 2 years, it's time to get it done and move on.

Now I won't be able to finish this all this month, but it's things to work on steadily in between beady projects.  I need a clone!  Well, maybe just a cook and maid.

When life hands you lemons...

Make Beads!

This month has been sprinkled with disappointments.  Classes that have been cancelled, retreats I can't attend. 

I was planning to go to the Texas Bead Retreat, to teach and sell beads, but unforeseen circumstances have prevented the trip.  So I have quite a bead stash over here that I'd like to have disappear! 

For the next 5 days, I'm having a sale.  40% off beads and kits at humblebeads.com.  Pass along the news to your beady friends for me!

Nothing to do

Well, it's January 12th and you are wondering where is my monthly to-do list to see what amazing feats I will try to accomplish in 31 days! 

There isn't one for this month.  I'm flying by the seat of pants, hanging on for dear life.  I've actually been under the weather and haven't been able to work as much as I'd like.

I did manage to update my humblearts website and order new postcards for my next promo mailing.  Which is the image above.

Here is a rough list, to help me think things through:

Finish magazine illustration

Take photos for article (this weekend)

Make spring jewelry samples

Send promo materials to rep and call store that wants my work. (next week)

Update humblebeads website

Send out more flyers for bead cruise.  We only have 13 spaces left, I'm so happy about this!

Put up a little shop on my humblearts site for my prints.

I feel so much better.  Just writing it down takes it from being that sinking feeling of "oh I have so much to do", to an "okay, this is what I need to do" kind of resolve.  I then ask myself what is the most important thing on this list and go from there. 

The Power of Color

My favorite class in art school was Color Theory.  Taught by a woman who was a very accomplished textile artist.  A few years later she bravely switched mediums and decided to work in oil paints.  It was quite the scandal at the school.  It was what she had always wanted to do, but until waterbased oils became available she was unable to pursue that dream.  Very inspiring all around.  She was an amazing colorist and that class was the best money I had ever spent! 

I would say color is one of my first loves in the art world. Whether I'm making beads or a print, color is foremost in my mind.  So I thought I'd share a few prints and how color affects the finished artwork.  Click on the images to view them larger.

   

The first one I worked with a purple/brown/yellow combination, which unfortunately didn't work because there wasn't enough contrast.  So I tried again with a lighter ground, making the trees darker.  Which lost a lot of the detail of the trees.  So on to the next.

I switched gears and tried for a monochromatic color scheme with the purples.  It works out nicely, but seems too cold and didn't convey the feeling I wanted.  I wanted to recapture what my first thoughts of the piece where, which was the earliest signs of spring and that warm fuzzy valentine feeling.  I lightened up the trees and went back to my original color scheme, but in much lighter values. 

Aw, the power of color.  Isn't it amazing how it can make or break an illustration?

A new crazy idea

I've been under the weather this weekend, which has left me with lots of free to time to spend daydreaming.  And that can only lead to trouble.  So here is another crazy idea.

I'm considering growing a small field of lavender in my backyard.  I have a huge backyard.  It's much more of a field than a yard.  I just have the perfect spot for it.  I would need to buy a pick-up truck full of sandy soil. Make sure we have a slight incline.  It's a very sunny patch of land.  Lavender seems pretty hardy, with root rot being it's only foe.  It would be nice to have something back there besides weeds.  Hmm, how many plants would I need?  Wouldn't it be sweet to have a harvest of lavender drying and then making presents with lavender.  Or selling some of it at a farmer's market.  I need to read some more, ask a few more questions, visit a nursery.  Maybe we'll have to take a trip to this lavender farm.  It would be a fun project for me and girls.  hmm, I may just be this crazy!

I would also like to plant fountain grass and tiger lilies all around our yard.  It's so plain and rather ugly.  Owning a yard, it's quite a fun challenge.  Oh, lavender, tiger lilies and purple fountain grass, that would be so nice! 

Illustration Friday - Sea

Here is my entry for Illustration Friday.  I know, I'm pushing the holiday, but I just love drawing valentine themed things.  This is one of my favorite illustrations, you know the ones where you go, yes, just how I imagined it!  This is one of my lino-block prints, hand-colored with acrylic paints.  It was a self-promotion piece.

Seriously I should print some more of these, shouldn't I?  I've been considering selling some of my prints on my humblearts website.  Something to think about over the weekend.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, a few more sea themed illustrations.  (I think I live vicariously through my art, and when I miss the beach from home, it pops up in my work!)