Tuesday, July 21, 2015

I am prepping for note card production.  I've phased out my sets of 4 and now only sell sets of 5 or 10. The plan is to boost my inventory enough to hopefully last through the holidays, so I think I need to schedule a printing day once a month.  It is now July 21st.  In the least, I'd like to set up a production day for cards within the next week and plan another one for late August.  Depending on sales (which are a bit slim during summer months), I may add a day in between.  I'm shooting for 10 sets of 5 and 10 sets of 10 per printing day. If I get into the Jackalope Arts Festival, scheduled for December, I'll bump up those numbers. Until then...

...lots of measuring, folding, and cutting are in my future.....and maybe a bottle of Moscato.

I've been playing around with the idea of adding glitter to some of my monotypes. I know, it's possibly a bit cheesy, but I really think that has something to do the quality of the glitter and just how much of it is used. I am experimenting with a few different kinds of the sparkly stuff and I may be zero-ing in on a winner. I've also noticed that the shiny factor depends on the color. The darker hues do not work so well for me....I want it to SPARKLE!! I am making a trip this afternoon to check up on some more glitter and see if I can find the kind that's more like dust.  That might look absolutely beautiful! I want to do this to some of the larger monotypes so we'll see what happens. I might even think about adding glitter to some of my note cards for the holidays!

Since I am running a summer art camp in the Arts District, finding time and (most importantly) energy is challenging. Plus, it is SO DAMN HOT in New Orleans right now! No one really wants to hang out in the open air of day.  I don't even water the garden until at least 6:00 in the evening. All of this aside, I am aware that I need to get myself in gear and warm up for some serious production time. Right now, I'm just working a little bit, off and on, during the evening time after I get home. It is the only time I have to work on my own art...except for weekends...I don't think I work enough during the weekend.  That should change.

Additionally, I've tuned my mental antennae to a few Instagram accounts in order to educate myself more on how marketing works on that platform. They've been really helpful! There are also a couple of artists that I've been paying attention to and taking notes. I feel that communicating with companies/people that inspire one to put the to-do list down and actually start DOING something are extremely beneficial to those of us trying to get our own thing going.

I should have another post up in a couple of weeks.  Planning is starting to have a positive effect on my schedule.