• Trestle table or two
• Many markets require a white table cover, so get a white sheet or two, or something nicer such as velvet (not velveteen as it looks cheap) or satin or canvas
• Large butterfly clips for clipping tablecloth to table, and gaffa tape the same colour as the table cover for hiding the clips
• Clamps for backup clipping tablecloth to table
• A bucket or box as a bin for under your table is rather handy

• Business name banner with rope & eyelets and gaffa tape for hanging options
• Business cards
• Email list signup sheet on clipboard (essential!!)
• Pens for signup sheet, attached by string
• Postcards of artwork
• Photo books of artwork - show off more than you can bring on the day as interested people may ask for a commission based on what they see you are capable of
• Photo board of artwork - lots of artwork to choose from on the day but too many paintings to display at once? Show photo samples of your full range. Individual artworks can be shown on request.
• Artist statement for display, possibly laminated
• Price tags, ready and blank (who knows what will happen on the day and how many you will need)
• Nice paper to print out price tags and artist statement and any other small signage

• Figure out the stall design and layout first
• Builders level for getting frames hung straight (so good)
• Wire/hooks/picture hooks (a roll of fencing wire, some pliers and tin snips are super handy to make hooks of any size or strength)
• Framing wire (make sure it's rated to cope with more than double the weight your work weighs)
• Fishing wire to make a washing line artwork display (useful for giftcards and other small lightweight works)
• Sinkers to weight down display wire to make it stay taught
• Small bulldog clips x 24 for hanging unframed artwork washing line style (these are super handy)
• Cotton gloves for handling artwork
• Frames, ready to hang
• Pliers - fat and thin
• Hammer
• Wirecutters (tinsnips are far more effective than the scissor part of pliers)
• Screwdrivers - an assortment
• Masking tape
• Scissors
• Gaffa tape / cloth tape in colours to match your display elements
• Blu-tack 
• Double sided tape
• Backboard/screen on which to hang artwork
• Window cleaner and paper towels for cleaning the glass & frames - essential

• Portable box storage system
• Glassine paper for unframed artwork

1. Portable music
2. Lunch - no heating required, not messy
3. Snacks - nuts, fruit, quick, not messy
4. Water - have two litres
5. Coffee, tea, hot drink in thermos or hot water plus bags/containers, milk
6. Camping chair or something to sit on, plus a cover to make this presentable

• Change from bank for cash sales
• Cash storage - bumbag or tin or wallet
• Credit card payment facilities - if not provided, take a laptop with easy access to the Paypal site, laptop power supply, powerboard and extension cord
• Certificates of authenticity - ready to print (take printer, extension cord and spare ink) or already printed out in doubles and take carbon paper
• Clip board with attached pen for filling out the COA's - very handy
• Packaging for sold artwork - precut cardboard sleeves / boxes or gift bags and bubble wrap
• Phone, charged up
• Red dot stickers
• Paintings, varnished and framed
• Pencils
• Pens
• Notepads
• Packing tape 
• Regular stickytape / sellotape

If you're an artist and have useful notes to add from your experiences of art fairs, please enlighten the rest of us in the comments.

More art technique articles

This article is one in an ongoing series of technical articles for artists, all archived together and accessible from here. The topics range from details on materials, to the business of art, to specific art techniques. Please make use of this resource.

Image by by Incase

Go with what you love. You'll be looking at it for a long time.

More art technique articles

This article is one in an ongoing series of technical articles for artists, all archived together and accessible from here. The topics range from details on materials, to the business of art, to specific art techniques. Please make use of this resource.

Yeah, excuses.

Photo by E. Bartholomew

'Imagination Animals'. Creatures that don't exist in the real world, but maybe somewhere could or could have existed. Humorous, fanciful, cheeky, mysterious.

Like chalk-ghosts of drawings left behind on a rockface.

Hey, have I mentioned these have lots of texture? Really. You can see the patina of the rock surface and run your fingers over where the creatures have been scratched into the rock...

The last two paintings in this series of 12 have finally been completed - and they're selling already!

These are little canvases, just 6"x6" (15cm x 15cm), ready to hang. No framing required. And the series is designed - both in size and price - so that multiple pictures can be mixed and matched on a wall. They are ideal to add a touch of colour, as no matter how small your wall is, they will fit!


Available right now in the Official Art Store.

It's dark. It's chilly. It's been like this for ages. So long, in fact, that you can barely remember what the warm sun feels like on your skin. A long winter.

Then it finally happens one morning. That shift that you've been waiting for. There's a buzz in the air. The sky is lighter. The air is warmer. Spring has leapt up alive.

And before you know it, it's summer. Tshirts, shorts, ice. Cars break down, overheated on the side of the road. People faint from the heat. It's 25°C! And in 3 weeks, as quick as it arrived, it's gone again. That's summer in Edinburgh.

Well this is a painting of that moment when Spring arrives, with warmth, light and plenty of birdlife. Up that far north it feels like a dawn. The change is that sudden & bright (and welcome!).

The details: 10"x12" original oil painting on canvas board, signed and dated. Finished with a matte varnish for full artwork protection. Available now in the WhereFishSing Art Store for a very reasonable price.

An inspirational gift perhaps?

Rock paintings modernised. Mythological creatures. Imagination animals. I've been playing with these themes as I explore the possibilities of oil paint and I now present the results. Twelve original art paintings on small 6x6" canvases, so you can easily afford and fit multiples on your walls no matter what size your hanging space. Colour themed for easy mix & matching. Varnished for protection. Gallery wrapped canvas painted all around the edges so no framing required. Just ready to hang. My three favourites are pictured here. More in the WhereFishSing store. Very reasonably priced. Did I mention that these are originals, NOT prints? One of the features of these pieces is the rich surface texture.

For a long time -ever since high school or perhaps longer- I have drawn, doodled and sketched what I have best been able to describe as 'Imagination Animals'. Creatures that don't exist in the real world, but maybe somewhere could or could have existed. Humorous, fanciful, cheeky, mysterious. The pot that brews forth these critters reveres animals, is fascinated by nature, is enthralled by mythology and creation stories and gets a tingle down the spine from ancient rock art.

I'm sure the shrinks out there may have more than a few words to say on these pictures that would probably greatly differ from my interpretation. Nonetheless, this has been my 'thing' for quite some time. And despite the unfinished sketches being laughed at, the finished pieces are garnering quite a different reaction.

• It should be authored by the artist, or their publisher or dealer or agent and if the COA is authored by someone other than the artist, it should state who and what their relationship to the artist is and their full contact details.
• Name of the artist and preferably their location and contact details (and web address).
• Title of the artwork.
• Date of completion. There are various dates that can be included, depending on the medium involved. For paintings, the date of completion. For prints there is the date of completion of the original, the date of this print edition and the date of signing the print. These all help art historians and collectors to understand the timeline of the artist’s work.
• Medium. The materials used to create the artwork. For prints of an original artwork in another medium, both the medium of the original and the medium of the print should be listed. The exact materials used in creating the piece helps the collector to verify they have the authentic artwork, and greatly helps conservation decisions. This can include the paint or ink type, the printing device, the canvas or paper type, source and weight and any pertinent or known archival properties. Professional artists prefer to use professional grade materials and take pride providing a piece made for longevity.
• Description or preferably an image of the artwork.
• Artwork dimensions. This helps the buyer to check whether the art piece has been altered since it's completion. It also makes it easy for them to order a correctly sized frame.
• Signature of the artist.
• Copyright statement. The copyright holder should definitely be identified and possibly also the applicable law and any reproduction rights. It is possible that the work will be under a public license or only have some rights reserved. In this case, copying of the work may be permissible.
• Extras which can be included are additional information on the techniques used to create the image, further information about the subject matter of the artwork, artist’s comments on the piece and for photos, details such as where the shot was taken, the GPS benchmark, date, time of day and camera used.

• The number of this particular print within the edition and the edition size. ie 4/10 (print 4 of 10 prints)
• Whether the edition is an open edition (more prints can be produced at any time) or limited.
• The number of prints and proofs in the edition that are signed/numbered, signed only, and unsigned/unnumbered.
• Whether the edition is a restrike or posthumous edition.
• Whether the edition is part of a series of editions. eg artist proof, press proof, transfer, etc.
• The status of the plate or master. Is it destroyed or on file? If the master has been destroyed then the edition is truly limited.
• Name and location (and web address) of the Master printer / publisher.
• Signature of the printmaker

More art technique articles

This article is one in an ongoing series of technical articles for artists, all archived together and accessible from here. The topics range from details on materials, to the business of art, to specific art techniques. Please make use of this resource.