Ah goodness, no, it hasn't been a month already has it? Surely not. Where the bleep am I up to? Need sleep.
What's happened?
The freelance/contract medical illustration project is still on. It feels as though it's been going on forever. I'm tired of being tired. Ten hour days as standard is too much. Trying to remind myself that it will all be over by this time next month. Looking forward to being able to exclusively concentrate on the cookbook.
Despite constantly feeling that I have too much to do, the Official Art Store is up! Very-Limited-Edition prints available now of all artwork done so far. From now on, as each recipe is posted it's artwork is available immediately. Please note that the current viewing pics are fairly quick camera shots of each piece and these pics will slowly be replaced with ones of higher quality as I have them scanned for me. If there's an image you like and you want to see a better quality version of it, let me know and I'll prioritise its scanning for you.
Also this month managed to set up the template for the newsletter for collectors. If you've signed up to receive this, I may actually send out the first somewhat monthly mailing soon. If you've not signed up, the yellow box top left is where your email address goes :)
And I managed the scary asking for help. Yes! Got it. Then it disappeared. Ah well, the asking was the hard. Now to try that again.
Learnings
The biggest learning for this month is that painting while upset or off centre is pretty much pointless. Either the ideas suck or the execution of a great concept goes pear shaped. So the painting something every day is an interesting idea, but not necessarily workable for me. The time when I'm unsettled is not the time to paint. That's the time to do other stuff such as coding, administrivia, PR etc. Figuring out ways to help get me back to centre FAST is a high priority.
A smaller learning for me is that I kinda think acrylic paints stink a bit. The colour shift, the too-fast drying time, the handling compared to oils. Part of this is unfamiliarity. Part of this is technical annoyances. So I've got me some drying inhibitor to see if my biggest gripe with this medium can be coaxed into a
Get done for July
A new approach to the PR campaign Collective Merrymaking. Do one of these a day (there are around 15 lined up), then send all these to my help as examples and get a bigger campaign done for me. Sounds like a plan. Nothing happened in this department last month and it really shows in the traffic stats.
Figuring out ways to help get me back to centre FAST. This is more than the 'take a walk', 'drink plenty of water', 'have a hot shower or bath' type of remedy. All of these are great, but I'm after the 'pressing issue needs attention and major soothing right now' kind of remedies. I suspect Havi's monster talking and Shivanautical dancing are the sorts of ideas I'm looking for. Just a hunch.
It's Winter here, so what's the good news?
Aside from finally raining this winter, unlike the past 11 or so, and not being too cold - yet, my business cards have arrived! Big yay. Very excited. They're actually a stamp. The perfect use for all those skinny lengths of canvas and lovely artist's papers that I end up with after cutting the main piece to size for an artwork. And far more creative, individual, unusual and sustainability minded than any business card from a printers.
More promotional business, my first ever press release seemed to do OK. It was listed at PR Log which seems to be a useful free service that gets a LOT of traffic. I scored 214 unique hits (to the press release) in 2 weeks. Not bad for an evening's writing. The bummer is that none of that seemed to be ongoing, unlike telling everyone I know about the project which brings people back to WhereFishSing again and again. The next PR stage is to contact individual high traffic websites (Quantcast is useful here) that are likely to be interested in the cookbook project. Likely due to shared attitudes and interests. I'll let you know next month how this goes.
On to the painting - I has acrylic paints! While I love oil paints - the brushfeel, the lustre, the blending- I hate the drying time. Wainting days for a layer to dry is just way too long for some of the styles of painting I am trying out along with the schedule of the cookbook. The 20 or so minutes of acrylics is far more workable. So far so good, though I think they smell terrible.
I also have linen canvas, and more of my favourite filbert brushes to play with. The linen is usually hideously expensive. As in over a hundred dollars a metre. However, the wonderful people at Chapman & Bailey also sell their offcuts. These are small pieces but they happen to be the perfect size for the paintings I am doing for the cookbook - 30 x 30cm or 1 foot square. They sold a bunch of offcuts to me for a price similar to regular cotton duck canvas. I am thrilled. I get to try out the ultimate painting fabric before being a sqillionaire.
On top of all this goodness, a freelance medical illustration project has come in, which has eased the cashflow situation. Between this and the hours I am doing on the cookbook, my days are long. This is not sustainable long term, but it will only last until the end of July. I suspect my time management is going to be much improved by then, which can only be a good thing.
And lastly, I think I might finally have learned to sleep when tired. Flu all around me avoided and more work than usual done. Nanna napping is cool.
The list for June
Pretty similar to last months, but this time, with the addition of getting help.
ThePR campaign Collective Merrymaking has begun, but time is short for me, so I am seeking help while I'm overloaded to get these things done. I'm a real do it yourself kind of person, so letting some things go to another person is kinda a big deal. But I can do it.
The
Release the fully stocked Official Art Store. Again I need help. It's now ready to roll except all the paintings so far need to be scanned. A big job. So, time to ask for help.
Paint, paint, paint! It's taken a while, however I am finally (almost) in the swing of painting every day. At the moment it's 'most days'. Perhaps that needs to be my aim, to take it up a notch and aim to paint *something* every working day. That's a good one, it's much more specific.
Two seconds To help me out...
I have a price point in mind but want to make sure it's in keeping with what my fans are thinking. When this point is cleared up, all the paintings will be made available to own.
Turbocharging moments of last month
In a moment of true serendipity, Google Adwords randomly sent me an offer by snail mail for free money. True. In the form of a voucher to be spent on advertising. Well hey, where do I sign? And so I got a neat little Adwords campaign together which brought a bunch of vege minded folks to my site who were actually looking for what I have and it cost me zilch. Brilliant. Thanks Google. Send me free money anytime.
While on this little roll I pulled my finger out and told every friend and contact I have about this project. Lots of positive feedback and passing it on. Thankyou to everyone I know! You all rock. And if you, yes YOU reading this now, if you are liking this project PASS IT ON if you haven't already. It really makes a difference.
I can tell from my stats that a bunch of new people are being reached just from these two steps.
Enthused with this success I updated my LinkedIn details at last and added the blog RSS feed to keep it current. Too early to see if that has any effect.
And then I went Facebook wrangling and won. Did you know that you can put your newsletter signup box on your fan page? I didn't. It's a bit fiddly, as I find all things FB to be. Basically, do a search in FB for 'Static FBML'. It's an application that can be added to your page. After adding, go to your page and choose edit page. Then find and edit the application and paste in the code for your newsletter signup. Let it add a tab and a box. Then choose link to this tab. That should make your signup appear in the sidebar of your wall. And then test, wrangle, test.
Speaking of wrangling, that reminds me of zen cart. The online shopping cart is even more functional than last month, but not quite complete. I keep plugging away at it and it gets ever closer. A somewhat larger task than I had initially thought. Still, once it's done it's done. And it is coming along rather well.
The final spark of april awesome was scouting and locating two ideal exhibition spaces. Both are high traffic main street locations. Both are funky in their own way. Neither have anything to do with traditional art galleries. One is definitely a very reasonable price, the other is likely to be the same. Lots of freedom to cook up a unique exhibition able to be seen by lots of people for low dollars. Me happy.
And a bit of sputtering
Test the chosen book printers. It's still a faceoff between Blurb, CreativeSpace and Lulu. Because we have a wee cash crunch going on. Which sucks. Which is being worked through. But which so far has gotten in the way of getting things done such as testing book printers and getting business cards.
See Two seconds To help me out... to help me solve this.
The list for May
Concoct and encourage thePR campaign Collective Merrymaking
Release the fully stocked Official Art Store
Paint, paint, paint!
I have a price point in mind but want to make sure it's in keeping with what my fans are thinking. When this point is cleared up, all the paintings will be made available to own.
How much would you be willing to pay for one of my 30 x 30cm cookbook original oil on canvas artworks?
Turbocharging moments of last month
In a moment of true serendipity, Google Adwords randomly sent me an offer by snail mail for free money. True. In the form of a voucher to be spent on advertising. Well hey, where do I sign? And so I got a neat little Adwords campaign together which brought a bunch of vege minded folks to my site who were actually looking for what I have and it cost me zilch. Brilliant. Thanks Google. Send me free money anytime.
While on this little roll I pulled my finger out and told every friend and contact I have about this project. Lots of positive feedback and passing it on. Thankyou to everyone I know! You all rock. And if you, yes YOU reading this now, if you are liking this project PASS IT ON if you haven't already. It really makes a difference.
I can tell from my stats that a bunch of new people are being reached just from these two steps.
Enthused with this success I updated my LinkedIn details at last and added the blog RSS feed to keep it current. Too early to see if that has any effect.
And then I went Facebook wrangling and won. Did you know that you can put your newsletter signup box on your fan page? I didn't. It's a bit fiddly, as I find all things FB to be. Basically, do a search in FB for 'Static FBML'. It's an application that can be added to your page. After adding, go to your page and choose edit page. Then find and edit the application and paste in the code for your newsletter signup. Let it add a tab and a box. Then choose link to this tab. That should make your signup appear in the sidebar of your wall. And then test, wrangle, test.
Speaking of wrangling, that reminds me of zen cart. The online shopping cart is even more functional than last month, but not quite complete. I keep plugging away at it and it gets ever closer. A somewhat larger task than I had initially thought. Still, once it's done it's done. And it is coming along rather well.
The final spark of april awesome was scouting and locating two ideal exhibition spaces. Both are high traffic main street locations. Both are funky in their own way. Neither have anything to do with traditional art galleries. One is definitely a very reasonable price, the other is likely to be the same. Lots of freedom to cook up a unique exhibition able to be seen by lots of people for low dollars. Me happy.
And a bit of sputtering
Test the chosen book printers. It's still a faceoff between Blurb, CreativeSpace and Lulu. Because we have a wee cash crunch going on. Which sucks. Which is being worked through. But which so far has gotten in the way of getting things done such as testing book printers and getting business cards.
See Two seconds To help me out... to help me solve this.
The list for May
Concoct and encourage the
Release the fully stocked Official Art Store
Paint, paint, paint!
Woweewow. What a busy month it's been. Have you seen all those super yum recipes and their paintings?Enoki Soup
Vietnamese Style Stirfry
Eggplant Risotto
Tangy Tomato Soup
Chai Tea
Chilli Greens
And what about the super dooper Table of Contents page for the Art Filled Seasonal Vegetarian Cookbook project? I was well pleased to get that up and running.
So onto the monthly roundup:
The Not So Good Stuff
Starting the vege cookbook behind schedule and still being behind. Though I should be able to catch up by the end of the season, which is ok, except it leaves me scrabbling for time to do *mildly* important stuff such as promotion of the project. Not cool. But all my own fault.
The Good Stuff
Biz cards designed. Very pleased. See above. These will be eco-business cards which can be printed on practically anything. Perfect.
I've done the calculations and looked closely at the cornucopia of alternatives and the choice was clear. Bye bye Etsy. Hello ZenCart. Why? I needed a method for presenting and selling my artwork that involved the least maintenance possible. The cookbook project involves original art and limited edition prints of each piece. Etsy does not have an easy and automatic way to offer a prints for sale up to a certain number (it's called inventory control). Each time a print sells, it has to be manually restocked in the Etsy store. That's perfectly possible to do, but just one extra thing on the list that could be trimmed. And in between one print selling and the next number being listed, that print is not for sale. Not ideal. Or, all numbers of a print could be listed at once, but this becomes expensive. No, no, no. So after looking closely at all the possibilities (and being tempted by BigCartel who do what I want but limit inventory numbers), I chose to open my own store. No more fees. No more limits. A load of work upfront, but freedom everafter. It's a long term choice.
And quite a few paintings done. Which in itself is fabulous.
In addition, with so much regular activity, my studio has had another facelift and functions even better than before.
Git Done For April
- Test the chosen book printers. It's still a faceoff between Blurb, CreativeSpace and Lulu.
- Git zee ZenCart fully complete. It's already up and functional as my Official Art Store, but looking a bit skew-iff right now.
- Organise the Autumn exhibition. The grand plan is to have an exhibition at the end of every season. After taking a gander at the possibilities out there, a most noticeable logistic is how far ahead exhibitions are generally planned. Months upon months!
A whirlwind of a roundup this time.
We got a puppy! Yay. And instead of tempting fate and naming her chaos, we chose Lux. She's pretty well behaved, but puppies are puppies.
The Good Stuff
My touch typing has improved tremendously. Hooray for quicker blog posts and email replies.
Urban Creatures got started.
After sifting through every professional and quasi/semi/part time art organisation in Australia that I could find, I whittled them down to a quite shorter list of relevant and actually professional bodies that might be wise to join. It's incredible to me that some organisations charge membership which only gives a member the advantage of being in their database, which may be a good marketing strategy if the databases' search actually returned sensible results. Just my personal gripe.
So if you are an Australian artist, here is a great list of organisations to start with. These all have really useful information and working websites. I'm monitoring these to see which ones will be worth joining. I suspect NAVA is the one to definitely become a member of. The rest are good to follow.
National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA)
Artist Career
Artworkers
Regional Arts Victoria
Arts Hub
Craft Victoria
The Arts Law Centre of Australia
Australian Copyright Council
Viscopy
Australia Council for the Arts
Planning for the recipes. Ah the brainstorming that went on. So many questions that found answers and so many experiments to unleash. All in good time.
The Not So Good Stuff
?????
Hooray.
So, The Get Done For March...
- Test the chosen book printers. After having a really good scout around, it seems that the best way forward is to use a print on demand service, and then if there is enough demand, switch to a print and distribute service. Without actually trying out the print on demand services, it's impossible to know what their printing and paper quality is like, how reasonable their packing and shipping is and what the experience of their ordering and customer service is like. So it's a faceoff between Blurb, CreativeSpace and Lulu. Online reviews can only tell you so much.
- Get this vegetarian seasonal art cookbook show on the road... more very, very soon.
artists guide
A Diary of Becoming - Round Four - Nov 09 (and Dec 09 and Jan 10) Roundup
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Where On Earth Have I Been?Gah. Has it really been 3 months? What's happened? Which hole did I fall into?
Hmm, well there was a cancer scare (false alarm I'm relieved to say), there was the getting stuff done, then there was a large illustration contract, followed by having the inlaws stay for xmas. Then there were two road trips to Adelaide (a gig and then a wedding) - Adelaide is a day's drive BTW - and lastly another large illustration contract. So rest assured that whilst I've been away, it's been a full schedule. Perhaps I could be more organised on the blogging front while busy in future. Something for me to work on improving.
And while we're on the topic of needing improvement... from the last roundup;
Not So Good Stuff
- Pictures and prints for the market stall - haven't happened. Though I've produced plenty of pictures, all of them have been of the medical variety for contract. No use for a market stall.
- Market stall preparations - not all bad, but definitely delayed, as per above. I have though, scored a fine trestle table from eBay and have an RSS feed spying out for a suitable cane/bamboo room divider which I intend to paint white and hang pictures on as a backdrop to the stall. I'm now thinking that a stall will be more suitable for the next warm season. Part of a grander plan.
- Email friends - not done yet (grrrr). However this will be ideal to do when the big fun project is launched.
The Good Stuff
- The art collector lectures that were cancelled last year are back on and I'm in. Can't wait. They start next week.
- Modify blog header. This task is done. It should now be perfectly plain to tell when the blog is the current page.
- Creative commons. Investigated and pondered upon. Look out for the blog post this time next week which will explain what it is and my views on copyright in the world today.
- Art collectives. Researched. And blow me down there's one in Ballarat. And a cool one in Bendigo. And the Abbortsford Convent in Melbourne grabbed my interest too. It was enlightening and somewhat horrifying to learn that most places work 6 to 12 months ahead with their exhibition schedules. Yikes.
- Strategy session. OMG!!! So much awesome. More later.
- CD commission. Done, and now more required. Cool.
The Unexpectedly Great
- While the medical illustration contracts certainly took a great chunk of my time (annoying), and the client suddenly decided partway through that everything was to be done in Illustrator (really irritating), the wonderful unexpected result is that I now have a solid grasp on Illustrator. Nothing quite like learning on the job. So that's an extra feather to my cap. I think I'll slot it in next to the Photoshop feather!
- But that's not all!!! Thanks to me getting peeved with how long it takes me to write these posts, I decided to do something about it. Now I'm touch typing at a modest 22wpm (words only). Yay. Onward and upward.
The Awesome
Discovering the coolest project that covers a whole bunch of my interests that will tick the full gamut of artistic and online experimenting that I want to do and it was right under my nose. Right in my face actually. Thanks to hubby for pointing out what has been hiding in plain sight. The recipe series. Seasonal, vegetarian, fully illustrated. It's gonna keep me busy for a full year. Fine details still to be sorted, but there will be downloads, polls, prizes, videos, prints, loads of scrumptious meals and artwork and a complete book at the end. I'm excited.
So, The Get Done For February...
- Improve my touch typing to include numbers. Same speed.
- There's a bunch of recommended professional art organisations. Methinks I should join them up.
- Shadow Creatures. Or maybe Urban Creatures. In any case, a second installment on the Found Creatures. A suitable creative project for this month otherwise full of...
- Planning for the recipes. So many questions to find answers for... Printing. Dinner exhibitions. Videos. Publishing. Scheduling. Publicity. Classes? Ways to get you guys involved...
Imagine life is a sweet shop. You can have anything you want, but you can't have everything that you want. Why? Because you've only got so much to spend. You can afford lots and lots of little things or a much smaller number of big things. Your choice. What do you want? How will you spend your time in the sweet store of life?Not many people get brought up with the belief that they can really truly go after anything they really truly want. If you are someone who has figured this out, then maybe like me, it came as a revelation.
This painting is that feeling of the world opening up and being full of possibilities. That sense of wondering, do I dare? Could I really? How would it take off? I could have that life??? Oh yes!!! And the dreaming/thinking/feeling/imagining through all the sweet and delicious scenarios. Do you know this feeling? Do you know someone who is taking stock of their life, or inspired to try a new direction? Would this help keep them motivated?
The writing in the clouds reads, 'Did anyone tell you? You can be anything you want.'
Another great find from the mysterious old box that I discovered when re-setting up my studio. Available now to inspire somebody else to follow their dreams. In the Official Art Store, of course.
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