July Update

Warning: this is going to be a long post.

I’ve been sort of dreading and avoiding writing this post. If you’re a regular follower you’ve maybe noticed a lot of radio silence on my end after I posted about doing a drawing course and promising weekly updates about that.

I still have my course to finish. I ran out of room in my sketch book and got distracted by other things, but I would really like to get back into it seeing as I did pay for it and I do believe this drawing course could do nothing but help improve my artwork. That being said, I’m stepping back from being a “content creator” and actively selling my art.

I am still an artist. This is the part I’ve been struggling with. I saw a post yesterday by an artist on Instagram that actually made me feel so much better. I think it was a re-post, but I’m not sure who shared it originally so I’m not giving them credit. I saw the post by @bserway and it is the following:

I am still an artist, but I’ll be stepping back a bit as “Artist” as my career choice. In the end, this was a very difficult decision that I know was also the right decision. My family and I can’t live off the “income” I make off my art. I am proud to say this is the first time I haven’t made money at it in almost 10 years. I used to at least break even or make enough to support myself to continue to create art. But more and more I am not buying new supplies because I can’t afford it. I sunk too much money (not an extraordinary amount but more than I feel comfortable with) into stock and trying my hand at selling in a brick-n-mortar. Not only was I not able to support myself but I lost money. I hold no fault to the store owner at all, Nikita has done so much for all of the Artisans, and I know she’s done a lot to try to get my bookmarks to move. It’s a very niche thing to sell and I of all people know how difficult they can be! They are still at So Divine Artisan Boutique until the end of July if you’d like to snag one! You can check them out in person if you’re local or head over to So Divine Online and Nikita will ship it to you! You can also get them as a freebie in the super fun Blind Date With a Book that she’s doing.

I think I will still sell my art from time-to-time. I will likely still do the Craft Fair in the fall, and if you’re interested in a commission send me a message and I will let you know if I’m available to do it or not. I will ALWAYS be available to make the Classic Horror Crew bookmark. I will not be putting a lot of effort into advertising on Facebook or Instagram. Whether I keep my bookmarks in my Square shop or not, I haven’t yet decided. I’m kind of thinking I probably will because I’ll need that set up to do the Craft Fair anyway, but we’ll see. It depends on how much effort it is to maintain. At the moment it is more effort with the stock being shared in Nikita’s shop but after that I think it should be pretty easy to manage. You may get an occasional update on Instagram/Facebook from me, but I won’t be putting in the effort to make sure I post every week. When I do get back to my course I may share my progress on my Instagram stories, but it won’t be weekly updates or posts about it.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience and/or disappointment that this may cause anyone. I did not come to this decision lightly, but I know in my heart this was the right decision for myself and my family.

So what will I be doing instead? I’m so glad you asked. I’ll be focusing my efforts back onto the career I dreamed of since I was 5 years old; dog training. I became a certified Master Dog Trainer when I was 20 but I didn’t do it for very long. I loved dogs and dreamed of being a dog trainer since I was a little kid and first trained our cat to sit (and concluded dogs are less frustrating to train). In high school my career counselor told me to go to Emily Carr Art Institute and I thought that sounded so ridiculous because I knew my dream was to train dogs. Even when I was a teenager too cool for anything I was still a geek for dogs. I still ditched my friends to hang out with my dog. After I went to school and came back to Fort St. James I set up my dog training business and was so excited. The disappointment hit hard when I realized I wasn’t training dogs; I was training people. I was never a people person, especially back then. Half of the reason I wanted to train dogs was because I didn’t want to work with people. Realizing that in order to train dogs I had to train people was really hard for me. I know it seems like something so obvious, but I honestly had never even considered it. I got frustrated dealing with people who wouldn’t listen to me, who’d argue with me, who’d cancel and reschedule over and over again, who wouldn’t pay me in full, and the dogs were always way easier to train than their people. I gave up training and started focusing on selling my art. Giving up dog training broke my heart, but like being an artist just because I wasn’t professionally training didn’t mean I stopped being a dog trainer. It was still so deeply a part of who I am, no matter how hard I tried to shove it down.

I trained my own dogs, I gave advice to friends and family, but otherwise I tried really hard to push down that part of myself because it was too painful to think about how I “failed”. Then I met Winston. I didn’t mean to start dog walking. I just sort of happened upon a post by someone looking for a dog walker. I did dabble in dog walking a bit when I was early in my pregnancy with my first daughter and I really enjoyed doing it but stopped when my pregnancy made it too difficult. It happened that at the time my husband was home a lot because he’d just quit his job to start a new career. I started walking Winston in the fall and did it throughout most of the winter and spring. Being able to work with the dog on my own without the owner was absolutely so much fun. Having the excuse to get out 5 days a week for an hour long walk got me in pretty decent physical shape. Getting paid for it was nice too! Winston is a big dog spending long hours waiting for his owner to come home so I knew he needed a REALLY good walk during our hour. I started exploring the area and fell in love with my home all over again too. I started hiking in the winter and we had a blast on the trails behind the graveyard before they were cut down this year.

One day I was on Facebook and I just got so sick of seeing posts on the community page EVERY DAY about dog problems in this town. Dogs at large, dogs biting people, dogs attacking other dogs, chasing cars, eating garbage, barking, you name it it’s a problem here. I also needed a way to get Winston more exposure to other dogs in a controlled environment so that I could work on his dog reactivity and have more peaceful walks (to clarify; dog reactivity does NOT equal aggression). So I made a post on the community group and asked if anyone would like to come train together (but at a distance and with dogs on leash) in the park with me and Winston. The response was overwhelming, I had mostly super positive feedback and interest and one guy who thought it was a recipe for disaster.

I’ve heard so many comments from people who’ve said they won’t walk their dogs a certain way or won’t walk their dogs at all because of dogs at large (which is the biggest problem here). I realized that while we can’t control what other people do with their dogs and how they keep them, we can teach our dogs to handle any situation where a dog at large may approach them. Keeping our dogs locked away was the opposite of a solution. They need to learn basic obedience around that big of a distraction. I knew in my gut that this would be just one piece (but a vital piece) to the puzzle of finding solutions. People were a bit unsure at first, I didn’t get a lot of people showing up to train in the park but it was enough to keep me trying. Most of the people were those who are already out there training their dogs, but slowly I started getting other people asking about it and showing interest, but it’s taken some time to teach enough people what it is about, I think.

I didn’t want to clog up the community group with my dog training posts so I made my own group called Fort St. James Dog Owners and I wrote a bunch of articles about everything I could think of and filled the group with it. I then started to spread the word about it and invite people to the group. In just a few days I went from 0 to over 100 members. I expected to be just one person talking to myself in an empty group and today it has people who post regularly, comment often and ask questions. I see people planning their own get-togethers in a safe way and I’m so proud of that.

About a month ago I injured my foot while hiking with my husband and my dog Zelda. It was our first hike together in YEARS and we had so much fun. I tripped over all kinds of rocks on that trail and at one point I felt a tweak and thought “ouch that might hurt tomorrow”. I forgot about it and kept training in the park and kept walking Winston around the loop for a whole week before it started to swell up. It progressively got worse. I went to the clinic and had it looked at by a Nurse Practitioner who sent me for x-rays. The x-rays showed nothing abnormal and I was told to rest and ice it.

It was about this time I realized I needed to get back into dog training. Not only did I rekindle my love for it but I also realized I could be making way more money at training dogs than I make at selling my art. Way more. At the end of the day it’s not about the money; I got back into this because I love it and I want to help people. I am tired of people getting mad about the dogs and I want to teach people we can train our dogs to be calm, happy, healthy minded individuals that we can take out in public in a way that is respectful to our neighbors and fellow community members. The money certainly helps during uncertain times though. My mindset is different this time and I’ve had more experience in life and with people that at this point in my life the idea of teaching people doesn’t sound so awful. I also have found that people are different now than they were 16 years ago. People are more open to training their dogs. People want help with their dogs. My career choice doesn’t sound so cooky that the career counselor would try to get me to choose art school instead (which just seems so laughable to me in hindsight). I can also charge a lot more now than I could back then and it still feels weird. My prices are extremely reasonable compared to other dog trainers in the surrounding areas and yet I feel like I’m charging too much because it’s way more than I charged when I was 20 years old. I’ve also designed my schedule, contract and how I structure my training sessions in a way that supports me better than I did back then.

Last week I went back to the clinic and had a doctor examine my foot, as it hadn’t gotten any better. She ordered the x-rays again, an MRI and an ultrasound. I’m waiting for those appointments now. One of my training clients generously gave me a support boot for my foot. It’s exhausting and like dragging around dead weight but has definitely made a difference on my foot healing. It’s way less swollen by the end of the day.

I’ve had a few training sessions with people now and it just makes my whole day. When I walk away from doing a craft fair or market my attitude is usually “yeah it was fun, but I’m exhausted”. I am pumped after doing a training session. It’s so exciting to see a dog learning and to see how happy it makes the owner, and I especially love seeing that owner and dog connecting and working together. It’s something so magical and the owners feel that too because I get endless thank yous and you can see the joy on their faces when their dog finally does what they are asking from them.

It’s also been a really tough fire season for BC, record breaking bad. We’ve had fires surrounding us and we have been locked inside because of all the smoke. We’ve had a few clear days but as I sit outside and write this I can see and smell the smoke growing thicker and today is worse again. Still clear enough we can continue to enjoy outside for a bit. We’re fortunate that the fires around us have been managed by firefighting teams and are now getting under control. A lot of people have not been so lucky. It has been stressful to watch the BC Wildfire Service app show 4 fires “near me” pop up to 9 in just a day and then 14 by two days later. I’ve had to consider what we need to have ready in a go-bag just in case, and how we’ll manage to fit everyone and everything we need into our car. The car we have now is smaller than we had in 2018 during the last fire season we evacuated from (and we had less family members then too). It’s been stressful. There’s a lot of things that have been stressful this year (and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that…). Getting back into dog training has felt really right to do.

Just like I have always been a dog trainer since I was 5 years old and trained the cat to sit; I will always be an artist too.

Reflections and Resolutions (2022 – 2023)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted my weekly blog. I’ve been busy with my whole family catching the plague all of December. Or rather, we’ve been hit over and over again this cold and flu season since my oldest started Kindergarten in September. December seemed to hit us particularly hard though. Between that and the holidays I just decided to put my art on the back burner for a month.

2022 brought a lot of changes in my personal life. In December 2021 I gave birth to our second daughter and in 2022 we watched her grow into an exploring little one year old. My husband quit his job of 17 years and changed careers to where he’s working 10 + hours a day. It’s a huge change for our family and has been a big adjustment, especially as we battle a harsh flu season. This hasn’t left me a lot of time to focus on my artwork. Despite that, when I reflect on 2022 I realize just how much I accomplished after having a baby (and adjusting to a crazy new schedule with my husband’s work and my oldest daughter heading to school). I’m proud of how many of my goals I reached.

I made 21 bookmarks (which is 9 more than I made the year before) including starting a large series (all of the Doctors from Doctor Who) that I do intend to finish this year. This was my 3rd year creating the Classic Horror Crew annual bookmark and I think it’s my best one yet. I’m so grateful for Paul’s trust in me to make a bookmark every year that reflects their book club. I also helped spearhead Art For Ukraine which brought many artists together to raise money for the citizens of Ukraine. I personally donated $100 worth of bookmarks sold and together we raised $2,480 CAD. All proceeds went to the Canadian-Ukraine Foundation and it went towards providing necessary items for those affected by the war.

When COVID started in 2020 I had to completely revamp the way I sold my artwork. I could no longer do local markets and fairs, could no longer do in-person gallery shows and I found myself at a loss on how to share my art. This is when I started focusing on smaller works of art that I could easily ship across the country and around the world. Now that everything has opened back up and we can do in-person events again I find myself once again trying to decide what the best way to share my art should be. I need to find a middle ground where I can both share online and in-person. 2022 was my introduction back to selling my art locally. In October I did the Artisan Fall Fair at Pope Mountain Arts (my first event at the local arts space since 2019) and then in November I did the local Craft Fair which was always annually but the last Craft Fair was in 2019 as well. I was also the featured artist at PMA for the month of November. I spent two mornings out of the month hanging out at the building working on some bookmarks while people came and viewed my art. I had one class stop by which is always enjoyable. I love the honesty of children and they have the best questions.

For 2023 I want to focus again on selling locally while simultaneously selling online. I’d love to create a dynamic shop within my webpage and drop Etsy forever. The Art For Ukraine fundraiser made me really want to do something like that again. I’d love to run an “Art For…” campaign every year specifically focusing on local groups that could benefit from it. It’s something I need to spend some more time planning and talking to other artists about.

I don’t know if I’m ready to get back into painting canvases and doing gallery shows again. Having my work featured at PMA in November was fun but also reminded me of the headaches that come with doing a gallery. My preferred method right now is using a combination of Tombow Dual Brush Pens, inks and sometimes pastels on watercolour paper. It’s very portable and easy to quickly set up and clean up which is important when you’re going by the schedule of young kids.

My in-laws got me a Square reader and a locking cash box (goodbye cardboard box with an elastic band around it) after I spent a lot of time humming and hawing about the things I need if I want to keep doing markets. I’m excited to have ticked two of the things off that list now and so grateful for this really thoughtful gift. I’ve been considering doing the Farmer’s Market this year and those two items really helps towards that goal. I also need a tent to protect my work from the weather. I’m not sure if doing the Farmer’s Market would be worth it for me to do week-to-week. There is a yearly membership fee and a weekly fee for a spot at the Spirit Square on top of that. My artwork is very niche and that niche isn’t exactly the majority of the patrons in my small town. To make it worth my time I’d have to consistently sell enough week-to-week. I have some ideas to make that more likely and if I can figure out to pull it all off I think joining the Farmer’s Market every week would be a good avenue of sales to add to my repertoire. I would likely need to bring my kids with me but that hiccup is the least of my concerns.

Another exciting thing for 2023 is the opening of an artisan shop! The lovely Nikita of So Divine Crochet is working on opening an artisan shop called So Divine Artisan Boutique. I’m really excited about this and feel it’s something our town could really use. There’s a few local businesses that have space for local makers things but it’s not a lot and they’re usually looking for a certain small northern community aesthetic. This will be a storefront with a good mixture and variety of things crafted by local makers. I applied but asked her to put my application on the bottom of the pile, for now. My family being sick for so long has turned my life into hell and I really need time to recover and get my life back on track before taking on anything like this. I will also have to reassess my prices as well as my content. I have enough experience to know which things sell well to most people in my community. Like I’ve said, my stuff is very niche and the people in my community largely aren’t within that niche. This is something I’ve been fine with in the past but if I’m going to take a gamble where I have to pay to have my items in a shop then I need to reassess how much of it is likely to actually sell. Her prices are totally reasonable, I just don’t have confidence that what I am currently creating will sell to our local demographic. Super exciting to have someone with the experience she does as well as the enthusiasm and passion in our corner. To quote Nikita herself; our success is her success! One thing I’ve really struggled with is promotion (especially on a local level) and the legwork involved in putting my stuff out there. Nikita is willing to do that legwork and to me that’s 100% worth it. As a mum of two small children I just don’t have time to do this all on my own. To have that kind of support available in my town means the world to me.

2023 is also going to bring new ventures in design for me. I don’t want to go into too many details because it is very much still in the planning phase but my sister is playing around with design transfers and is currently waiting on ink for a sublimation printer her and her partner bought. They want to create designs that reflect who they are, what they enjoy about our community and the northern playground we live in. She’s asked that I help come up with designs and this is an opportunity I would fully love to be a part of. Like I said though, still the early planing stage and we will see where this idea takes us.

Now I just have to get my family healthy again so I can get my life back.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your holidays were wonderful and I hope the new year brings lots of happiness and opportunity for you. Let’s put the last few years in the rear-view mirror and move forward with hope, optimism and creativity.

Craft Fair After Thoughts

Last weekend was the big Craft Fair that happens in my town every November. Unfortunately it had been canceled previous years and the last time we had the Craft Fair was in 2019. It was my first year doing it and we lost power for half the weekend so we only had the one day for sales. So needless to say, everyone was really excited to have our annual Craft Fair back and it was a really great turnout for vendors and patrons last weekend.

The Craft Fair benefits the Fort St. James Secondary School grade 12’s. All of the table sales and lunch sales went to the grad class. The grads are very involved all weekend. They are there to help set up before and take down after, they go around with menus and a cart with snacks and drinks so that the vendors can buy their lunch and not worry about leaving their tables. I never buy the lunch because I’m cheap and if I spend too much money at these things I don’t make any and then it’s not really worth for me to do at all. So I pack my own lunch but I know some vendors really appreciated having lunch available. I really enjoyed a video Nikita shared in her stories on Saturday night about how exhausting these events can be and how when you’re the only one selling at your table you’re stuck there all day without breaks. She said she’d never seen one where a lunch menu was offered and food delivered right to your table. So I feel it is worth pointing out how great it is that the grads do this!

I had a new display at my table this year and that was for my bookmarks. There was definitely some pros and cons to this display and next time I might try to arrange it a bit differently. Most people didn’t see me sitting there behind it until they were right at my table and the hand painted bookmarks were on the other side so I had to keep telling people they were there or they’d be passed right by.

I really wanted to sell my big prints for The Other Side but didn’t sell a single one. I had a couple of people interested in them but because I didn’t have Interac I lost those sales. I am considering getting a Square for next time.

I sold Wretch (the crow) and the framed Hummingbird. I felt really weird after Wretch walked away; it felt like my baby had left me. I’d accidentally put a hole in the canvas last time I transported it from a show and so I decided to let it go for $20 to anyone who fell in love and didn’t mind that it had a hole poked through it. Well that person did come to my table and I’m so glad! This was one of my favorite paintings but I always knew it belonged to someone else. I was told $20 was too cheap and was offered cookies too! I thought that was adorable but I declined and insisted I couldn’t sell it for more than that (with a hole in it).

I finally sold a bunch of the Stranger Things print pack and I was SO relieved at that because I’d ordered SO many of them sure that they would be a hit and until last weekend I hadn’t sold any of them. I sold out of my Space Turtle bookmark and my Milky Way Fox bookmark. It was interesting to see which ones people gravitated towards. I loved seeing small kids come to my table because the first thing they would notice was the brightly coloured Goosebumps bookmarks. Then you’d see their little wheels turning as they realize there’s something off… something creepy about them.

I didn’t sell too many hand painted bookmarks but that’s to be expected I think. It was easy to sell them in 2019 when I first came out with them and only charged $5 each. That wasn’t worth it though (it takes about 2-3 hours to make each one) so I have slowly increased my prices over the years until I landed on something I felt was fair to myself. People don’t always really “get” the hand painted bookmarks though. It’s a small original piece of artwork. It’s meant to be framed and put on a wall or on a bookshelf. It’s meant to be displayed and enjoyed but not used. That’s why I came up with the prints- they’re meant to be used. The prints can get bent, smashed, squished and scraped. A fellow artist recently told me my bookmarks are too hard to frame because of their unique size. Maybe that’s true? But custom framing isn’t hard to get done it just costs more. For a $20 piece of art is it worth it? I personally feel like it is but I also haven’t framed any of my personal pieces yet, so what does that tell you? This is why I provide a plastic sleeve. It keeps it protected until you do get around to framing it. I’ve digressed though. My point is I understand they’re not for everyone. So I don’t mind patiently waiting for them to find that one person who loves it. I don’t mind that for any of my art pieces. I’ve always said that each piece is made for somebody somewhere out there. Sometimes it just takes a while to find them.

One such original bookmark did leave me last weekend when it found that one person. Earlier in the year some fellow artists and I put together a fundraiser called Art For Ukraine. I made 5 bookmarks to donate $100 myself. Last weekend I finally reached that goal when the last sunflower bookmark found it’s person. The lady who bought it didn’t know it was for charity until after she decided to buy it. It was just meant to be! I wish I’d gotten her name.

The Saturday was pretty busy but I still managed to finish the Jaguar bookmark I’d started at PMA the Thursday before. On Saturday I had a little more time to start and finished the 5th Doctor bookmark. I never watched further than the 4th Doctor in the Classic Doctor Who episodes so I was surprised when this unfamiliar character came out so easily. I’ve been using this series as an excuse to practice drawing people faces and I found that this face was much easier to draw than the last 4. I enjoyed the colour pallet and for whatever reason it just flowed from start to finish. It took me no time at all and got me through the slow parts of the day.

I’m still struggling with proportions and making clothing look like it folds naturally, but overall this one came along really well and I am really happy with it.

After the time spent drawing and the sales by far my favorite part of the Craft Fair weekend was the conversations I had with people. I loved seeing peoples reactions to my art. So many people stopped and repeated lovely things like “wonderful” and “very talented” and “beautiful work”. By the end of the weekend I was completely humbled. The people who stopped at my table stared at my work with bright expressions and with interest and awe. It was an amazing reaction overall that left me feeling like all this hard work I’ve done is starting to show. My long-term fans will say I’ve always produced beautiful work but I feel like I’ve reached the level I’ve been expecting of myself. I will always find the flaws in my art. Always. It’s how I grow and learn. I’m extra critical of my own work because that’s how I find what needs improvement. What needs extra practice. Sometimes I forget to look at the parts I really like and analyze why I like them. Seeing these reactions and hearing all these amazing comments about my artwork reminded me to see the parts I like too.

On Saturday my husband brought our two young children to visit me and his parents (who were at a table next to mine). The oldest is 5 and she just beams with pride whenever she gets to sit at my table at one of these events. Her Papa gave her money to buy my art (for some reason I still struggle to understand why). I would have gladly given her them for free. But she LOVED those bookmarks she bought and I loved her for it. I’ve always said my dad is my biggest fan but I think he has some competition for that title. Our littlest is 11 months old and when she sat at my table she grabbed my markers and one after the other threw them on the floor. I thought she would attract people to my table with her adorable baby antics and she did but people were looking at her not my art! So she went to Nana’s table. The 5 year old wanted to come back on Sunday but we got a good dump of snow that day. I needed the car to bring my stuff home at the end of the day and the stroller won’t go in the snow. So husband and kids had to stay home for Sunday.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who stopped by my table and had great conversations with me. Thank you to everyone who bought a piece of art and supported my little passion project. I loved meeting all of you and sharing this piece of myself with you.

I will definitely be back for the 2023 Craft Fair.

Artisan Fall Fair

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Last weekend Pope Mountain Arts had it’s first Artisan Fair. It was great seeing and meeting other makers in my community. Some of my favorite vendors were there such as my MIL Angie with her gorgeous sewing work (Nana’s This ‘n’ That), Kris Nutbrown with all her beautiful bee and resin products (Honey Nutbrown Handmade) and new to our community but an instant favorite is Nikita with her crochet work and buttons (So Divine Crochet). It was of course nice to see my fellow artists I hadn’t seen in some time either; Pat Gauthier and Bethany Giesbrecht. I’m always blown away by Bethany’s work. It is so vibrant yet calming at the same time. These are just some of my favorite makers but there was 11 of us in total squished into the old building.

I was really excited to use my new bookmark display for the first time (see the last slide above for a picture). My dad made it for me using two old cupboard doors. He hinged them together and we put eye hooks every 7 inches to give space between the 6 inch long bookmarks. We tied string virtically between the eye hooks to hang the bookmarks from. I already had these mini clothespins to use. We had trouble with some of the eye hooks breaking so I think I’d like to replace them with some stronger ones (which I already have on hand but didn’t bring with me when I went to help dad finish the display). One night I had the display leaning against a wall next to the baby gate in the kitchen. Our Dopey cat jumped the gate and knocked down the display. I was amazed it didn’t break any of the eye hooks off but it did squash most of them on one side. I decided to just leave it be as I didn’t want to go screwing around with it right before the Fair.

This was the first Artisan Fair held at Pope Mountain Arts (PMA) which is this little old building that’s full of a ton of history. While the days were long and slow I still enjoyed going. I enjoyed just being with my types of people. I enjoyed leaving my house and kids for a day (although that’s always this weird thing where you want a break but then when you do get a break you miss them). I enjoyed listening to the older ladies gossip and banter in the corner behind me during downtime. I especially enjoyed talking to people about my artwork and about Stephen King. It’s always a delight to meet other Constant Readers! I really enjoyed getting some time to just sit and sketch without reason or deadlines or pressure to get it right.

Saturday was the longest day. I went there shortly after 9am to set up. I had no idea what I was doing for my table display. I wanted to put my new display on the other side of my table but since the table was in a corner and in front of the stage I had to put it on the left side in front of where I was sitting. The downside was that nobody could see me sitting there when coming from the one direction, but the upside was I had the stage to store all my art supplies.

I quickly went home to drop off the car for my husband and nurse the baby. I walked back and made it just in time to open. The morning was busy when we first opened at 11am but then we hit the lunchtime lull that lasted into the late afternoon. On top of that, I wasn’t feeling very well. I’ve been really sleep deprived since I had my baby over 10 months ago. The last couple weeks my 5 year old has been fighting a cough and then it suddenly got worse on the Friday before the Artisan Fair. So not only did I have my baby waking me up all night but the 5 year old was up a lot as well.

With two little kids I don’t always get a lot of time to just draw for the fun of drawing. It’s usually either a commission or a project I’m working on. I definitely enjoyed that time to just get creative and play with my pens. On Saturday I drew my dog Zelda. I only had about 4 colours that first day and forgot my black outlining pen. I tried to trade others a blue ballpoint pen for a black one and then my MIL sent me to her car to find one. It was a fun little drawing that I tried to keep simple and I feel that was very effective.

We had a few more people come through in the late afternoon and then after 5pm it was dead quiet. My husband walked there with our girls and by 6:30pm they were ready to go and so was I so I packed up early and went home to spend the night up every hour with the baby or my 5 year old who was puking by that point.

I had a late start on Sunday because I had to look after my girls in the morning and after yet another night of being woken up frequently and dealing with a sick kid I just wasn’t feeling super motivated to go sit at PMA all day again. I was a bit late but had asked Kris to watch my table for me. I was exhausted and it’s always a bit discouraging doing these things because I know my artwork is a bit niche and I end up watching a lot of people politely walk past. So I opened up my little COPIC sketchbook and started sketching a lion. I really struggled with it from start to finish. I kept changing my mind on what direction I wanted to take it. I had brought TOO may colours with me on that day and it was starting to feel overworked. Kris made a comment about how she thought I was just doodling and then saw I was making a masterpiece and I just loved that comment. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I LOVE doodles. I am a big time doodler. Doodling helped get me through math and biology class. Doodling helped me talk when I was in counseling. Doodling should be considered a masterpiece.

When I wasn’t overworking my lion masterpiece I was visiting with the other makers or chatting with the people who did stop and show interest in my art. I loved the variety of people and which bookmarks caught their eyes. Some bought Stephen King bookmarks having no clue they were Stephen King they just liked the design. Some bought animal designs, and some actually recognized some of the Stephen King books. I especially loved talking Stephen King with those fans. I had ONE person recognize Goosebumps which kind of made me feel old. The Stranger Things pieces sat untouched and I’m beginning to regret ordering so many prints when the originals still hadn’t sold. I sold one of the originals (the one of the Demegoron) and I had several people interested in that one piece, but otherwise nobody is into them. Here’s hoping some Stranger Things fans show up to the Craft Fair next month. I brought some random other pieces as well such as my 8×10 prints and a small canvas painting of a crow. Which, regrettably, got damaged when I transported it home on Sunday.

I spent about a week stamping paper bags with my logo and adding a little snippet about my giveaways on Instagram and then I forgot to give a bag to like 90% of my customers. I was just so excited for a sale and some of the people took them right off my display so were holding them. Oh well, something to work on next time. Every time I felt so exhausted from the lack of sleep and told my husband I just didn’t want to go he reminded me it gave me a chance to get out and do something I enjoy doing and to treat it like a trial run for the Craft Fair next week. He was right, and I definitely walked away with some new ideas to try, some things to work on and some things to just keep in mind for next time. I stopped doing markets and fairs when COVID took away the option in 2020 so this was my first time since 2019. I might as well treat it like the first time ever and walk away with it as a learning experience. After all, that’s really what all of this is. A chance to learn and grow as an artist and as a person.

Shop Opening Delay

Hey Friendly Followers! I was hoping to have my new Shanty Shop open on Sept 1st. Well, it is now the 8th (as I write this) and I’m still not quite ready to open and am not sure when I will feel ready to open it. There’s only a couple things left to do. I need to add my prints and do a double check over everything to make sure it’s all congruent. I thought about opening regardless and I also thought of postponing it until November.

October and November there are some local fairs I am considering joining to sell my art. The big one is the November Christmas Craft Fair that happens every year and brings vendors from far and wide. The table fees go towards the grads which is also kind of a nice reason to do it. The other one is in October and is the Artisan Fair hosted by Pope Mountain Arts. I use to be really involved in PMA and I found COVID sort of wiped out the visual arts that was happening there. They could no longer do gallery shows which was a huge part of the visual arts involved in PMA. I was in the middle of organizing a group show I was invited to by a few other artists in the spring of 2020 and we suddenly were challenged with having nowhere to hang our art. We decided to make it a virtual event which was a lot of work putting together the page for it on Facebook but it ending up being quite successful. Despite this, we didn’t do any other virtual gallery shows after that. After restrictions were lifted I thought PMA would jump back into the gallery shows and supporting the visual arts locally but they were busy getting the new pottery studio set up, all the renos that were going on with the building and the first gallery show was a group of artists from out of town. So when I got an e-mail from them inviting me to the Artisan Fair I got really excited. I was so excited to see them supporting local visual artists again and would like to support them in turn by joining this fair. But I’m not sure if I have enough stock or if I can get ready in time for this. Which brings me to it might be best to wait to launch my products on my website. I haven’t really decided yet what I’m going to do.

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Currently I’ve been working on my Doctor Who bookmark series. I’d been binging the series recently as comfort watching. I’m on The Day of the Doctor right now, waiting for a time when I can actually watch it uninterrupted. The bookmarks have been a really fun way to connect further with my favorite show as well as to practice drawing people. Boy do I need practice at it! It’s been a long time since I’ve even attempted to draw faces. My first one turned out awesome, if I do say so myself, and they’ve kind of gone downhill since then. I am hoping I can redeem myself with the 4th Doctor. My daughter is starting Kindergarten this week and it’s a gradual introduction that so far I’ve had to be there for. Hoping maybe I can find time this weekend to start the much anticipated 4th Doctor. You know I’ll be throwing that magnificent scarf in there!

To make a long story short, I’m not quite sure what I’m doing with myself yet but I think I’m going to try to do these two fairs this Fall. Whether that delays opening my online shop further or not is yet to be determined.

Commissions are still open though! Send me a message if you’re interested. In fact, I’ll give you a wee bit of a sneak peek at what the shop is going to look like… Commissions are currently open for…

Read Along/Book Club Custom Bookmark

Pet Portrait Bookmark

9×12″ Pet Portrait

I also have gift certificates available if you’d like to purchase a custom order for a friend or family.