So evidently children love art... who knew?

I forgot to mention in my last note that I took my new piece I'm working on with me to, well, work on.

This had an amazing effect on people. All of the children wanted to see what I was doing, how I did it, what I used, and so on. The parents got into it also. I got to tell the story about the silly bright green grasshopper sitting it the bright red lily for days until it grew its wings. I explained how I use colored pencils and how the blender pencils work and how I started taking art classes when I was eights, which really got the kids excited because they were all generally around that age. I can imagine those kids harassing their parents trying to get into art classes and making reference to me. ha!

From Notes from an Artist

One of the children that had to know what I was doing and why and how. :)



I don't know if it made a huge difference or not but I change my setup around a bit too. I added some more color to my table with using some scarves people had bought me from places around the world while they were traveling. I also put some of the grid baskets up front so that it was more attractive for people to stop and look through stuff really fast without having to commit to coming inside the tent. With doing that I was able to have an entire grid wall dedicated to just originals. I think the display just looked better this week.

From Notes from an Artist

The new setup. I added a previously sold original on the front of the booth and it was a show stopper. Someone even wanted to buy it off the current owner. XD

You can't see it but I had a gridwall hanging horizontally over the table that had framed work, originals, and a magnet board on it.



Some of the older crowd, as in not the kids, seemed really interested in how I do what I do (and make it make sense in my head while doing it, and also that my inspiration is from quilting and not some other painter. Once they heard that a whole sense of understanding seemed to flow across their faces. The work suddenly opened up into a whole other world they could relate to, since a lot of these people were quilters themselves.

I think I'm going to continue to bring my unfinished pieces to the market so people can see me work on them. But mostly for the children, because they seem to really like it.

From Notes from an Artist

Me working on my craft.

Notice the handy paper umbrella we attached to the chairs this week. I burnt my shoulders last week (even though I had sunscreen on).

What a fantastic day...

The market this weekend was fantastic. I saw a bunch of friends and the entire crowd of people just seemed really happy.

They were also in the mood to buy things, and we all know I approve of that. :) Even with it being a holiday weekend and all of the other events going on we had a huge crowd of people. Pretty sure they all came down to the market instead of going on vacation.

We overheard a couple of the ladies-in-charge of the whole deal talking about one of the food vendors. How they were concerned that they 'weren't able to move enough of the customers through the lines fast enough'. What a thing to be worried about! To be selling that much stuff to have to worry about something like that seems to me to be a great day for them.

I also did a lot better than any of the previous weeks and I'm going to have to do some major reordering of my art reproductions for this next week! How awesome is that? Some of the vendors next to me seemed to do better than last week also, but strangely enough it seemed some of them did worse. The personality of the people buying things seems to change every week, and they seem to buy different things each time. Sometimes they don't buy anything at all from anyone (except of course the food vendors seem to do well regardless). Seriously, who can overcome the temptation of so many super delicious food-items in the morning and around lunch time? There's freshly fried donuts and this week we got some freshly made Stoopwaffles (it's a dutch thing... makes me miss The Netherlands).

I'm also planning on doing the First Thursday Art Walk thing if I can ever get all the details for that. That starts in like 2 weeks, btw.


So overall the market was pretty awesome, hopefully it keeps that going for the rest of the season. :)

Wishful Thinking

So instead of filling you all in on the last couple weeks, which included a torrential downpour on one of the market days (thank you Brittany for braving the storm BTW), and two weekends following that of super slow morning sales that picked up in the afternoons (Thanks for coming and saying 'hi' Sam, Jared & Friends - who yes I have met before at a dinner thing with Melissa and Naga), I will be going into some of my thoughts of what I'd like to call Wishful Thinking.

How's that for a long one sentence paragraph?


Wishful Thinking:

I wish people would stop harassing me about how much money I'm making/not making.

I wish that I had a nice sunscreen that lasted longer than like 2 hours (I burnt my shoulders last weekend even though I put on sunscreen).

It would be nice if people bought so much stuff that I *absolutely* had to order more prints for market every week.

It would also be nice if people would let me concentrate on the market instead of asking me 'what my strategy is now'. My strategy for the market? Nope, my strategy for what to do now because *some people* think that the market is a bust because the mornings are slow. *insert rant here*

I wonder if I could produce drawing/collages as fast as the guy that has his booth next to mine paints... He can do paintings in a few short hours where it takes me quite a while to produce one of mine. I like to think that mine are much more challenging and beautiful. 'Course, I'm bias. ;)

At some point I'd like to have an entire studio to do my art in since right now the room I use I also use for like everything else.

I'd also like to get the rest of my credit card payed off. I'm able to get a decent chunk paid off every week with the earnings from the market, so that makes me happy.

I like to think that those people who were interested in my originals are going to buy one, or two, or more. :D The price reflects quality, if I could produce work in an hour my pieces would super inexpensive also. Although you might say that a piece I complete now has taken me 25 years to create because of all the work and study and skill training, and living I've gone through to get where I am now. Some people under-price their work so that they can ensure sales but that tells potential buyers that your work isn't worth much (even if it is).


When I started this I had a point I was going to make but now I'm going to have to say that all I've got is some wishful thinking trying to remember what my wishful thinking note is about...

XD

Through Rain & Shine.... POST DELETED! >.<

So I just got done witting a long post about this last Saturday and the market. It was one of those supremely awesome posts that draws you in and makes you believe you were there. Well, not really, but it was fantastic nonetheless. I was sitting here proofreading it and it up and deletes itself. >.< Well, what actually happened was is that I've got a gaming mouse and one of the side buttons got pressed and it decided to go back a page on the browser which lost the entire thing.

I've been since educated that a lot of blog writers use notepad for typing their posts so as to avoid these kind of problems... And I shall endeavor to copy their tactics so to save myself the epic annoyance of losing my future notes. >.<

But I just wanted you to know, that I had a note to post, and it was done and awesome... and now it's gone. I'll probably retype it at some point in the next couple days...

>.<


Blog Post - 0..... Gaming Mouse - 1

I'maTwittering... O.o

So I've decided to try out the Twittering thing after chatting with a friend of mine about it. You know who you are. ;)

Anyway I'm kkoozer on there or just click on this link in case searching for me doesn't work out: http://twitter.com/KKoozer

It'll mostly be focused on my shnazy art career. I know you're all dying to get in on the inner workings of things. ;) Try not to get too bored, eh?

Oh and I'm rather entertained by the photo I put up for it. It actually is the only self portrait I will ever show anyone currently. All others have been destroyed I'm sure.

From Notes from an Artist

It's called 'Bad Day' (from 2004 at UofI) and I'm sure you will agree that that would be my angry face. :D