Zazzle, deviantArt, & CafePress

I have been working recently to expand my source of income generated through my art career. I am getting my work on various merchandise and available for purchase through multiple locales online. I am basically bypassing the middleman here by using companies that make the items, sell the items, and ship the items. What I do is spend oodles of time designing each product and posting them for sale through my online stores.

Oodles of time. Earlier this week I spent about 2 days non-stop working on my Zazzle and deviantArt stores. I may have gotten 3 sections relatively completed on Zazzle and most basic stuff on deviantART. I haven't really even touched CafePress yet, that will happen when I've got those other sections completed. I'm not too impressed with deviantART. There's almost no way to customize your items and I might just remove them from there because of that. Zazzle has an impressive setup where you can pretty much do anything you want to each item you create with colors, text (with as many fonts as you could possibly need), customizable objects, and variations on those objects. So I upload the images I want to use, which takes forever since you want a high quality image otherwise you'll get some nasty pixelation on your products, then I specify what I'd like to make. For example, a mug. I *love* mugs as anyone who knows me knows. They have so many variations on mugs I'm in mug-heaven. You can make mugs, ties, skateboards, postcards, gift cards, mousepads, shirts, and more. CafePress has SIGG bottles and I think I even saw throw pillows of all things.

So what I do it I select the product, choose it's type size and sometimes colors, than I arrange my image on it and add my 'by Kathryn Koozer' text somewhere where it doesn't intrude on the beauty of the item. After I have it looking how I want it I have to name the item, write a description, define the categories where it is publicly listed, figure out how much to sell it for and so on. According to Zazzle they make 1% on each sale, and then you as the merchant put a markup on their base price (the cost to make it and their 1%) to define how much you make from each sale.

My mother was kind enough to purchase a set of MultiBlue greeting cards, mostly to inspect the quality. The quality is exceptional. The paper is high quality in the card. The image on the front looks fantastic and I'm really picky about that sort of thing. Even the envelops that came with them were of a quality you won't see in store bought cards. The cards and the envelops came in a nice see through plastic box and then packed with an invoice plus a little Zazzle card. The only downside is that they used packing peanuts. Overall I am very pleased with Zazzle so far.

I Have a New Toy

I have a new toy. That new toy happens to be able to cut a full sheet of mat board into two sections. It is also able to make slick bevel cuts for making classic mat boards that frame pictures. I use the bevel to make my mounted limited edition prints. It's wonderful.

Before I bought this little gem I was taking serious issue with my razorblade knives. I would end up mangling about half of my mounted prints when I'd try to cut the boards and then I'd have to trim them again to make them sellable. The cuts were uneven and sometimes hard to control depending on my grip of the knife and/or the ruler I use, and often how tied I was. The ruler was also slowly getting trimmed by my knives and my cutting board is looking like it got attacked.

With my new mat board cutter it takes one motion to make a clean perfect cut or trim. With my old system I would spend a good portion of my day trying to get the boards cut and trying to fix the ones that decided to give me trouble.

It's probably one of the best investments I've made and it's completely worth it. There are various type of cutters and they vary in price from super inexpensive on up to thousands. I found one on Blick that I fell in love with: http://www.dickblick.com/products/logan-450-mat-cutter/

New Artwork

It's about time that I write a note about my new pieces.

Little Chris, Kaleidoscope, and the currently without-a-title Daffodil.

Each are collaged with various materials including nylon, pressed flowers, and old photographs. The first two mentioned are both 12 inches by 18 inches. That size is a pleasant size to work with as I can draw on my lap anywhere I happen to be sitting. When they are larger it is a bit more challenging to find a good position to work in. The third is 18 inches by 24 inches and is what you might call the mid-range of the sizes I work in.


Little Chris


Kaleidoscope


Daffodil

Kaleidoscope gave me quite a bit of trouble getting the collaging elements acceptable. That one incorporates pressed flowers and it was difficult making them look like they weren't floating off of the picture. Paper seems to work much better for those things it seems.

Here is where you might expect me to start talking about the concept behind each piece or the philosophy of my overall work. But, I'm really not into that. I want my work to be able to stand on its own. Through the skill involved and how it looks and perhaps how it makes you feel. If I have to start writing long explanations about why I did what I did and why that's important then I feel that the work isn't strong enough to be legitimate in and of itself.

You might think from that statement that I don't have a concept or philosophy behind my work. I do. And it's part of why I do what I do, but that is mainly about me personally and what I try to do with my art than about the art I create directly. My work is what it is and what each person makes of it themselves. All the critics of the art world and all of the visitors to museums each make their own assumptions and ideas about art. Each person has their own interpretation and it's not my place to tell you how you're suppose to see or enjoy my work.

Awake...

I am awake and it's 12:19am.

So much has happened since my last post yet at the same time so much hasn't. What has happened is that I've put in a lot of effort to pick up my pace of producing artwork. I can manage to get a piece done a week if I try. I haven't posted new pictures of my recent few pieces in my official portfolio on my website but they are on my Facebook Fan Page. I don't think I've even mentioned the new pieces I have completed in blog posts. I'll post those soon.

I have also started developing a few online stores where people can purchase merchandise that has my art on it. There are three currently (Zazzle, deviantART, and CafePress) where you can buy random items, and only one where you can purchase my Limited Edition Prints (Etsy). You can, of course, continue to send me emails to acquire prints, and that is actually preferable as it saves me money than if you went through my Etsy Marketplace. I had a small investment made into my art business which enabled me to purchase a slick mat board cutter, photos and a post soon to follow. The two weeks before this last one at the Market in Boise were fantastic for sales and that always makes me feel optimistic.

What hasn't happened is finding more places to sell my work on consignment. The winter gallery show with Dan Looney, a well established local artist, hasn't quite been set in stone yet (I haven't mentioned this before and I'll give you more detail when I know more). I can't seem to get merchandise up on Zazzle as fast as I'd like. It seems to take forever and there's so much I'd like up and available *now*. And finally this last week at the market was one of the worst days out there. I barely made the rent for my my booth space. >.< From talking to other vendors it was a slow day all around. The economy currently is not kind, as everyone knows. And it's especially unkind to an emerging artist.

Which brings me to why I'm awake at this hour. My stress level and anxiety are basically at an all time high. I'm not making enough money to make me pleased with how things are going. I've been working non-stop to get Zazzle and deviantART up and running and it's frustratingly slow-going. Then there are people that want me to drop what I'm doing and converse or hang out just because I don't have a normal job with normal hours and thus should be available whenever. There are other things that weigh on me and cause stress and anxiety but those are normal everyday stresses and aren't worth mentioning here.

I sleep poorly. I've slept poorly for years. You get used to it after a while and develop a tolerance to the lack of sleep. I have at least. Doesn't make me any happier about being awake though.

I am awake and it's 12:46am.

Painting with Colored Pencils

The other day I was checking out electric erasers for the purpose of drawing. You can make little lines with it or other subtle marks with the eraser that you can't with your pencils. Plus, you can erase with them. Handy, eh?

But I'm of topic here. When I was looking that device up I came across some info about using solvents on your pencils for blending. Now, I usually use a blender pencil which turns out to be just the binder (like wax) in a pencil form that you rub over your pigment and it helps to blend the colors together. The solvents are a chemical that you put on your work and move around with a brush. It's like working with watercolor pencils, only you're using a chemical. So there's a bunch of different things you can use ranging from lighter fluid, mineral spirits (that be toxic fumes there), and Vodka. I hate Vodka so naturally I used the lighter fluid that has sat in my closet since my freshman year in collage. That's about 9 years for those keeping track.

So I did some test samples this afternoon to compare how it looks to my normal technique.



this is the rough scribblings


the top section is with the blender pencil and the bottom is with the lighter fluid


close up


another close up


this is a smaller test to show the difference, note the specs on the left


You may notice the little specs of pigment in the sections done with the blender pencil. That's one thing that's always bugged me, the lighter fluid obviously doesn't have that problem but don't use that stuff on anything you want to keep details in. It also can work as a way to tone down an area if you've gotten it too bright, or too dark as I found out on my current drawing. It also basically eliminates the other specs where the paper shows through.

I'm pretty pleased with it and I think I'll be using it quite a bit in future pieces.

Send me your Photos!

I've been working on my Facebook fan page and I've been adding photos of of my work in shops, exhibitions, and the originals on people's walls and it occurred to me that it could be fun to see what people have done with the prints that they've bought.

So send me an email of a photo of the piece you've bought and what you've done with it. How you've framed it and where it currently resides. As I receive them I'll put up a blog post and I'll include some basic info, like the title of the pieces shown and maybe the first name of the person who owns them and maybe the state where the print is.

I think it could be really interesting. So shoot me an email at info_at_kathrynscollages.org. Take out the underlines and change at to the @ symbol for it to go through.



For example:


The home of the original MultiBlue.
Idaho