How the Arts Alive! show went

It was a beautiful day for the Arts Alive! Festival and if you were able to stay in the shade it wasn't too hot. I went into this show trying not to think too much about sales and just focus on getting some local exposure. While the crowd wasn't huge it was pretty consistent and continued for almost the whole show. I'm happy to say that I broke even on this show and that's fantastic. I didn't sell any of my new cups and saucers or any of my silkscreened onesies even though I swear there is a baby boom about to happen in Langley.

Below are some pics from the day.

My booth set up with my newly sewn bunting.

Napkins, cups and saucers

I was next to Krazy Bob's Music Emporium and his funky VW

Krazy Bob creating LP art. He knew how to get the crowds. ; )

Steveston Salmon Festival. How the show went...

So this was my first Steveston Salmon Festival Art Show. I’ve been to the festival before and knew that the whole community is packed with people to celebrate Canada Day. 70,000 people in fact. That’s some pretty decent amount of local exposure. 

My table was inside the community centre in a room with about five other artists and the local charity pie sale. Treats and coffee in the same room. Perfect. You could tell that I was the newbie to the group because my table was so sparse and everyone else had whole portable walls set up with their work. 

The goal for this show was just to do it and get a little more well known locally for my work. The other goal was to stay positive about the show no matter what the outcome. At least I tried. Did I sell anything? Nope. Did I get some positive comments? Yes. Was my work completely different than the other artists? For sure. Well, I gave it a try and I will reflect on the day more but I don’t think that was the venue for me. There was a craft show going on at the same time that had more traffic and I may have done better there. Those spaces were pricier and a spot was based on a lottery system. A possibility for next year maybe.

I took a few pics with my husband’s iPhone so excuse the poor quality. What do you think of my vinyl table banner that I got from Vistaprint?

Work in progress

Now that we're well into January I thought I'd show you what I've busily been working on. For ages now I've been wanting to work in encaustic but I've been too intimidated by the process and the expense to try. It always seemed so mysterious and potentially toxic. Alas, I couldn't shake the interest in was and started researching it more.

This January after having realized that I had double-booked myself for art shows, I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to create an entirely new series of work based around encaustics. This new series will continue with the mushroom theme I've been doing but it will incorporate linocuts, encaustic paintings, monotypes, drawing and watercolors. I will be tackling many new techniques that I've never tried before and it's gotten me wishing that there was some way I could get rid of sleep and work so I could work in the studio more.

Above are a couple of photos of a encaustic painting in the process. The second one is of painting being carved with my linocut tools to help me create details. The wax really is magical and it's always on the verge of being out of my control. I love that kind of creating. So what do you think? Do you work in wax? Do you have any hints or tips for me? I would love to hear them.

CARDED!

Today's post is about the one-night, fun-for-all show I participated in a couple weeks ago called CARDED!. This year's hosting venue was the Jacana Gallery on Granville St.. 


 I found it to be a little nerve wracking because I'm someone who is kind of shy but I made myself talk to the other artists and hunt out the cards I enjoyed the most. I was only able to stay an hour but by the time I had left most people had traded for their favorites and the gallery was shoulder to shoulder with people. I felt like I got a pretty good response to my trading card and most people had started to dub it as "Robin". Below is a photo of my submission "Superboy".

 If you would like to take a peek at the other 49 participant's images, go here. All in all, I found it to be a really fun show with a great concept. I'll be sure to keep my eyes open for next year's call for submission.