A New Show, More On Exhibition Title Cards

Funny how life has it's own pace of stops and starts - it seems it's either the speed of a snail or a sudden acceleration to that of a NASCAR driver in an important race!

It's been the speed of a race here lately.  I'm preparing for a small show and since the paintings are to be hung on Monday, I've been scrambling to get things ready. 

I know, I know, I said I wasn't going to do any more shows but this is more like exhibiting in a gallery.  The paintings will hang for about a month and the owners of the space will take care of the transactions should any paintings be sold. 

One of the requirements is to provide the title cards for each of my paintings.  I've been intrigued with the design of those cards for quite a while and ended up printing the image of the painting as a background for the card as shown above.  This way there's no doubt as to what painting goes with what information.

I'll let you know how things go.

Art Festival Musings

Well, the art festival I told you about in a previous blog post was this past weekend and I actually enjoyed it.

It was held in a large barn out in the country and I'd wondered if anyone would find their way out to us.  But, the show was well publicized and we had a surprising (to me) number of visitors.  There were numerous events scheduled for the same time frame but I think that actually worked in our favor as people were out and about and stopped by on their way to or from other activities.

Did I sell a lot?  Not really, a few note cards and magnets but no original art.  That doesn't surprise me though as most people don't carry around the price of an original painting with them.  But, I did have considerable interest in pet portrait commissions and hope there will be some people who actually follow through.

As I said, I normally don't like to do street fairs or these kinds of festivals.  Most of the time you work yourself to the bone in preparation, set-up and tear-down and generally, for me at least, barely make back your costs.  This time it was sort of fun though - it was fairly small as it was the first time but all the vendors were very congenial and the people who attended were in good moods.  The weather was gorgeous and we were surrounded by farm animals, including 3 gorgeous horses.  There was breathing room with real fresh air instead of crowded city streets filled with gas fumes and the sometimes unpleasant blending of food smells.

So, this festival was fun and, while not exceedingly profitable, at least I got an opportunity to give out business cards and get a little name recognition.  Hopefully it will pay off with future commissions but, if it doesn't, it was still fun!