Sunday Thoughts (Ep. 37) New Studio Tour!

Hello Patrons and friends and buddies and pals! A very happy Sunday to you, I hope you're having a lovely, cleansing January. I missed posting last week, I hope you didn't miss me talking about myself too much. Don't worry, I'm back again ready to share more than you'd ever want to know about this work-from-home artist.

Last weekend a pretty big change happened around here, I moved my studio! As I've mentioned a thousand times before, my "studio space" meaning my desk and a tiny bookshelf/lamp, originally lived in a corner of my kitchen, taking up half of the space designed as a dining area. The desk was given to me by a friend, and was too small to fit a regular office chair. It was also right in front of the mail slow, which meant COLD FEET 9 out of 12 months. 

Which meant I rarely actually used that desk. I would sit at the kitchen table, the couch, my boyfriend Zach's desk, on the floor in my bedroom... It also was such a small area that all of my business things couldn't fit there! My printer was in the bedroom, my packaging supplies were in the living room, my paints and papers were in the kitchen, and my back stock was in the small storage room. Packaging a print meant using three separate rooms and lots of bending over.

My first studio space was cute, I was proud of what I'd started, but I'd outgrown it. So spurred by Zach's Saturday KonMari-ing of his close, I did one of my favorite slightly manic activities... moved the furniture around.

About furniture. I love interior design and furniture, half of my saved images are of stylish and beautiful and thoughtfully designed homes. But at this point in my life I'm proud to call myself a scavenger. Zach and I flew here with a little bit of money and as much as we could fit in four suitcases. We slept on an air mattress for our first month, ate off of a desk we carried home from Goodwill, sitting in lawn chairs our landlady had given us. After a week in this apartment we sprung for a couch, kitchen table, mattress, and bed from IKEA. Ever since we've been slowly collected items as we find them or need them from the Goodwill five blocks over. And without a car, that means we've CARRIED every object the 5 min walk from the Goodwill! Our kitchen chairs, four bookshelves, lamps, mirrors, arm chair, coffee table, TV, TV stand, art frames, desks, desk chairs, all literally carried home. Or found on the street. Or given to us by neighbors or friends. 

It's quite a hodgepodge. And it probably will be for a while.

All of that to say, I feel like I don't have the most stylish studio an illustrator could have, but I'm still very proud of this little space that I've built. 

And maybe that will also explain why Zach and I are going to be eating our meals on a side table that our upstairs neighbor gave to us, because I took the kitchen table to use as my desk.

Très Euopèan, non?

 So! I stole the table, rotated all our furniture until I decided to devote the majority of our living room to our desks. Finally I got to gather all of my art and business supplies and bring it in to the same room. And organize it! 

 A couple of hours and a little more furniture thievery later (the shelf on my desk was my bedside table,) and I now have an expanded, upgraded, comfortable, workable, home studio! Next to the big, beautiful window, the heater (no more cold feet), and Pumpkin's cat tower (supervision!) 

 I store all of my materials in recycled glass jars (formerly homes of salsa and jam and tomato sauce), recycled cardboard boxes, and straw baskets from goodwill. It's not a perfect system, I'll admit it would be nice to have drawers to hide some of the uglier materials. But I figure I'll upgrade it as I find more storage materials!

This wire rack is a piece from my convention display rack, so I can easily rotate out some inspirational art. Included this time is a bird print by local artist Pam Wishbow , a cat postcard by local artist Francesca Buchko , my first business card, a collection of my earrings, a postcard from vegan Portland clothing company Herbivore Clothing , and collection of my own hand sculpted pins and enamel pins by other artists.

Perhaps the most practical part of this set up is now all my shipping and printing materials are right next to my desk! I bought this wire rack at goodwill to store my extra prints, stickers, originals, earrings, and business cars.

There's still space in the living room for having parties, watching movies, and playing video games, but the emphasis really feels like it's on "working", which is a good encouragement for both me and Zach.

Not so much Pumpkin, though. She's a distraction, but a cute one.

I'm so happy! I feel like this is a step of my studio space growing with my business. As I've often recommended, don't feel like you need to grow ahead of your business. When I started in March last year I didn't need as much space as I need now, I didn't have as many orders or projects. And now, I don't yet need to rent a new space for my studio or find a two bedroom apartment. That said, I think it's important to recognize if you're giving yourself the space that you need. Are you using your space in your home to reflect what's important to you? If you're dedicated to your art, to you have a special space for that? Maybe check in with your home, see if you're giving yourself the space you need.

This week as also been spent on a couple of projects, including finishing up this adorable custom portrait order for this Disney-loving couple on their 5-year wedding anniversary.

I also sold an exciting amount of portraits for Valentine's Day this year! Remember my goal for 2019 of making enough money through art to pay for my living expenses? I'm happy to say that I'm starting the year out strong, already surpassing my highest month's revenue last year with the first month of this year. I'm going to keep expanding and pushing my business, but hopefully portraits can be a solid bread-and-butter way to make enough money to live. We'll see, patrons!

A few more updates from the last two weeks:

1. I've been thinking a lot about what exactly I want to make in the future. I know I want to make products and merch, but of what? What do I want to say or do with this new voice that I have? I have a few ideas, but I'll continue to refine it.

The only thing is, I can't wait to "know exactly what I want to do", I have to MAKE. Continue to draw, sketch, create, produce. I have a tendency to think to much, but I know I need to discover through ACTION.

2. Zach's parents have kindly offered to give us one of their older cars, a really rad red Toyota Rav4. After a lot of time feeling like we couldn't afford even the insurance for a car, we feel like the financial benefits will now outweigh the costs. For one thing for myself, if I had a car I could go to markets and conventions in nearby towns that are essentially unreachable by bus!

So that means we are going to fly across the country, pick up the car in Pennsylvania and drive it all. The way. Back. To. Seattle. Only a 43 hour drive!

More on that later!

3. I've been working on submitting for two separate projects this months. One was a submission to choose an artist to design covers for a few electric boxes in my neighborhood. I put together a resume, cover letter, examples, etc. I wasn't chosen for the project, which is a bit of a bummer. But I'm reminding myself that not getting this projects opens up other opportunities that I don't even know about yet!

My other project was submitting sketches to an interested publishing company looking for an artist for a middle grade novel series. I'm excited because the art director emailed me about the project, I'm getting paid for just submitting sketches, and the project looks very cute! I have yet to get a client project that actually goes through, but maybe this will be the first!

4. I've done 22 days in a row of morning yoga with Yoga with Adrienne, and I am feelin FRESH.

5. I've been listening to videos from Dina Rodriguez while I work, who talks in depth about social media strategies, client relations, marketing, all that good stuff! She really gets in to the nitty gritty real practical art business stuff, as opposed to the vague, beautiful metaphors of Creative Pep Talk. 

A lot of my ideas come from feeling like there's something very specific that I want to see in reality, and there might be an idea in the art podcast world. I think there are actually not very many art or illustration focused podcasts. There are a lot of vloggers, but I like having something mostly or entirely audio based to work to, not visual. Something slice-of-life, casual, funny, and centered on art and illustration and business. Hm. Like listening to a friend hanging out and talking about creativity and entertainment and media. Hm. HMM.

Okay friends, that's going to be all for now. Thank you so much for your support, for your interest, and enthusiasm! Knowing you all are here keeps me motivated to keep reaching for my goals.

 Let me know in the comments if you had any exciting art developments this week, any changes that you've made for yourself, or are feeling inspired by anything right now.

As always, I'm open to suggestions for future goodies for this Patreon, if you have anything you'd like to learn about let me know!

xoxo

Ragon