Friday Thoughts Ep. 9

Hello my dear Patrons, and happy June! I hope you all are doing well!

This week was my first full week back in Seattle after travel, and it feels good and important to be back. 

The first big goal I had this week was to release more products on my etsy using art that I had already designed and painted.  Basically monetizing work that I have already put in, and making more things available to customers! Stickers had been something I had been hoping for for months, and I am very excited to finally put them up in the store.

The Keep Growing and Explore More stickers in particular ended up being some of my unexpected favorites.

I did notice this week that I need to plan for a longer amount of time to develop this many products. I scheduled one day for printing, production, photographing, editing, and listing in the store, but it ended up taking about 2-3 full days.

If you’re curious, I take all of my photos in my kitchen with my iPhone 6. I set up pieces of paper for a while background, and shoot using completely natural light from my kitchen window. I then edit Google’s mobile editing app, Snapseed. If I had better photo equipment I think I wouldn’t have to edit quite as much, but this definitely works for me. Editing has really made a huge difference in how my Etsy and Instagram looks, since I love a really fresh, colorful, and bright aesthetic. Let me know if you’d like a full post on exactly how I photograph and edit my pictures!

I spent the rest of my week working on my entry to the supremely lovely witches lifestyle zine Hazel. I think I’ll save posting full images of the pages until later, but this week I cleaned up the digital linework and added color! My color style right now is heavily inspired by screenprinted artwork, limited color palettes in bright and energizing colors. The piece I’m submitting is about building Self-Confidence, so I’m hoping these colors will work well. Perhaps there’s a bit of witchy color magic in here!

For next week I have a few things planned as I don’t have any commissions coming up immediately. The biggest plans are applying to Illustration Agencies to get some larger projects coming my way. Possibly signing up for an art boot camp called Make Art That Sells or a few classes on Skillshare. Using this quiet time to plan in some learning more about art and design.

Non-Art Life:

The weekend I returned to Seattle, a friend of mine and Zach’s invited us to use the new direct-to-trail bus system to go hiking for the day (none of us have a car.) It took about an hour and a half (which is nothing for public transportation) to get from our home to the trail, and on a Memorial Day weekend the trail was CRAZY. But still, it felt lovely to get out to some of the nearby nature that makes Seattle such a popular city to live in.

After returning from hiking we also went to a beloved Seattle tradition, the Northwest Folklife Festival. A free music and arts festival in Seattle Center, we sat and danced and listened to a wide variety of interesting global music. Sitting in the grass was also great for people watching, and I got some fun sketches of the unique peopke who go all out during festivals:

That’s all for this week!

What did you all do? Do you have anything planned for this summer or next week?

Also, is there anything in particular about art that you are interested in learning about? Let me know, I’d love to make a special article!

As always thank you so much for your support and interest, you all keep me rocking!

xoxo

Ragon