#if i can offer one advice on selling your art uh... it's don't sell it

[papersak]

Sooooo. I'm a liar.

Due to some fees being more affordable than I thought, I re-listed the DDR acrylic standees for at most another six months. I also lowered the prices a few dollars. So not exactly the same as listing them again, but...

But I will not be fooled twice; if I can't get rid of any in the next 6 months I will stop listing them. 👍

It was suggested I add add-ons to make them a little more worth it and that the main reason this tanked is because acrylic standees and profit don't go together... while I have no ideas right now (stickers?) I wouldn't blame you for waiting until I come up with something. 😅

[claypigeonpottery]

Heyyyyy~ I'm just... So in love with all the work you do, they're all so precious and beautiful I'm in tears. Thank you so for what you do, can't wait to buy something you made soon :D

If it's okei, can you please tell the story of how you got into this and how did you progress from being babie artist to now growing artist and how long you've been doing this for? What's your top 3 fav works you've done? Did you eat good food today, if not please dooo. Thenks

thank you! that's very sweet x3 I'm excited to get more stuff fired and up on Etsy, hopefully before the end of June

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choose three favourites of my work? oh, that is a difficult question.

one thing I really didn't like about my art when I was younger was that it was all very static. it was people sitting or standing, it was still life paintings. one of the things I'm really proud of in my work now is the sense of capturing a moment instead of someone posing, and/or giving a sense of movement

these two are just the opposite of static and I love them for that

and then there's this mug. the design is great, the details are great and I had so much fun carving it. it was honestly just delightful and I wish I'd kept it. I don't say that very often.

all sold

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I'm putting the rest of this under a cut because I'm going to ramble

I started drawing because I was making silly comics about me and my friends in grade school and through high school (I assigned them all fursonas because I was a really cool 15 year old lol)

I got a little more serious about art in high school, but I never thought it'd be something I'd make money at.

when I was... in my early twenties? maybe 19 still? ah, memory issues, I went through a nine month art program, the 'Urban Canvas' project run by SCYAP (saskatoon community youth arts programming). the program is meant to support young artists, especially those with mental health or addiction issues. and it meant I got paid to draw and paint and create weird shit for 40 hours a week, for nine months. and then some (seven? eight?) years later I got to go through the program again which... honestly I'm so grateful I got to do that. (and SCYAP still supports me, they give me a table at their craft show every year and helped me with my first solo gallery show)

these are some of the pieces I made during my time at SCYAP:

and two very rare pictures of me, posing with two of my master studies. the left from when I was 20ish, and the right when I was... 27ish? (man I'm still proud of that Gentileschi copy)

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it was after SCYAP when I started thinking that I could actually make money as an artist. so I painted more than a dozen murals, drew a 20-some page full colour comic, painted pet portraits, and sold my own paintings. commissions were more reliable than selling my own work for a long time lol

as for how I got into pottery, my mental health uh... haha. it took a nosedive about six years ago and during some of the worst of it, I was severely agoraphobic. my mom, who has always supported my art, offered to take me to pottery classes with her, in an attempt to get me leaving the house at least once a week. it did help (along with a lot of other things) and once I started exploring the surface decoration side of pottery, things really clicked for me

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tangent: one of the things that really drove me to progress as an artist was having something driving my work. whether it was preparing for a gallery show or making a bunch of holiday cards or making piles of fan art because I was obsessed. every time I made something, anything, I improved. so when I had a goal that made me create more, I improved faster.

my unsolicited advice: make that weird fan art. it's good for your art. (I was really into tf2 lol)

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I've tried tons of different mediums and I think it was a great way to help my style evolve.

when you're making art with a new medium, it might take awhile before you're making your own personal work. I, at least, find that I usually have to do some studies of other peoples' art and just try some basic creations before I do anything more personal. but once I'm ready to do MY stuff, I have a new repertoire to pull from. I wouldn't be the potter I am if I didn't have the experiences I got from other mediums

like acrylics (I did a lot of self portraits >.>)

paper flower making

watercolour

collage

cake decorating

(also oil paints, pastels, 3D wire art, crochet, linocut, stone carving, sewing, set painting and quilting. also my spouse and I like to make crafts together, like cutting-construction-paper, gluing-pompoms-and-googly-eyes crafts, because it's just fun to make stuff together)

I'm sure pottery isn't the last medium I'm gonna try. I'll probably get obsessed with carving tiny wooden figurines or making wax sculptures at some point. who knows!

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and now I'm in my mid-thirties, making art pretty much every day. I've been doing this since I was a teenager, so almost twenty years now.

I never imagined I'd be satisfied with my own art, that I could look at most of my pieces and not see how I could have done it better, but hey, here I am.

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wow that was rambly. the ADHD really comes out when I'm writing lol. and I did eat real food today! before having some freezies

thanks so much for your ask, hopefully I satisfied your curiosity

[popfizzles]

If you don't mind me asking, do you have any advice for artists who want to open commissions? :0 I've been meaning to do that for my art and uh,, I don't really know where to start, like I don't even have the prices figured out yet hhh,, (also your artstyle is so CUTE and it's literally my art goals--)

Know your audience! Notice what they’re interested in and offer them things you think they’d like and things you think would sell! For example:

When I first started my commissions, I was super into Cuphead (and so was everyone else!!) and I offer Cuphead style gameover screens.

And I still do!! But I haven’t sold one in a very long time. So it might be in my best interest to take them off my price post since they aren’t selling and start offering something else that I know will sell (like the roleplay icons that I offer)!

NEVER underprice yourself! Know how much effort you put into work, know how long it takes to get done, know how to price yourself. Your time is valuable and your work is worth it. And it can be very hard to raise your prices with your skill progression when you start low. 

I’ve adjusted my prices once or twice in the past year, but I still continue to make profit because I’ve established a name for myself and I have a sort of set standard for how much my art has cost. My current most expensive single piece is 65 USD. But that’s not far off from my most expensive piece when I started doing commissions (I believe it was somewhere near 40 USD, i can’t remember, it’s been a while lmao).

Imagine if I started selling my art at 5 USD and raised the price all the way to 65. My clients would be outraged after being comfortable with such cheap prices. Hold yourself to a standard; respect yourself, your time, and your effort; and your customers will come to respect you too.