Painting, Painting, Painting

Today is going to be another painting day.  Still have lots of unpainted items in my inventory so I need to get those things painted and ready for either online and local shops.  Several years ago we were doing shows and festivals regularly, therefore I had lots of business.  So to support those sales, I bought lots of things to paint.  Then life happened.  My husband had some medical problems that seemed to go on and on and some other things happened also.  With so much going on, I didn't paint much and we didn't have many sales.  Those unpainted items have just been sitting in our garage/workshop for a couple of years.  It doesn't do any good for items to sit unpainted, no opportunity for sales.  They just take up space and don't produce any revenue.  So, I am trying to get all or most of that "stuff" painted, then photographed and load to my online stores.

On October 1 and 2 I will have a booth at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens, just down the road from where we live.  Received confirmation yesterday.  This will be our first festival in about 18 months, so I need to make sure that I have inventory for this show.  There are also a couple of small local festivals for which I am going to sign up. With the economy it will be interesting to see how sales are.

Up early and a cool morning.  Maybe I can get lots of things done today.

In addition to all the painting that I have been doing, I taught a painting class yesterday at Michaels, two students.  We worked on painting trees for two hours.  Feedback was good, both students agreed that they would like to learn techniques rather than having a small painting done.  Good feedback.

Tobacco Barn

Tomorrow, I will teach my regular Thursday class at the YMCA.  Painting an old tobacco barn.  Last week we had lots of interesting discussions about angles and perspective.  So, we are going to finish this painting then have a class on just perspective and how to determine angles for buildings.  Jerry Yarnell published a book on Perspective so that is what I using to study and learn more about perspective.  Most of us don't realize how much you have to work at something to get ready to teach.




       

Crazy Labor Day with Lee

I hope that everyone had a great Labor Day weekend.  In the Southeastern US, it was turbulent.  Tropical Storm Lee invaded the area pouring rain and wind on us.  Luckily I live in the Piedmont of North Carolina, near Charlotte so we were on the outer edge of the storms.  Rain and wind off and on all day Sunday and Monday with more expected today therefore we did not get a lot of stuff done outside.  Many people suffered much worst than we have and my prayers are for those people.

The stormy weekend allowed me to catch up on some of my painting.  Yesterday, I woke up at 3:00 am and could not go back to sleep so I got up and started painting.  I knew that I had lots of china to paint but did not realize how much.  I cleaned out my storage area and discovered just how much I have in inventory that is unpainted, overwhelming...  So I brought some things upstairs and started washing them so I could get ready to paint.  I also found some things that I could use for displays and some things that need to be repainted...  Now I need to get all that painted, then photograph to put online at Etsy, Yardsellr and Zibbet then take some things to Heritage Mill Antique and Designer Mall.  Hopefully I can sell some items and decrease my inventory...along with making a little money.

For the first month since I have had a booth at Heritage Mill, I sold lots of hand painted stuff.  A woman came in and is redoing her kitchen using numerous pieces of my hand painted purple grapes.  Can't wait to get up there and see what she actually bought.  It was a good month in sales for me making up for some of those months where I sold nothing.

My husband is also in one of those moods where he wants to throw out everything!  So, I am having to rescue or defend anything that I really want to keep.  Very stressful but he is correct in some ways, I have too much stuff!

I was able to get some things painted this weekend.

• Two plastic cake covers, one is rose buds and the other is sunflowers.
• Green glass storage jar painted with sunflowers
• Two lotion dispensers, one is sunflowers and the other looks like a window with curtains and a window box with flowers.
• Three china baby shoes with birthday flowers.
• Two piggy banks.
• Eight wine glasses - purple grapes.
• Four china ring trees...I have about twelve left to paint.  I bought lots of these because we were selling them fast at festivals then we quite doing festivals.

Even with all this painted, I still have lots of painting to do.  Some of these items are very small and you would think that small is easy to paint, but not necessarily.  You must use smaller brushes and sometimes, it is difficult to show much detail.

I am teaching at Michaels in Gastonia this morning.  The class will be on painting trees. We will be practicing several different types of trees then create a simple landscape using some of those trees at the end of class.  I sent out emails to all my students so I hope to have several students for this class.