Participating in a Contest

So, today's little blurb isn't so much about my shop or my artwork... actually, it's part of a contest I'm entering over on DeviantArt. haha!

This is the first contest I've tried my hand at on DA, and really, it's the first one I've had any interest in participating in! And so, I must give it my best shot!

The contest is being hosted by the amazing duo Worms and Bones. They specialize in making sculpted plushy monsters and I LOVE THEIR WORK TO DEATH!!  ^__^  It's on my "Hit List of Cool Artists to Buy Stuff From"
http://wormsandbones.deviantart.com/

And here is the information on the contest itself! It'll explain why I'm posting this info up on here. And while you're checking that out, cruise through the comments and see what other people have submitted. There's a lot of great talent there to be appreciated.
http://wormsandbones.deviantart.com/journal/Barbary-Whelp-Contest-is-Open-312879006

Now, since this blog IS mainly for my studio and my art, I do feel the need to jot down some of my thoughts on contests and such.

Hosting a contest is something I've considered a bit, but haven't actually put into progress. It seems to be a good way to get the word out about the artist and give people the opportunity to custom make something they wouldn't otherwise have a chance to purchase otherwise. So I've been taking notes while working on the above contest. Checking out other artists awesome submissions, considering possible rules and restrictions and timelines and such for if I ever decide to do sometime similar.

It's something to keep an eye out for in the future! In the mean time... enjoy the creative works of these 2 talented artists.

Now that I'm half way through the summer...

Time to review the results of the last couple weeks of work and the two events I attended!

First off... I think I maybe have covered this a bit in my previous posts... but those 2 weeks leading up to July 4th? Yea... nuts. I had a lot of things I wanted to craft for that event and not NEARLY enough time.

One of those things you want to aim for when you're preparing for festivals is that, along with a selection of high quality items that showcase your skills and talents, you also want to have a good selection of smaller, more affordable items that customers can just pick up and walk away with. Nobody wants to lug around a big, heavy art piece no matter how much they love it. And if all you have to offer are very expensive items, it might be hard to sell anything since most people don't have hundreds of dollars just burning a hole in their pocket.

For this reason, I tried to have a variety. I brought a few of my pricier items, such as my monkeys, as well as my larger items like the Hubcap Turtle and Alligator, and shovel animals.

But then I had a bunch of smaller items that people could choose from that could be picked up and easily carried off. Since it's summer, most people are decorating their yards, so I had a variety of small bugs on sticks (dragonflies, butterflies, and bees), a couple large butterflies and dragonflies on sticks, and one flower. I had intended to make a half dozen flowers... but I was feeling kinda burned out on flowers considering how many I've been making the first half of this year. So I didn't make any... well, I made one token flower, but that was about it.

I also made up an assortment of cute, fun, horseshoe critters!

With my new and updated Barn Owl design, I threw together a few of those to see how they'd perform. I crafted a half dozen Wise Luck owls and painted them a variety of colors. Then I threw together another half dozen horseshoe creations known as Rawr! Monsters.

I am seriously loving these little guys. Not only are they perfect for all those old horseshoes with nails in them (which I don't have to cut out), but they offer a huge variety of design options and are super cute in a gape-mouthed, scraggle-toothed monster kinda way. 

I must admit, I was pretty excited for this event. I had a bunch of brand new designs. I'd updated a ton of my old designs. I had a good haul. And I was expecting to do really well. Unfortunately... expectations don't really translate into reality. The 4th of July Street Festival was a lot of fun. I was able to meet and talk with a ton of people. Made some awesome connections that have proven to be very helpful and informative, not only in finding materials, but also in learning about other sales avenues to explore. Sadly, I didn't do as well in sales as I had expected... none of the little things that I had made, like my bugs, sold, which really surprised me. Nobody seemed to take notice of my Barn Owls. The Wise Luck's did pretty well, so I definitely think I'll have to go with more of those. All in all, I did about as well this year as I did last year. Which was surprising and a little disappointing, seeing as my work this year was about a million times better. 

That is, of course, part of the learning experience. It's hard to figure out what people will like and not like. 

The plus side to this was that, since I didn't sell a lot, I still had a lot left over to take to the Sugarhouse Farmers Market that following Friday! 

This was my first year attending that market. I wanted to try it out, see if it was a venue that my work would do well in. And this time I had some flowers! I'm still loathing the thought of using up good materials on those things.... but I threw together a handful of them so I'd have them available. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect of this market. Well... other then expecting it to be larger then it actually was... but what I certainly wasn't expecting was for the weather to roll in and muck things up!

For those of you who're not native to Utah, or who weren't here this summer (2011), it has been extremely hot and dry. We've had next to no rain for 3 or 4 months now, and the whole state has dried up and turned into wild fire kindling. So of course, the one day when I'm going to be outside attending an event as a vendor... a big storm system has to roll in. And boy, did that storm blow! Literally! 

Everything was fine... doing just fine... weather was cooling off... figured I could stand a bit of sprinkling if it came to that. And then.... WHOOOOOOSH!!!! OK, NOT FINE! THINGS ARE NOT FINE!! OMG!!!

That's literally how it went. Everyone was just chillin, there was only a slight breeze, then OMG!!! everyone's canopies attempted a mass stampede across the parking lot. My booth was hit pretty bad by this. Knocked over a bunch of my stuff on the tables, knocked my Iron Phoenix onto the ground, blew a stack of my business cards away to god knows where. Had to enlist the aid of a couple people to hold my canopy in place until I could drag the cloth off the top.

Yea... market shut down pretty fast at that point. It was up and running for only about 2hrs before everyone had to bail, as opposed to the 4 or 5 that it was originally intended for.

That was a disappointment, especially because I had at least one person there who really wanted to check out my artwork and didn't have a chance to. But despite the abrupt end to the day, the market turned out good in other ways.

I was able to meet up with a client so I could deliver her completed commissions to her. I've been working on these off and on for the last couple months. I've had to redesign them a few times, and put them on hold so that I could complete other project which were on deadlines. But finally I had everything done and ready to go, so that was great getting that settled so I could turn my attention to other things.

I also met up with a nice lady that I met at the 4th of July Festival who brought me a whole ton of shovels! We had talked about my art and what I was doing on the 4th, and I had mentioned how difficult it was finding old shovels, and that's when she swept in to the rescue! Apparently she goes to a lot of estate sales and finds tools all the time. So we worked out a deal and it looks like she'll be sending more tools my way! That was really awesome and unexpected, so a big thank you to her!

So, that was my fun and exciting time these last couple of weeks. Now that I've had a little down time to relax and work on some personal things, it's time to get back to the shop and crank out more products for Summerfest. There's just 2 1/2 weeks left until my first official art festival!

I really hope I'm ready for this!