Sunday Thoughts (Ep. 49) (Patreon)

Hello Patrons and friends, happy Sunday! How's it going? Have you had a nice weekend? We're back with the first Sunday Thoughts in quite a while, are you excited? 

First of all, I wanted to give a big welcome to my newest patron, LAUREN COOK! Hello, welcome, and thank you so much for your support! I'm so happy you're here, and I'm sure the other patrons are as well! Feel free to say hello in the comments, or let us know if we can help you out with anything. And enjoy the Patreon!

So everyone, I'm writing to you today with a calming Kings of Convenience album playing, incense burning, chamomile and lavender tea brewing, and wearing a soft sweater that used to be my sister's. Can you guess how I'm feeling? If you guessed anxious and a little overwhelmed but trying to soothe the feeling so I can get some things done, you guessed right! 

Next weekend I have a big market that I'll be tabling at, and my (manageable) to-do list is having me a little (unnecessarily) intimidated and worried. But before I get in to that, I wanted to share with you a few things I've worked on the past few weeks!

Portraits! I opened up digital portraits at the end of the month to help pay for some of this month's expenses. I've been having a nice time working with some very sweet clients on portraits of themselves, their puppies, and their friends. The portrait above is the sketch phase of one of those digital portraits.

Tissue Design! I was approached by Noissue, a sustainability-focused custom tissue paper printing service, with an offer to order a set of custom paper for Ragonia! I'm so excited at the opportunity to try this service and see where I can use paper in my packaging instead of plastic (you all know I hate plastic.) When I needed a little break I started sketching my paper design. What do you think so far?

Snapchat! My stickers were finally featured on Snapchat for the past three days! It was fun hearing from people who use the app, what they thought of the stickers! My boyfriend's brother messaged him and said 'woah, is this Ragon's art?" Hell yeah! The above work of art is Zach trying to fit all of my stickers on to his picture.

Stickers! Speaking of stickers, I ordered three more sets of vinyl stickers in the last few weeks! The gardening witch sticker sold well enough that I felt comfortable ordering a few more sets of 100, especially with the summer markets coming up.

To be honest I was a little disappointed in the stickers, especially this one. The yellow outline ended up being a lot larger than I wanted. Which is on me, I should have requested a tighter outline. I'm not sure if it would bother customers but I thought it really detracted from the main focus of the sticker.

So I decided to use my down time to cut these stickers with a closer outline. One by one, by hand. Does this make me a perfectionist? Or would a perfectionist prefer a too-large machine cut over an imperfect hand cut? Who knows, I'm doin' it.

Urban Craft Uprising Prep!

Next Saturday and Sunday (the 22nd-23rd) I have my first big market of the year, (and biggest market of my career, eep), Urban Craft Uprising. It's slightly less than two weeks away, and I'm at the phase of feeling like I'm not going to have anything done, like I'm either going to have nowhere near enough or way too much product, and like my table is going to look so unprofessional that the Art Police are going to arrive and take away my Actual Artist badge. 

Psshh. Obviously none of these things are going to be true, it's going to be great... Or at the very least fine.  But these are the thoughts my helpful brain supplies me with!

Anyway, both to help calm myself down and to give some insight for people interested in participated in similar markets, I thought I'd share my to-do list with you all!

The Done List:

• Order new vinyl stickers (from diecutstickers.com)
• Order new earring hooks (from Woodsmith on Etsy)
• Order display shelves (from cleardisplays.com)
• Order compostable bags (from clearbags.com)
• Order kitchen towels for new block printing
• Request and compare art print estimates (From Girlie Press, Seattle Printworks, Bellevue Fine Art Printing , and The Color Group.)

The Still-To-Do List:

• (Mon. 6/10) Order bulk prints of best sellers
• (Mon. 6/10) Order new business cards (from moo.com)
• (Mon. 6/10) Design/order display banner (from vistaprint)
• (Wed. 6/12) Sculpt new pins and earrings
• (Thur. 6/13) Paint/finish new pins and earrings
• (Fri. 6/14) Print/cut smaller batch prints
• (Mon. 6/17) Block print new kitchen towels
• (Mon. 6/17) Block print more prints
• (Tue. 6/18) Print/cut smaller batch stickers
• (Tue. 6/18) Package sticker packs
• (Wed. 6/19) Package multi-packs
• (Wed. 6/19) Make price labels and signs
• (Wed. 6/19) Print/assemble pin/earring backs
• (Thur. 6/20) Practice set up
• (Thur. 6/20) Set up point of sale (through square app)
• (Thur. 6/20) Pack up/organize stock

The Decided-Not-To-Do (but used to be on the) List

• Make all-new art
• Make greeting cards
• Make a backdrop using PVC pipes 
• Make a big batch of new block-print shirts

There it is, my plan of action to get ready for Urban Craft Uprising! Having it all written out really helps with getting ready for a big event like this. Because then I can see what I need to prioritize, and what I really don't even need to do. Doing things like ordering supplies and emailing vendors also doesn't really feel like an accomplishment, especially when the things haven't even arrived yet, but it's something that needs to be done ahead of time.

As usual, I feel much better having written all my thoughts and plans out, much more centered and prepared. Writing it out also helps me notice a lot of similar thoughts I was feeling before my very first art walk last year, and before my first convention. I worried worried worried all the way up to the event, and then had an amazing time that filled me with life and joy. I hope this event will be the same. I hope to learn to enjoy the ride.

Thank you to all of you for being here for me in the exciting and stressful times, for being like both a diary that talks back and a group of friends that will listen to my all thoughts and arty business activities. I hope in return you find some nugget of knowledge or feeling of solace, because you all truly give me so much.

It's gonna be fine, it's gonna get done, and you're the best.

xoxo

Ragon