Major changes at Zazzle

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, I've been very busy working on my three Zazzle stores.

My main store Wildmacnz which houses my clothing, household goods, greeting cards and poster designs etc. 

My business store Wildmacnzbusiness which is where I house all my business card, flexi magnets and other business related designs.

And lastly my Electronics store Wildmacnzelectronics which houses all my phone, laptop and tablet case designs.

I hadn't looked at any of these stores in nearly three years. With all the stuff going on in my personal life with my husband being laid off and then us moving house and town, I just ignored them and as is usually the way, life kept happening and things changed without me realizing. One of the major changes being that Zazzle had hidden a lot of my designs that hadn't sold, so they are no longer visible to the public. I never noticed anything as my sales were getting better over time so I just thought everything was as I left it. 

What a big surprise! But actually it was a good surprise. It took some of the pressure off me. How you ask?

Well, for a long while before my personal life took a sudden left turn, I was creating designs and then putting them on as many products as I could, that suited the design. I never used quick create, I didn't like the idea of my designs going on everything at once especially when not every image is suitable for every product. When new products were released I put all the existing images on the new products if they suited, however this didn't leave me much time for creating new designs. Just keeping up with the old ones was becoming a full time job! I started to slip further and further behind. It felt like I was trying to run up a downwards traveling escalator that was speeding up.  In short I put too much pressure on myself to create a large store, thinking that this was what I needed to do to get seen in the marketplace and get sales. I was wrong. My sales picked up even though a lot of my products were no longer visible for sale in the marketplace. I was focusing on the wrong things.

This reshuffle from Zazzle eased the pressure off me to create more and more and made me look at fine tuning what I already have. It allowed me to take a step back and really think about:

1. What I really wanted to sell in my stores. 
2. What I wanted my stores to look and feel like to a customer
3. What I enjoyed creating. I hate making some products so why am I making them?
4. Why have some of my products not sold? Wrong design for the product? Have I aimed at the wrong audience for a certain design? Is the design just old and outdated now, especially designs with the date on them?
5. Keywording and descriptions. Are they letting me down?
6. What have I sold? This was an eye opener. Some of the designs that hadn't sold were on on products I hated making. Could this be related? 
7. Do I really need three stores or should I condense down into just one or two?

These are all questions I've been slowly working through for the last few weeks as I delete crap/outdated designs and products I hate making, that haven't sold anyway, and rework my keywords and descriptions on designs I want to keep. It's a painstaking process, but one I'm very happy to do. I can see light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a lightweight streamlined store filled only with designs and products that I'm happy to make and are more likely to sell well.

This is my most popular tie. My watercolor painted scooter design on a yellow background. This scooter is also available on other colored backgrounds. My scooter sells well on multiple products so it makes the cut and will stay in my newly designed store.

The top picture is of a new wrapping paper design I created last week. Now I have time to create new designs which is the part I really enjoy doing. 

I love another new feature that Zazzle introduced whilst I wasn't looking, 

Collections. (see pic above)

Collections are a great way to showcase groups of products either by theme, product or by grouping useful things together, such as, matching birthday cards, gift wrap and envelopes for example, or matching designed cups and plates. I've only just started using this feature but I can see loads of possibilities with it.

All in all, although Zazzle has created lots of new work for me, I welcome the changes as a new beginning for my stores. As I try to simplify other areas of my life, be it creative or home life, it makes perfect sense for me to simplify my stores too. 

I hope you may find this post useful if you have a Zazzle store that you haven't looked at in a while. You may be surprised with the changes. It can be a shock, but I think it's good to take a step back from time to time and reassess what it is you really want to accomplish. Sometimes it's hard to see the wood for the trees.

Have a great week :) 

Simplifying my blog

Less is more ~ Robert Browning

I've decided to try and streamline the look of my blog by removing the 'about me' and 'favorite blogs' tabs and creating a blog post with that information instead. This information will be easily accessible through small links at the side of my blog page. 

I feel this will make my blog easier to navigate for you and allow me to add and remove favorite bloggers easier while being able to write a little bit about why I like this particular blog or blogger, which I'm currently unable to do. Simplifying the look is a good reason too.

This may take me a little while so I apologize in advance for any disruption this may cause.

Good Intentions

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

Have you ever noticed that when you are sure about something and make a statement about it, for example "Hopefully this will be the start of weekly posting from now on" that life has a way of making a liar out of you? It did for me lol. My last blog post was in July. I got as far as painting the boys birthday cards that I had drawn and then went down with a nasty case of flu. I spent a miserable week moping around the house and then another two weeks stuffed up with a head cold before it hit me with it's final blow and gave me a sinus infection. It's been a really nasty flu this year, everyone that I know that's had it, has had it for weeks with it morphing into various forms before they have finally gotten rid of it. Autumn and winter are usually my favorite seasons but this year I welcomed spring very gladly. Anyway, I'm back again and I'm going to post on here anytime I feel like it :D That should fix the life making a liar out of me problem lol.

The image above was painted today in my new Stillman and Birn Zeta sketchbook. I've never tried one of their books before but I love this one! I ordered it months ago and had to wait because the Zeta wasn't available here in New Zealand yet. It was well worth the wait. I love the smoothness of the paper for my pen work and the pen didn't bleed on the paper when I wrote, like it has in some other books. The paper didn't warp or buckle at all no matter how wet it got from the paints either. I think I have a new favorite journal. However, they don't make this journal in the 4" x 6" size that I prefer for my go everywhere pocket book so I think that when my small journal is finished I'll try the Stillman and Birn Alpha series out. I can't wait!

Speaking of my small journal, I've been working in it a lot while I've been sick but at the moment there's more writing than images in it. I had a couple of break through moments in this journal during my illness though. The image below was one of them. 

I realized that I wasn't anymore productive in my new large work space than I was before I got it. In fact I was probably less so. My huge desk seemed to be a clutter magnet and I had taken over way too much of the lounge. I also found that it made my art space very business like and I really needed it to be more fun and inspiring. Great for business type things but not so good for getting my mind into the creative play zone I need to draw and paint. I did learn that I prefer an "L-shaped" work space so I traded my large desk for a couple of smaller ones. Luckily I'd bought cheap 2nd hand so I didn't lose out on the deal. I've also worked out what work zones I need and what works for me. 

Work zone 1

My main work area. This is a 4' by 2' (1.2m x .6m) desk no higher than 29" (.73m) high so that I can use my angled work surface on the top for my watercolor paintings on flat sheets of paper. I work flat on the table top in my journals. For larger acrylic paintings I can use a table easel on the top. I have this situated at right angles to a window so that I have good light. I also have my paints and brushes etc on a shelf near by in work zone 3.

Work zone 2

My computer area. This forms the other half of my "L-shaped" work space. I pay the bills here, blog, photoshop, scan paintings etc from this desk. I have a shelf underneath to file things straight away, this helps to keep the clutter from this area from overflowing into my art space but ensures that I can find anything at a moments notice. This area also houses my scanner and graphics tablet on a wheeled trolley that My husband built for me. The desk is against the wall to cut down screen glare. The only thing here that doesn't really work for me is my chair, I really need to replace it. 

Work zone 3

My storage/thinking/relaxing zone. This area has a large cubby type bookcase where I store all my paints, brushes, art books, camera gear, spare canvases, craft supplies and finished works and journals. This is situated just a scoot on my wheeled office chair away from my other work spaces. Because I work in a space between the dining/kitchen and lounge rooms I have easy access to hot drinks or cold and a comfortable seating area to sit in while I sketch out plans or read through my art books. It's my storage/work and relaxation space. If I really want to chill out I can watch my tropical fish from this area.

That's my three work zones and they seem to be functioning a lot better now and I have the added bonus of more lounge space when family and friends come over.

Hope you all have a great week :)

How do you work?

"The reason that art (writing, engaging, and all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can't tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there'd be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map." - Seth Godin

Today I thought I would blog about how I get a sketch ready to paint. I'm always curious about other artist's workflows and I would love to hear how you work too. Feel free to leave a comment here.

I have two ways of working when I sketch.

If the sketch itself is the focus I tend to focus on the detail. I draw out my rough sketch first and then refine the shapes and add the details as I go. Shading and crosshatching to bring out the form. All the drawing is my own work with no shortcuts.

However;

            

If the painting is my main focus I only draw in an outline of the basic subject and paint in the detail as I go. If it is a landscape I may even just start straight into the painting and just roughly guess the scale as I paint. But if the painting is of something detailed that really needs to be in proportion I might even go as far as to trace an outline of the subject from my photograph just to get it done quicker because the sketch itself was never the focus of the work. (I'm even more likely to do this if I've already painted a small scale version and just want to quickly start on the full size piece. It's sheer laziness really but I drew it once already so why do I have to start from scratch again? I learned to work this way at school.)

I know this may sound like cheating and I guess it is in a way, but I know plenty of other painters that work this way. Some absolutely hate to draw or can't draw and the painting is the art for them. Some even project their image outline onto their canvas using projectors, or print it out and trace an outline onto the canvas that way instead. I can understand people working on huge over-sized pieces working with a projection, you'd spend a lot of time running backwards and forwards checking your scale and proportions otherwise. 

Below is an example of an outline that I would use to paint from. It's darker than I would usually draw it so that it would show up here. Just before I painted it I erased the pencil down to just a light marking, how I would usually have it marked out. The image above is of the finished bird.

As you can see it's just an outline of the bird's shape. A lot tidier than it would usually look because I darkened up the outline and you can't really see the other rough wobbly lines. I work on all the birds the same way regardless of colorings or markings on them. The details I just paint in as I go.

Something else I do is, when I'm working with watercolor paint I mix up all the colors I want to work with before I start to paint. When I'm working with acrylics I mix as I go.

So, how do you work when you're setting up a painting? Do you have any tips or shortcuts you would like to share here? I look forward to hearing from you.

Have a great week :)