The Mayor was in the building

Yesterday I finally had my official opening. After days of rain we had the most glorious sunny day. I was so pleased that quite a few people turned up. Inevitably at the last minute I got lots of texts and messages, to say people couldn't come , so I was a bit nervous the Mayor would arrive and it would be embarrassing with just a couple of people to welcome them. But as you can see from the photos then it was a nice crowd.

Mr Wellydog escorting them from their car to the studio. I had visions of them arriving in a big Limousine, but they drove themselves. Which was really nice as straight away they felt approachable.

There was several people taking snap shots and I am sure they will slowly appear on the Clevedon craft centre Website and Facebook page and on here and my facebook page, so keep an eye out for them.

The Mayor greeted a lot of people as he walked through and then he was introduced to me by my studio. Anna Williams, who is the daughter of our fantastic handbag maker Romy, presented the Mayoress with a small posy.

She then posed with the Mayor and Mayoress for some photos. They were very accommodating when it came to having their photo taken.

The Press photographer didn't come, luckily they gave me a days notice that he wouldn't be arriving, apparently the sporting events on a Saturday are more important. So we did get a couple of people with cameras and hopefully the paper will print one of them. The ones you see here were taken by my son and My daughters boyfriend.

The Mayor then kindly said a few words and officially opened my studio and cut the ribbon. The ribbon was fabulous and got lots of compliments as it had Wellydog written on it. Supplied by the ever helpful John at Printed on Ribbon

They were very kind to pose for some photos in front of my pictures and hopefully a shot like this is what we will send into the paper.

It turned out they were every interesting to talk to. The Mayor had a background in engineering and the mayoress obviously loved seeing the art work and loved coming to places like the Craft Centre. They chatted for quite a while and you can see us below chatting. The lady at the back is my new landlord Judy, who has been very helpful in the last few days and did a brilliant job tidying up around the Craft centre ready for the visit.

After the Mayor left my studio there was still quite a crowd left chatting and looking round, I had quite a few sales and I also had some bookings on courses, including one lady booking 10 afternoon drop in sessions and a couple who are complete beginners and want to learn to paint together.
Judy and Mr WD continued the tour with the Mayor. They didn't rush through but went into every studio and chatted to all the crafts people. The Mayoress took a card from every studio and seemed genuinely interested in coming back. They really seemed very down to earth and related very well to everyone. They also seemed like very nice people.

They finished their tour at Dot Teas with a chat and a cuppa and even posed behind the counter.

It was a great day and hopefully will be good for both my studio and the Craft Centre. The Mayor and mayoress will also probably return later in the year in an informal capacity to help us with our 40th Year Celebrations.

I would really love to thank everyone who turned up and everyone who sent me good wishes. But I especially want to say a huge thankyou to Mr WD who has been my greatest supporter and who made sure the whole day went well yesterday.

New studio, sneak preview

I am finally in. It has seemed a long time coming. Me and Mr Wd , moved the last bits over today, its still chaos and only one picture is hung as I just want to check the strength of the rail on my heaviest painting . I will start hanging the rest during the week and hopefully get everything into some kind of order so I can find everything.

Considering I have only been in my other studio since August I have accumulated an awful lot of things.

Sorry the photos aren't brilliant, the wonderful Mr Wd took them on his mobile phone, as forgot my camera again ...opps

2011 roundup

Wow what a year I have had.

Here are the highlights and some of the low points. I am including some links to blogs about some of these events

JANUARY

This time last year I was waiting for an operation and dreading going back to my job. I am painting ACEO's and doing very well on Folksy selling them. My work is getting bigger and I am loving painting again

Painting blog link

FEBRUARY

I had no idea what direction to go in, but this is the first time I was starting to think maybe I could become a full time artist. I love this quote as it actually turned out to be very true

"So what's the plan, well actually there isn't one. I have been an unsuccessful planner, so nows the time to change"

Link

MARCH

I had my operation and had to not lift for 6 weeks, so relieved I didn't have to go into work for 4 weeks of it. I was painting every day again and started to include bigger work into my folksy shop.

APRIL

My birthday month . I was obsessed with painting turtles (pictures here). It was Easter and the Royal Wedding long weekends and we ripped the kitchen out and put in a new one ( Well Mr Wd did , I was still not allowed to lift)

MAY

I made my first website, an older version of this

JUNE

I re-arranged my craft room to try and help with better working practices. For various reasons I was still off work and it had become obvious I wouldn't have a job for very much longer. So it was important to have a place to paint that was more comfortable.

Link

JULY

We decided that I would try and step up my painting and perhaps get a bit of teaching until I could get a part-time job that would allow me to continue painting and find a way to make it pay.

I still couldn't settle in my craft room and on a particularly difficult day I decided to try and get inspired so took a drive out to our local craft centre. I a moment of madness I enquired about the cost of the empty studios they had..

OMG OMG

AUGUST

1st August I opened my studio at Clevedon Craft Centre and couldn't believe my luck

My blog now started to get dominated by the studio and a whole thread is started here

We also celebrated 30 wonderful years of marriage

SEPTEMBER

I became obsessed with painting water. Experimented with painting with wax and started preparing for Christmas

OCTOBER

Our beautiful Welly dog had a stoke and died this over shadowed everything, he had been with us 16years and I am still totally lost without him xxx

NOVEMBER

The studio was very quiet and I started looking into moving into a larger studio.

(link)

DECEMBER

Preparations for the big move and a lovely Christmas and looking forward to 2012

Wow you can see just how much my life changed in 2011 it will certainly be a year to remember

Busy, busy, busy

I just thought I would pop by to update about how the new studio is going. There are no photos as its all very top secret.....haha if only it was that important, I just forgot my camera!

Officially I don't move in until the 1st, so have been very lucky to get in early to do some work, but also the landlord has been in doing a couple of jobs to make it ready for me. The hot water boiler has been playing up so he is getting a plumber in to sort it, also he has taken out the large cabinet as I didn't want it. He has boxed in the wires on the back wall and has put some lights outside in the garden area.

The amazing Mr WD has put up my hanging rails and we hung a picture up. I picked the heaviest painting so if its still up in the morning we know its all ok. I bought my tables and they got assembled ok so thats brilliant. I painted my bookcase and started to move things over from my little studio. I think then Mr WD will come with me Monday to move everything else across on as I don't know if the new person will be moving in immediately.

With just a week to go, I am worried about the mayors visit. I am not worried about the organisation, as all plans are in place, but I am having nightmares that there will only be a couple of people there. I think it will be embarrassing as it just to soon after Christmas and people have lots of plans other than coming out to a cold craft centre ( possibly in the rain) and enthusiasm is very low. Anyway there is nothing I can do nothing about it now, I have invited loads of people and the press and so its just fingers crossed now :-(

So thats where we are, I will try and get some photos as it starts to come to together

Licensing my work

Some of you may already know this as I have been chatting a bit on the Folksy forum about it, but for those of you that don't then I have some news.

Earlier in the year I was approached by an American company who asked if I would be interested in licensing some of my work to them. They make Metal wall hangings that the sell through many major stores including Amazon.

Well after quite a bit of chatting about the agreement I have finally signed and am about to start sending work though, I have no idea how long before I see them in the shops but I suspect it will be quite a few months. Basically I will get a small percentage of the wholesale price of any item that has my work on it. Fingers crossed they come out well, and will go into mass production.

I would like to thank Dave from Gelert Design for sending me a link about licensing artwork, which proved invaluable. Check out his amazing shops

http://www.folksy.com/shops/GelertDesign

http://www.etsy.com/shop/GelertDesign

Check them the company I have licensed with

http://www.allmywalls.com

Thankyou and Happy Christmas

I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas.

You have all be great this year, without your support and encouragement I would not have achieved so much. I have had a brilliant year and so thank you to everyone who has bought from me, commented and given me advice.

Next time you hear from me I should be in my New Studio, so see you there and lets all hope for great 2012 let it be happy and prosperous for you all

Janice xx

Studio - Logo painting

Thankyou to everyone for your suggestions on how to make my logo larger to fit the wall, I had lots of advice and basically it boiled down to two choices, use an overhead projector or grid up the wall, to try and transfer it.

Both failed, not because they weren't excellent suggestions. Firstly no overhead projector, I did try and find one but nobody seems to use them much any more, 'thats what power point is for' apparently...

Anyway I decided to go for the grid suggestion and so I draw a grid over a printed copy of my logo. I then put the grid on the wall, but the logo was to small, and I couldn't see it well enough to transfer it onto the larger grid, I just couldn't get the right shapes. Doh!!!!! if you are doing this make sure you do a large print.

So rather than be patient ( not my strong point) and waiting until I could print a bigger version. I just rubbed out the grid, measured out the lines for the height of letters and drew it by hand. It took a bit of adjusting, especially matching the two wellies. Also the last letter I drew in was the 'w' which proved to be the hardest, when I had expected it to be easy. Painting it in was easy enough, just a big of neck strain that I will probably notice more in the morning.

So here you go, I will have to go round it one more time in white, to finishing covering some of lines that still show a bit, but otherwise I am quite pleased. What to you think?