Market Weekend

Well i have just come back from a lovely weekend in the country with the in-laws we had fabulous gourmet food, and a busy time but it was good to get away.

For the market I managed eventually to get all the things done, but i was going all day friday and then up early on saturday, i was a busy girl.

All in all it went well, the weather wasn't great and was raining at one point, so from that perspective it could have been better as many people were staying indoors.

As for sales, I didn't actually sell any artworks but that is ok because i hadn't expected to, being a country market i understand the prices i was asking isnt usual for people to pay for at a market (and i wasn't going to undersell myself especially after all the work and cost i put in for framing and materials etc) I did however, sell over half of my greeting card stock which covered the cost of the stall and a little bit extra (though i bought a bottle of olive oil from a nearby market so really i didn't come out with any extra money LOL ) plus i don't make much money of each card they are quite costly to print.

What i did get out of it was feedback and responses on my artwork which is fantastic, the greeting cards i sold the most of was my horse's eye. Everyone was drawn to that, i also sold some of the kookaburra and the yellow rose and pear. So i am glad i chose the horses eye as the artwork i entered for the Scone Art Prize which starts this week.
So, the greeting cards were a big success and i think i will print more of those for next time, this time i will add some of my other horse artworks for the Scone market as its horse town up there :) I had a few people scoff and walk away when they found it was coloured pencils which wasnt surprising.
I had many people think that the artworks were prints and not originals and they also thought that the horses eye was a photo and then proceeded to buy a card when they discovered it was artwork. Lots of people took information about the artist :) and there is also a possibility of putting some artworks up in the information center up there. Next time i need a bigger sign stating that they are original works rather than prints.

As for getting my headspace in creating artworks to sell and become "professional" the whole experience was invaluable definitely has changed my thought process as well as an understanding how much work is involved in just getting organised for something like that in terms of marketing material, framing matting etc etc.
I feel the whole day was a huge success and got my artwork out in front of the people !!! which is the main thing.

Big thanks for hubby for looking after the kids and supporting me throughout the whole thing as well as my mum for helping out in preparation leading up to the day. the inlaws also deserve a big thanks for having us, pushing me in the right direction and a special thanks to "Granddad" for making the stand to hang all my artworks off. :)

Would i do it again? yes i think so, need more artworks etc. more signage more cards etc. so i need to get cracking :)