Giveaway Days!

If you are on social media, follow along with me this week and win some handmade goodies!

I'm @adriprints on Instagram and you can also find my work on Facebook.

My first online class!

About My First Class on Skillshare

My first class is about learning to use Adobe InDesign (which already comes bundled with many Adobe CC accounts) to make beautiful, clean, perfectly aligned contact sheets that are easily edited, updated, and exported to help you sell your work.

I created this course to help de-mystify InDesign. A lot of creatives, artists, and photographers pay for Adobe CC, but are not sure how to take advantage of all the software it brings. So, this is my effort in making Adobe's publishing software work for you. InDesign is a really robust piece of software and the perfect companion for Illustrator and Photoshop when you're looking to put it all together and publish your work.

I created this course to help de-mystify InDesign.

I've used InDesign to produce all kinds of promotional and informational materials throughout the years: business cards, mailers, postcards, booklets, portfolios, and contact sheets.

I focused on contact sheets as a way to explore InDesign and learn concepts that will easily translate to a lot of other projects. If you'd like to learn more, you can check out the class here on Skillshare.

I'd love to hear what you think!! And, if you've never used Skillshare before, here's a link for a  free 2 month trial of their premium membership - the link's limited to the first 10 who use it though, but take advantage while you can!

Advent Calendar Fun!

This is our third Finch & Foxglove collective advent calendar! I wanted to share with you the first of my illustrations which is this friendly penguin. This year I've decided to paint them directly on canvas and then upload them digitally! Here's the first one (above).

Our group calendar can be viewed here on our calendar page: http://www.finchandfoxglove.com/advent-calendar-2017/

Or alternately the beautiful images from my colleagues and I can be seen on our collective's Instagram account here:
https://www.instagram.com/finchandfoxglove/

Gingerbread here, there, and everywhere!

Ahhh!
The holiday baking has taken over!


It's the most delicious time of the year again. It's mid-November, my house smells like gingerbread, pumpkin pie, and... curry chicken. Yes, we love our spices in this house. There are winter-themed paintings on my desk, scraps of red and green fabric all over the place, snowflake stamps, and the oven is working overtime.

I wanted to check in before the holiday madness completely takes over and I forget to blog about the latest happening in the studio...

Sewing, Crafts, & Family World

My son is obsessed with gingerbread stories... so much so that he wanted to be 'Gingerbread Baby' for Storybook Dress-up Day at his school. So, I made him a gingerbread man costume!

I've been painting ornaments and testing designs, but don't know how many I can complete by December so I can sell them. I also have greeting cards coming in the mail any day now.

Art & Design World

My web shop is finally open!

My paintings are on exhibit at the local library!

Announcements

My gingerbread dudes are in a Spoonflower competition. Vote for it HERE if you like the pattern. You've got until November 28th to vote.

And, this will be the last full post on this blog here on the blogger site. So if you'd like to continue to follow my blog, it's on my website HERE.

Or if you use Bloglovin' to keep track of your blogs, you can add the new one here:

Follow

Thanks so much for reading! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

New gallery, New exhibit!

At the end of the summer, I secured a spot in a local co-op gallery, Carolyn Seiler & Friends in Cocoa Village.

So now some of my original paintings and giclee prints are available for sale, and you can come see my stuff in person if you're in the area! I also have an upcoming exhibition at the local library, the Merritt Island Library starting November 2nd! 

I'm very excited to show my latest paintings!

If you're further away, I now have an online shop so you can see my work and buy it if you would like a print! I'll post once it's open. It's OPEN!

In the meantime, if you'd like to buy my cards, I now have two retailers where you can always find them: 

• Blow! Birthday Cards (an online card shop that ships from the U.S.) 
• CardIsle (various kiosk locations around the U.S.)

And lastly, I'll be moving my blog to my website at www.adriprints.com/blog!
Have a great week and Happy Halloween!

We moved, Irma came and went, we're okay!

I need to catch you all up! I want to get the blog back up and running, and things are finally settling down enough to get back to it...

My little family moved back to Florida in May. When I say 'back', I must say that Florida is my home state. It's where I was born and my family has resided for the last 50 years. So, when husband got an offer, we packed up, left California, put an offer on a house from the 60's and moved to an island between two rivers near Florida's Atlantic coast.

Lots happened this summer between tradeshows and new-home tasks and starting a new school...

And then Irma.

I was beyond terrified by the size of the storm. I hadn't lived in hurricane country in over a decade, it's a new-to-us house and we have big trees all around the house. I evacuated us as fast and left as early as possible just in case. My art is now at a nearby co-op gallery, and after I checked on the art gallery, we shuttered the house, packed up supplies and drove north. And drove. And drove. And drove. We made it to Georgia in pretty good time, and the next morning I drove some more and we made it to a friend's house where we watched from afar the storms progress.

Every day, we were glued to the noaa.gov site watching the very slow progress of the storm as it headed toward Miami (where much of my family resides). The predictions of the storm's path kept shifting from east coast to west coast of Florida, but it didn't matter. Hurricane Irma was so huge, if you were in Florida, you were gonna feel it. In fact, even in north Georgia we felt Irma's winds. Even that far away from the center of the storm, we were out of electricity for a few hours. Once we knew the storm had passed, we made our way back.

As we drove back to Florida, we saw a lot of fallen trees and blocked state roads. When we got back home, it was dark, but we could tell some of the traffic lights were out. Electricity had just come back online, and we were a boil-water notice for a while BUT, there was water coming out of the tap. I'm counting our lucky stars there was no significant damage to our house (just a small leak in the front entryway)!

I've included photos so you can see the nearby boardwalk after the storm. As of this writing, a few weeks after, boats that lost their moorings are still tipped over the former boardwalk edge. Piles and piles of foliage and debris are still on people's curbs, but they are receding each week.

Cocoa Village Park, 9/2017

Boats that lost their moorings, 9/2017

Insider Tips: Showing at Printsource

Hello Blog Readers,

Thanks for stopping by! We recently exhibited at Printsource NYC in January with my art collective, Finch & Foxglove, and I wanted to share with you my experience in case you're trying to figure out what tradeshow is best for your work.

- Why Printsource? -
Printsource NYC is known for having apparel industry buyers attend the show to purchase prints for upcoming collections. We have several artists in Finch & Foxglove who have great patterns for apparel, accessories, and home decor and we thought their work would be better served by exhibiting at Printsource (as an alternative to Surtex for example).

- What was it like to exhibit at Printsource? -
The show is 2 days. The venue is cozy and the atmosphere was relaxed, professional and friendly. I found it to be more comfortable than Surtex which can be visually/energetically overwhelming at times. The booths are smaller in general than at Surtex and the prices are more reasonable for the emerging artist.

- What to bring? And, how to sell your work on the show floor. -
Buyers that came to our booth ranged from small one-person shops to mega corporations. This meant we had to be ready for anything! Our exhibit consisted of hanging indoor vinyl banners, covered tables, and lots of prints both printed on paper and on fabric! We had promotional materials to give to potential clients and we had a way of collecting their information to follow up with them.

Selling on the show floor is thrilling! Be ready to take orders with a receipt book so clients have something to take with them as proof of the purchase. Many take the physical paper print with them along with their receipt of purchase. If you're selling digital prints, as most of us are, be ready to send files within 24 to 48 hours. This takes a leap of faith in many cases. We're taught not to give raw files until we're paid, but very few clients paid in cash on the show floor. The rest paid through invoices. Almost all clients wanted to buy the work outright (rather than do category licensing or category buyouts). Be ready with prices that you'll be happy with and don't show work you don't want to sell!

- Closing Thoughts -
Overall, I really enjoyed Printsource and will definitely exhibit there again. I found the level of clientele matched our work really well and we came away with lots of sales. Compared with Surtex,  which is more of a licensing tradeshow, income from licensing can be slow to trickle in and the initial expense is prohibitive for many emerging artists. Sales from Printsource were either immediately paid or paid within a month of the exhibit (we had just 1 exception to this due to the negotiation process).