What a year!  I'm sure we've all seen some big ups and downs, this past year.  I'm certainly in the same boat as you.  I saw the birth of my son, the completion of one of the biggest projects I've ever been involved in, the shutdown of daycares through the pandemic, while my wife and I still continued to work 8+ hours a day with a three year old at home 24/7 and no where to take her.  I also saw social media really start to take off for me, a big shift in my audience moving from international to local, a successful fundraiser that I decided to do raising over $1200 for the YYC foodbank, some virtual failures, selling my work for the first time on a consignment basis in physical shops, and my first Art Spot Under 100 show, which essentially replaces my usual Market Collective outing for this time of the year.  I'm going to try to do a series of reviews over the next few weeks that will focus on the professional advances I've had in the past year, starting with the really big one, my project with the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, AB .

Thanks for staying tuned!  I hope you enjoy the blog entries to come!

​Eric

Well, my Turk the Ramsay Turkey print fundraiser for the YYC Foodbank has officially kicked off!  We are doing great so far, having raised over $500!!!  My goal is to raise $1000, so please if you can, find it in your heart to buy one of these prints!

Here is a direct link to the print that you can purchase and all profits will be donated to the Calgary Foodbank!

Paper: $1.00 per print (each sheet is about $4.00 and can be cut down into 4 prints)
Rigid Mailers: $1.00 per print ($101 box of 100 12x15" rigid mailers)
Etsy Fees: $2.31
Shipping: $11.50 (standard parcel rate)

Total: $15.81

Print Cost: $47.35

Total donation per print: $31.54

16 prints have been purchased at a donation rate of $31.54 for a total of $504.64!!!

That's already amazing, but I think we can do way better!  Let's keep it going!

Alright, so 2 years are in the bag now since I decided to give this whole art thing a shot.  I've learned a lot in terms of time management, improving my craft, improving my engagement and social media, and learning about my audience.  I also know that I have a long way to go still, and I'm ok with that.  I want to start my review with Market Collective since I just finished my most recent one!

I'm cheating a bit here because I'm going to start this in December, 2018 which was my first artisan craft fair. If you've been following my story at all, it all started at a craft fair in Millarville, Alberta where I said, "I should be doing this". I gave myself 1 year to build a body of work, get all my start up in order, and apply for a market, and do it...and I did it! I've since done 3 art fairs, all with the group Market Collective in Calgary, AB. I'll provide links below. I'm not here to brag about numbers, or anything like that. In fact, I have no idea if my numbers are any good in relation to other artists in the same art fair. All I can compare is my current outing to my last two outings.

Full disclosure, if you are an artist interested in numbers and a more detailed break down, contact me directly and I will be more than happy to share my actual numbers. For the sake of this blog, I will be referring to my numbers in terms of algebra.

In my first market, if | made X amount of money, then I made approximately 2X at my second show in May. This time, I made 3X. I look at that growth as a great personal success, and I am really only competing against myself. I met a lot of great artists in the last year at Market Collective, and I wish them nothing but success. I am only interested in how I can improve my own practice.

The first go was mostly just to dip my toe in the pool. The second time, I had a slightly better feel for what the Market would bring, and by the third market, I had established a good body of new work that I was really passionate about, and I think that passion shines through the work, thus people are really interested in it. The first market, I made fairly generic work about a subject matter I'm pretty passionate about. At my second market, I had more to offer and a few unique offerings as well, but by the third market, I had a body of work in a unique style that was true to me using a subject that is dear to my heart.

I am of course talking about relief printing, linocut. It's pretty much the perfect fit for my work and style. It also offers a really unique middle ground between original art and art prints. It's sort of like an original for the people. It might be a print, but each print is unique. Each print has the artist hand involved. Each print is it's own, and each print is...affordable. Accessible art for the masses is a really cool thing in my mind, and printmaking sort of exists in the sweet spot of a venn diagram. It checks all the boxes, and that means someone can have an original piece of art in her home without the huge price tag. It feels a little more honest to me than selling digital prints. Now don't get me wrong, I am not knocking digital prints, and still fully intend to sell them, but the audience interested in the digital print usually has a different agenda than the viewer looking at the handmade prints. Both have valid interests and desires, and I'm interested in connecting with both those viewers. I'm only trying to find all my audiences.

There are three audiences I have been able to establish so far.

Audience A, the person purchasing a digital print. This person is not really interested in being an art collector. This person sees an image he likes and wants the image for the wall. There are a number of motives. This person loves the subject, the style, the colours, or the work matches a theme in his living room. As this audience is more casual, she isn't interested in paying a large amount for work, and will simply move on to the booth offering the best price in the ballpark of what she is looking for.

Audience B, the person purchasing a handmade print. This person is looking for something handmade or rustic, having a vintage or classic feel, and is maybe a little more interested in collecting art, but either can't afford to or maybe she is new to collecting. This person wants to invest in your work, and he is usually interested in following it has he feels he has made a small beginning investment into the world of collecting. Both Audience A & B do cross over as well. I have people who follow my work from both columns.

Audience C, the person interested in purchasing original artwork, and is often only interested in your originals. This is the market I have yet to crack at Market Collective. In fact, to date, I have not sold a single original. To be fair, it may also not be me, it may just be the market. I don't see anyone really trying to sell originals. I do have them on display as often people are interested in browsing, and at times I have been very, very, very close to selling an original but then the person backs down at the last second. Because this person is usually only interested in originals, it's often an all or nothing proposition, so you don't just lose the sale of the original, they won't even entertain the notion of buying the far more affordable print. I suppose I could try to push the focus of originals, but that's a big gamble, as the buy in for a weekend is about $600 when you just look at booth price, taxes and parking.

If anyone has cracked this market in the same setting that I'm selling in (an artisan market, not a specific art fair), please, I would love to hear from you. Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated! My fear is that I would have to get all the work framed, and I know how costly that would be.

What did I do wrong?

Now, I will say this, I was projecting that I would do even better than I did, but I also started an illustration contract (that I am not at liberty to discuss yet) which definitely shifted my focus away from Market Collective. Some of my failures this year, I tried a new wall display system that epically failed! It fell down so often, it was just a mess by day 3. It worked great in my garage where no one came near it or touched it for a month. Live and learn. I transport everything in a pretty small car, and I don't want my setup to become too crazy. I want to find a wall solution that is simple to transport and looks nice.

Secondly, I did too much salon style hanging. Next time I have a stab at this I will look at hanging maybe 3 or 4 pieces that pull people in and keep the small stuff on the table for people to look through. You will always have pinnacle pieces that people love. For me, I can think of about 3 or 4. One of my all time favourited pieces is my Great Horned Owl Watercolour. I say favourited, because it is not one of my favourites (the curse of being an artist in any genre), but people love it, so I drag it out like a hit single during the encore. In fact, I received a compliment on it this weekend from a friend and when I didn't say anything she assumed I was being crass and said "but you already know that". Honestly, it isn't me being crass, I just don't like talking about the piece because it isn't one of my own personal favourites. If I took 2 comparable pieces done around the same time, I'd much rather showcase my Osprey nest over the owl.

A few more minor issues with my booth, maybe a bit too much clutter on my table, and I posted work on flip through stands in front of my table that were often totally missed.  In the future, I'd like shelves that could elevate the work.

What did I do right?

For everything I am still doing wrong, I hope there are still things I am doing right!  Firstly, this speaks to the audiences, I feel I have tapped into more audiences than before.  But how do you get an audience that has very little understanding or appreciation of traditional printmaking mediums to not only understand the process but also buy into it?  Video of course!  I compiled a short 12 minute video of some of my better process videos from instagram, and ran them on a loop on my tablet.  This was so great.  Watching people's eye's light up when they had that epiphany was just magical, and then, when their eyes dart over to the block of the rhino lino in front of them, and the carving tools, then they see the print on the stand next to the block.  Even though some people still asked, "do you have that print in a bigger size", they definitely realized the error of the mistake when I pointed out that the block size can't be manipulated to make bigger prints.  But hey, if anything, this just exposes to me that I need bigger 3 sister prints :D

I had a lot of variety.  People like to have the power to choose.  I'm not just talking subjects, I'm talking papers and inks.  Ink colours will definitely be something more on my mind for the next time.  I think when I start to have the time to move into reduction lino, that could change things for me as well, and bridge the gap and remove the need for colour digital prints and I can just focus 100% on handmade prints while also appealing to the broader digital print buyer.  But that is off in the future!

The other thing I do right is make live art.  It really is a great way to engage your audience.  I would like to see anyone challenge this point.  People love seeing the process of actual art being made.  It gives your audience a better sense of connection to the work.  I know this because I am that audience.  I love watching other artists work as well!  I love watching people execute any skill that I don't have, I even love watching artists in my same genre because we all have differences and similarities in how we work.  Process videos truly are a thing of beauty.  Now, watching it live, well now that's an experience.  It's the difference between owning a CD and seeing the band play, and who doesn't want a live rip of a show they were at?

The last thing I want to talk about is making network connections with people.  I think this is so important, it really establishes a sense of community and belonging, and you get leads and tips on things that you wouldn't otherwise get.

The other, other market

There is one last thing I'd like to touch base on for any artists reading this and that is to establish and understanding that a Spring market may be different than a Christmas market.  The thing I didn't exactly clue into until halfway through Saturday is that a lot of people at Christmas fairs aren't there shopping for themselves.  They are shopping for other people, and you will sell A LOT of work that's for "my mom, she loves blue jays".  I think it's important to know that going in, because the dynamic from a Spring show to a Xmas show is so different.  Spring shows are mostly people buying for themselves, and I think it's easier to sell art to someone buying for themselves.  Buying art for someone else is hard to do.  I know I did better than I did in the Spring market, but I also had way cooler content I was offering.  Had this been a Spring show, I think I may have sold 4X or even 5X worth of art.  I had the content to do it, and I certainly had a lot of people pass up on work because they weren't there for themselves.  But don't underestimate the value of after sales online.  Last spring I had a woman pick up an additional 50, three sister lino prints, that she was using to fill boxes for her own side hustle.  The online after market is big, and that leads to my next point in the year in review!

Spring was a big time for me. I almost doubled my sales from Market Collective 1 to Market Collective 2. I knew that to really grow further, I needed to start developing an active following online. Since June, I have grown my Instagram from a mere 100, dwindling, barely engaged viewers to nearly 1700 followers as I right this today, in December. Now that's not the biggest growth ever by any means, but it's growing every day, and it means that if I produce quality content, post it to my shop, and post about it on social media, I WILL GET SALES DIRECTLY FROM INSTAGRAM. That's huge! Do you know when I posted from start to completion about my Wee Otter print, I sold about 14 prints. Many of those sales weren't just otters. Often they were otters and a Danger print, or 2 others. The point is, that by making a good product people wanted I basically increased my income for that month by about 15%. I Sold 2 of my 5 inktober drawings as well (I had to stop short due to a project). So online sales, while still very modest at this point have opened my eyes to just how professional this venture can truly become if I'm smart about it, and | create good content that people actually want.

My thoughts on Etsy

One of the most infuriating things about being an artist is that every method of trying to get your work out to the client involves someone trying to take a cut of your work. One of the biggest reasons many have flocked to online sales as well as other avenues isn't just due to the broader audience, but I'm not sure if you are familiar with the fine art gallery system, but it is an absolute mess! 50% commission fee would be considered on the low end of commissions in most gallery settings, and while I am not calling out every gallery, I have seen a lot of galleries that do nothing to really earn that commission. The galleries tend to drive up the price of art for the consumers just so that an artist can make a decent amount off her own work. This seems to be the trend in all artistic endeavours, but I think visual arts and music are really good examples.

That brings me to Etsy, they certainly aren't "commission" free. They take a little piece of the pie (even off my shipping fees) and then they pressure vendors into providing free shipping to American clients and to compensate for this, we are supposed to increase our prices to everyone (not just American clients). If you don't believe me, just view Etsy's policies on SEO prioritizing and free shipping to the USA.

https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000343368-How-to-Offer-Free-Shipping?segment=selling

Their direct suggestions have been to "increase prices on smaller items", which means, if you're a buyer in Canada or the UK, or wherever, Etsy suggests to small business owners that we charge you more for our products so that American clients can have free shipping. Does this seem fair to you? Many Etsy sellers were up in arms over this. Of course this was around the time I was just getting on board. The reason I am using etsy is that my webhost only allows me to feature 10 items on my shop unless I want to pay an additional $30 a month for an unrestricted shop (which I haven't researched much, but I BET YOU, they will still find a way to take a cut from my work even if I'm paying an additional $30 a month). And of course let's not forget VISA and Mastercard, they get their 4% cut as well.

So for now, Etsy makes sense, until I research my host a little further and see if they have additional fees tacked onto my sales, because at this point it may be worth it to switch as I am selling enough off of Etsy, that it should cover the cost so long as there are no additional processing fees (which there probably are). The downside to switching to a web based shop is that I don't get that sweet, sweet Etsy traffic...buuuuuuut since almost (if not) all of my traffic is driven to Etsy from my Facebook page and my Instagram, the Etsy SEO and traffic are kind of meaningless. I mean I get a lot of shop favourites from it but that's about it.

It can be tough starting all this stuff out on your own, but I want to be open and transparent with other artists as to what you can expect if you decide to try this for yourself.

Price increases and sales

I want to be open and honest about this. I have been flat out undervaluing my work for the last year. I've been doing it to get the work out there, to build my audience, grow my metrics and reviews and give some legitimacy to my practice. I will level with you, I often hear the comment "this should be way more than this" about my art. Well maybe, but I still want my work to be affordable. One of the things beyond aesthetic that I love about printmaking is that it makes handmade art accessible to people who don't have huge bank accounts. I love seeing new families at my shows purchasing some of their first new art as a family and getting really excited about the fact that it's basically an 'original'. So while my prices will increase, they will still be fairly reasonable. This will allow me to concentrate on making less, high quality prints with smaller print runs (so basically quality control). It will also help me sell multicolour prints at a reasonable price that will make it worth my time.

That said...I have a couple of prints that just never performed as well as I thought they would!!! Stay tuned in the new year for some sweet deals on these prints as I look to clear my inventory!

Plans for year 3

1. Going into my next year, my plan is to shift my focus away from digital prints and over to linocut. In order for this to be a successful venture, I'll need to think in terms of colour. I love linocut, it's how I think now in terms or artwork, but I'm also working strictly in black and white. Watercolour definitely fills the colour gap for my audience, so if I am going to shift my focus towards lino, I need to start diving into reduction and multicoloured lino blocks.

2. I want to continue to develop my watercolour and digital art skills. I realize this is contrary to what I just said above, but I do still want to work in ink and wash, and I want to look at the possibility of making a new portfolio that is geared specifically towards children's book illustrations.

3. I would like to continue to grow my social media with a focus on local. I really learned this year the importance of an audience that has an interest in quality content. I'd also like to develop stronger local relationships, both with interested buyers, as well as other local artists.

4. I want do more illustration work! I still have a day job! I am starting to make some real money here, but I am still what you would call pro-am.

Engagement

My next item is a question to you. Is there anything you would like to see more of in my work? Is there something you're not seeing that you would like to see? Like to see more tutorials? Like to see more process videos? Please feel free to leave any feedback!

So, here I am, the day after my second artisan fair, or more specifically, my second Market Collective.  I have to say, if my first one was...ok...this one went much, much better.  Money aside, I had way more activity at my booth, where the first attempt at christmas, I would tend to go about an hour at times without any engagement, and even more so without any purchases.  So what was the difference?  I think there were multiple factors, and I will try to go over them, albeit I can only speak anecdotally, and not empirically.  Before I start, I would also like to mention that it would be impossible for me to do any of this without my loving wife.  She is as much a part of this as I am.

As I said above, this wasn't my first rodeo.  This is now my second go, and a lot of the mistakes I made with setup in December I managed to eliminate.  In fact, I totally streamlined my setup.  I was pretty much up and ready to go in 90 minutes, and took my whole booth down in 45 minutes.  The first year took me at least 3 hours to get everything the way I wanted it, and it took me at least 90 minutes to take it all down.  The funny thing is, I could still do better.  I saw some great setups this year and got a lot of ideas, took photos of what I think were clever setups, and took notes.  I plan to borrow a little bit from everywhere.  I noticed great arrangements of booths, maximizing the space that artisans had to the fullest potential, great communication ideas like sandwich boards for pricing, and even more hanging solutions that I hadn't thought of!  So I continue to learn, and will hopefully do even better, and learn even more the next time around!

Ok, this is a pretty important part. I had a lot more space to work with. I went one booth size up. This allowed me to have a table, and this is actually where I made a huge part of my sales. I was able to use my "pinnacle" pieces to draw people in, and then display some of my new work on the table to sell them on new items once they are on the line, and often, if I didn't have something to offer someone here, they suddenly noticed the magazine stand of bird prints at the side of the booth, which then of course leads to he print stand with the larger work. There was just a heck of a lot more rhythm to the booth.

What would I change? I would like to upgrade my sign to a retractable banner. I would also like to clean up my hanging setup with boards that hide the metal racks. My signage was also kind of an after thought, and I'd like to clean that up. Basically, I would tighten things up to add a layer of professionalism.

I'm an unknown artist.  Why should people invest in my work?  These are the kind of questions you need to ask yourself when you move from hobbyist to amateur or professional artist.  I think my work is good, otherwise I would never have the guts to go out and try to sell it, but I also have to be reasonable.  In an ideal world, I could spend a ton of money on high quality, cotton rag, paper prints, but the reality is, people don't want to spend 25 dollars on a relatively unknown artist's 8x10" prints.  However, printing good quality work on cheaper paper (that is still fully archival and great quality) and selling that same work for more than half the price, well now suddenly you have a product that people want.  You also have a print that is a lot more on point with what others are selling for, and thus more competitive.  In fact I would say the average price for an 8x10" print at Market Collective is around $15, and the average for an 11x14" print is around $20 - 25.  I was selling for $10 and $20 respectively.  So I kept my prints on the low end of average, which I really think helped people over the hump, and also, allowed them to buy more of my work, and that's REALLY important.  If you have 3 prints from an artist, suddenly you're a collector.  You want to know, does this artist have a website?  Is this artist very active?  What's your Instagram?  I've invested 40 of my hard earned dollars into your work, and I want to know what you're up to and where you're going.  I really like your work, I couldn't afford an original, but as I follow you grow, maybe I feel like I want an original when the time is right and I have more disposable income.

I think it's more important to grow relationships with people than maximizing your profits.  I want people to follow the work, it encourages me to strive forward and is far more rewarding than making a quick buck.  A couple of times, I heard a couple people tell me my larger prints were under-priced, but now I have about 20 large prints in people's homes versus the 2 or 3 I sold for 30% more at Christmas.  I have 10 great horned owl prints hanging in people's homes now versus 0 at Christmas, and this is one of my "pinnacle" pieces.  It is one of the images I have created that seems to resonate with a huge cross section of people.  That's most likely 10 new followers.  

Often times, especially during the early hours of the market you will get interested customers.  Then just as it looks like they're about to clean your booth out they say: "Ok, thanks, I'll be back later."

What?!

Yeah dude, get over it!  You're not the only person they came to see, and how often have you bought the first house you looked at, or the first car you test drove, or whatever?  They want to know what else is out there, and they every right, and this is where the pricing comes in.  Maybe they saw something that they liked as much as your print, but maybe your print was 5 dollars less.  And maybe they have enough to buy that print at the other booth, but at your booth, there was two prints they really liked, and they can get both of them for just $5 more than just one print at the other booth.  So once again, for me, this really enforces the importance of not overpricing my work and overvaluing myself as an artist.  

At Christmas and this Spring, I heard that phrase uttered so many times "I'll be back"...like a Schwarzenegger movie marathon.  The difference this time, is that they actually did come back, so much so, that in some cases I didn't recognize the person when they said "I'm back!"  I just interacted with so many people this week that sometimes I didn't recognize return customers (at least not at first, but once we started talking, I usually remembered what they were interested in).  That means for whatever reason, they went and checked out the other artists in my vein and said, I want what he's got.  And I don't think it's because I'm such a great artist.  There are a lot of great artists at Market Collective.  I just think I had really good price points, and that's not to say I'm undercutting, I'm just offering a lot of different points on the scale.

Yeah, I started doing linocuts.  They're handmade prints, and they're pretty awesome and they add to my diverse price ranges.  I would say the average amount someone spends at my booth is around 25 dollars.  I will have to go back and check the numbers on Square, but I'm pretty sure that's about right.  I had four separate linocut offerings, and I was dead wrong about how they would sell!  I made over 100 prints of my 3 sisters, Canmore and chickadee postcard prints and was selling them for $5 each, which is (in my opinion) a great price for a hand crafted print.  I had two 8x10" prints, one of a mother bear and her cubs, and one of Mount Rundle, Banff.  

I thought those three sisters prints would sell right out.  I sold quite a few, no doubt...but not the sell out I thought I would get.  I thought the chickadees would sell out...I didn't sell a single one...so weird.  I thought people would love the mount Rundle prints.  I did not sell a single one.  I thought I would have trouble selling the mama bear print...I sold out of 2 formats, and made close to 300$ on this print alone.  Don't get me wrong...this is my favourite linocut I've made to date, but I am used to my favourite images not being my hottest sellers, and in this case I was happily surprised, and based on my customers' average purchases at my table, it was at the perfect price point, $20.  Which also often led to a 3 sisters print to top it off.  Don't get me wrong, I still sold more 3 sisters prints than mamma bear prints, but $5 versus $20...well they just didn't compete.  A lot of this is just trial and error and just seeing what people are into.  In December, I thought people didn't want bird art, and this time I sold a ton of bird prints.  I also sold out of some of my new prints, like the wolf pack print, or the elk print, among others.

Some people are looking for great art.  Some are looking for their favourite animal.  Some want a story.  Linocut bridged a connection to my audience like no other work has before.  For starters, a lot of people remember doing it in high school.  They remember jabbing themselves in the hand!  They remember the blood.  They remember how hard it was to do well.  Then they look at yours and the beautiful image.  Then I pull the block out from behind the table and show them the master copy.  I show them the tools used.  If they never did Linocut in high school, now they have a greater appreciation for how the works are made and what gives them that unique individuality for each print.  In fact, it's the print that feels like an original as each print is a one of kind product.  The hand of the artist is in each piece, not simply digitally reproduced.

Another thing I learned from my first collective is to WORK IT!  Get your hands dirty!  If you're trying to sell drawings, bust out a sketchbook and start drawing.  If you're selling watercolours, start watercolouring!  People love to see an artist working, the process is engaging and it connects a dot that they often don't get to see.  Now suddenly your audience isn't just buying a print to hang up, they have an experience tied to that print.  Now your audience has talking piece hanging on her wall.  Something he can tell people when they come over for a beer.  

below is some of the work I created at Market Collective.

Stuff like this can get really competitive quickly and lose the fun.  In both cases this never really happened to me.  Everyone is super supportive, and it's a great, positive environment!  As a relative newbie just starting my journey into this world of idea pushers and peddlers, things like this have the ability to create a lot of anxiety.  But the people make for a really great experience.  All the people I have met have been positive and very encouraging and always making sure to see if everything is going well.  It's a great group of people, which is often a character trait of people doing something they love or following their dreams.

The atmosphere that the organizers have created is unreal as well.  I've never been to a marketplace that has the same feel.  The music, the skate park, etc.  It all feels more like a happening rather than just a place to buy stuff.  I even get pumped while I'm tending my booth because of the music.

For anyone on the fence about giving this a go, take the plunge!  There is room for everyone from amateurs with a fledgling idea to professional entrepreneurs who have gone all in.  I think that is what makes the experience so positive and rich. This is a community of people who have become their own brand, and that's a pretty powerful thing.  That is why I am proud to look up at my "Fossi Images" sign, because I am joining a club of people who have become their own brand, and selling yourself isn't easy, it requires a huge level of vulnerability that you are willing to expose.  It's a risk, and what a beautiful thing that can be!

​So this all started one day when i was looking for inks in the art store, and I accidentally stumbled upon the "after thought" that is the printmaking aisle in most art supply stores.  Granted, that isn't their fault, I don't think the average shopper is looking for that stuff, and the ones that are are looking for the very entry level stuff for stamp making or silk screening their own t-shirts. 

But really, all of this dates back to art school where my love for drawing could only be rivaled by one other department...printmaking.  In fact, in my last 2 year of art school, I basically spent all of my time in the silk screening studio where all of my finished pieces were completed.  I also took intaglio as an elective in my first year, but I only actually did any relief printing, at Sir Winston Churchill high school in NW Calgary where I was enrolled in the Art IB program.

Come full circle to today, I am posting some of my black and white drawings on Reddit, and a user makes a remark that I should turn it into a woodblock cut.  Actually, a great idea.  Except, I decide the relatively easy version of that is to get into Linocut.  So I go online, try to gather up everything I'll need to start, and I do remember the basics from high school, so I start to wing it, and actually, I am really loving it!

I forgot how much I love printmaking, and relief printing is really easy to do in a home studio, and it suits my style very, very well!  So after running a few test prints off some blocks I've carved over the past few weeks I decided that I really need to setup a studio, or I am going to get ink on the carpets!  I setup a little makeshift studio in the garage, and so far so good!

​So I've been experimenting with different carving materials, and I will be trying a couple more as well.  I have also been researching a lot of other artists online.  I have come to learn there is a bit of a balance between "easy cut" blocks versus traditional hard linoleum.  While I like the hard stuff for holding a line, I like the soft stuff because it is a lot easier to hand burnish (rub the ink onto the surface of the paper using a flat hard surface like a wooden spoon or a burnishing tool) the soft blocks, but they also don't hold a line as well as the hard stuff.  That said, if I avoid fine lines in the drawings for the soft blocks, it's not a big problem. 

The middle print above was done on a soft "easy carve" block from Speedball.  While it's easy to lose detail, you can still make some really nice images with it, and I am actually really pleased with the 4x6" postcard print of 3 sisters mountain range.  The one on the far right is a more traditional mounted block, and the one on the left of the mama bear is actually on a material that I have been unable to find again since my first purchase, but that's ok because I would not get it again as it had some surface imperfections that affected my prints.  The mounted block on the right was great to carve on, but also a bit more difficult to hand burnish, but I still really like the results.

My hope is that people have an appreciation for the imperfect, but hand made prints more so than the Giclee prints (which are excellent reproductions of original art, but lack the hand of the artist outside of the original image).  With handmade prints, what I like is that the hand of the artist is still present, and I feel the art appreciator shares a deeper connection to the art and artist.  Rather than the prints being an after thought to just trying to make money off of an image, the prints themselves are the final product, they are the art!

That said, I still love Giclee prints, I even have some of my own work where I no longer own the original, I just like the added dimension of including handmade, traditional prints to my catalog of work, and I hope you will as well!

If you are interested in any of the work you see, it will be available for sale at Market Collective, just a couple weeks from now.  Come down and see me, I will be selling VERY AFFORDABLE hand made prints, some as low as $5!!!

​Eric