June ‘22 - round up
Hello,
Check me out, actually sticking to my goal of writing a blog post at the end of each month!
June, done already, a super quick month where a fair amount of things happened. If you’re interested, keep on reading…
June happenings:
I sold 3 original drawings this month! For me, that’s crazy. Selling an original drawing really does hit differently…
My originals are of course personal pieces that I spent time composing and creating. They’ve always got a little story behind them and when someone else becomes attached to one enough to buy it, it means so much!
Franz Josef Kia Original - SOLD
Mitre Peak, Milfound Sound - SOLD
Ben Wyvis, Inverness - SOLD
I went to see Top Gun: Maverick - class film, highly recommended.
I finished up a new personal piece - Rogie Falls - I plan on adding some colour to this piece by means of risograph printing with help from Alice (@isle_of_riso - give her a follow!) - I’ve had to put this piece on the back burner for now as it’s going to take a lot of time to create all the colour layers - but I’ll have it ready for The Black Isle Show! (3rd-4th August)
June Wildwoodz was another successful weekend for me, networking and speaking to potential clients. If you’re a fellow small business and interested in getting in on the market scene around the Highlands, ping me an email and I can tell you everything I’ve learned and who to contact.
I’ve taken on a fair number of new commissions this month - a few tiny little wedding venues up to some large A3 panoramic views of hills. All unique, all going to be awesome!
The Banff Mountain Film & Book Festival artwork is coming along well. I can’t show you any sneak peaks of it yet but my contacts at Rab & Buff, who are helping me with the art direction, are very happy with the progress so far. We’ve had several zoom calls to discuss my sketches and drafts. I’ll be putting together a more extensive blog post on this in the future. The most exciting news though - I AM getting to go to Banff, Canada. Flights are booked, heading out early November for the festival. Yet to find out many more details but it’s looking like I’ll be doing live drawing sessions at night during DJ sets/bands, a ‘hike and draw’ - taking some people up to a viewpoint and creating some artwork with them and I might even get to set up my own little pop up shop while out there - super exciting, can’t wait.
Ok, The Royal Highland Show - I’m not putting this down as a ‘lowlight’ as there are still positives to take away from it - but - it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. Four of us headed down on Wednesday morning to set up (@jamesritchiesculptor - @hannah_r_morrison and Kirsty who organised everything from @exclusivelyhighlands). Set up was a super long day - we had 12 different businesses to squeeze into a small space.
I manned our stall, alongside the others, on Thursday and Friday morning/afternoon before disappearing for a jolly in Pitlochry. It seemed busy but a lot of people seemed to just be wandering about and not too interested in buying or even chatting and it sounded like a similar story on the Friday/Saturday/Sunday after reports came back from the other guys… I’ve come to the conclusion that we had too many businesses in the same space and it was a little overwhelming for customers - but I’m also happy to acknowledge the fact that maybe people just didn’t like my drawings! Anyway, it wasn’t a total disaster. I did make a few contacts and a little money from it which was positive. It hasn’t put me off. A different strategy next year and I’d be happy to give it another bash as it was really fun. Especially when we got invited into the Gin & Prosecco Bar opposite us for free drinks and food, rubbing shoulders with the organisers, or so we imagined… Anyone reading this that’s exhibited there before, I’m very much open for tips!
And for those of you interested in the jolly in Pitlochry - I stayed in The Bridge House - click here to book it - with friends for the weekend - it was epic!
Notable July dates:
I’m not at any markets in July unfortunately but I will let you know of some markets:
Wildwoodz Inverness - 16th & 17th July
Crathes Castle - 30th & 31st July
With no markets you’d think I’d be having a quiet July, wrong. I’ve got tonnes to do and some super exciting commissions that I’m working on at the moment which are secret but will be revealed soon!
If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading, I hope it’s been interesting.
If you have questions please email me hello@jackspowart.com or I think you can comment on this blog post? That would be cool.
Cheers ~ Jack
