Open Studios almost here, all welcome!

My home-made business cards, each one has a hand drawn image on, relating to current work

Preparing the studio.  I am so grateful to Pete, for helping me hang the work.

Well, it is almost upon me.  North Yorkshire Open Studios begins this Saturday.  All my plans for making new small new pieces and books were dashed when I got ill, so I have put up a mix of old and new work with quite a few pieces on paper, mounted on board for displaying in my hand made browser.  

Still some jobs to finish off but I think we are almost ready!

I have hand-made a mix of publicity materials.  Although a bit of a time consuming thing to do, the advantage of this is that mine do shine out from all the printed stuff produced by other artists.  Part of the reason for producing things by hand, (by utilising the IT skills of certain people to help me centre images and fit them into the space properly and who offered their time very kindly for free), is that I just didn't have energy to organise printed materials in time and also no money to pay for it anyway.

I have used a variety of methods for publicising the event, I sent out an illustrated email using Mail Chimp some weeks ago, I have hand made and hand delivered some packs containing a selection of my publicity material to people important to me and hand delivered some locally.  I have put posters up locally too.  

A selection of some my hand made and printed publicity materials with NYOS flyers

The meeting with the press photographer was a complete waste of time and I will not be bothering with it in future.  I was mentioned in a few words but none of the photos were used. Understandably, they want pictures in their paper that will appeal to most readers and my work just doesn't fit.  Never again.  Story of my life really; I just don't fit!  But, as they say; "you live and learn".

There was a meeting of artists within Ryedale participating in open studios last night, to swap publicity materials.  I realised that I didn't have enough of my remaining material left, so I made the flyer below, again with a bit of IT help and kindly printed by a local business.  I paid the princely sum of £7.60 for 500 A5 sized flyers, plus my time taken to design it and guillotine them when they were delivered, which isn't bad, I think you'll agree!

I really like the simplicity of this, and black and white is not only dynamic; it is cheap to produce!

Below are some shots of the studio in preparation for the event, it is actually a bit like a mini retrospective of my work:

Paintings I am currently working on for an upcoming show in York, propped up on my bench

I would like to wish all the participating artists lots of luck, good sales and enjoyment for this year's NYOS.

Better sign off, lots of jobs still to complete on my list. . . .


Thanks to Pete Gough for his support and practical help.