I'm very new to this blogging lark - along with a lot of "computer" stuff - so bear with me
My latest venture - I seem to come up with quite a few - is to create designer mugs with my artwork all over them. Why? Because I spent 20 years making pots, selling them: got fed up and moved to working in 2D - drawing, painting and printing.
That is much more creative and more interesting to do, but very limiting on the selling front. You can buy and break pots at ten a penny, but pictures stay on walls for YEARS before they are changed again - we are creatures of habit.
My last venture was to make cards with my art work. I am still doing them but to break the monopoly on the big card companies is hard to do, so they will plod on till the day I crack it.
Nobody does mugs like mine - so hope is there that the crack will appear sooner than later - 'scuse the pun! I thought it would be a good idea to get back to making and selling and the only way I could was to buy in the mugs and transfer the images myself.
The idea mulled for a good six months in my head, till necessity took over. My ex husband had long disappeared, I was 57 and on very limited income from teaching art to adults and children. My car had been written off the previous October, taking all the last dregs of savings to get me mobile. More car trouble and more bills told me to stop living in laa laa land and get some work or sink. And the thought of my impending holiday with my sisters in Croatia (curtesy of Tesco and airmiles) and no spends, got me going.
I've never had a proper paid job with salary - always on contracts or self employed - so it was hardly going to happen now in the depth of double/triple dips etc. I'm not young and not the most computer literate, bit deaf, bit blind so employers were not going to be banging at my door.
A good friend of mine put me in touch with Jo who sublimates mugs and does very well too. Over a breakfast meeting we devoured copious food and drink and on my part all the bits of info she could give me. It took several days to digest and scour the Internet to source, price and resource and reprice time and time again before I was ready to spend any money.
What I wanted and what I got were quite different. I have a vision of porcelain or bone china mugs in simple straight lines and so far it's been a brick wall in finding any that can be sublimented (heat transfered design). So for now I am using very servicable mugs which lend themselves very well to my ideas and sticking with the company that Jo uses - they are really good on customer service and I know what I am getting is good and ultimately dish was safe.
The equipment and mugs duly arrived - I was terrified of cocking it all up. Took me three days to pluck up the courage to print a design onto the transfer paper and onto mugs. Once a few were going, I took them to show my students. They have faith in me and bought 20 odd in the next week or so. I was so chuffed - at last - riches!
Then the first blip - Ailsa wanted a particular design done, but my colours were coming out wrong. Turned out I had used the wrong printing package. Phone call to suppliers put me back on the right path - downloaded the right software and was away.
I work every term time day after school in Bryn Coch running an art club with Maxine. It crossed my mind that maybe I could sell some at school. I took them to the staffroom - sorry- not very apreciative there - or dont need any mugs at the moment. I then approached the head and she was happy to try them for fund raising - how about father's day? I provide a sheet for the children to draw their pictures on, I then scan them and print onto mugs for Dad. Great - only a couple of months away.
It must be all the dog walking I do with Daisy - my mind gets very uncluttered and new ideas pop up as I circumnavigate the fields. Why not see if other schools would be interested in fund raising in an arty way? This is where I come to grips with the internet and download all the primary schools, addresses, head teacher names and how many are in their school. Initially I was going to email them all, then realised it could be deleted before the head has even heard about the idea. A letter with pictures and sample forms was far better. Thinking of all those 60p stamps, I stuck to those with over 100 children in the school. I already had the biggest school, so I hoped that if one was happy to try, then others would too. 44 letters were printed - personalised - and posted this weekend. Lets see what comes next week.
Meanwhile, two shops have/are taking them - Bay Gallery in Colwyn Bay and Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold. Any other ideas or places they can go - please get back to me
Taken from my glazed watercolours - lots of lovely stripes.
The spotty one is my last cat Charlie
Sgraffito work that did at the Helfa Gelf Art Trail last year...
