I missed a trick this week, and I knew it.

The weather was gloriously sunny and hot, and I knew it was a great opportunity to try out my Solarfast dyes… but guess what? I went out and had fun with my family instead.

I know – how could I? Seriously though, it was great. I did take advantage of the sunshine by throwing my fabric stash out onto the lawn, sorting through it and bagging lots of it to be passed on or sold.

But I can see that some of the dye tests that I did last month under a halogen lamp have actually matured in the natural light over the last few weeks, so it seems that what I considered to be dud test was actually proof that those dyes really just want the sun.

So yes, I do regret it a little tiny bit now that it’s rainy, but when the sun does come out again, I’ll be ready for it!

Branding, rebranding and brand tweaking

This week I started writing a post about branding yourself as an artist, and I ended up thinking so hard about my own branding that of course I had to do a bit of tweaking.

The good thing about trying to distil your knowledge into a blog post for someone else’s benefit is that you end up teaching yourself even more.

What really stood out to me though was the fact that you need to have confidence in who you are, what you want to do and why you want to do it.

Even when you already know that you can’t be all things to all people, there’s often a little voice in your head that whispers, “what if these people don’t get it?” and that’s the voice that makes you flip-flop back and forth, and get nothing done.

Anyway, I decided I needed more time to flesh it out with more resources so it’s not published yet, but I’ll link to it when it is.

Edit – here it is!

A tidy studio at last

The studio has been heaving with bits and pieces that made their way in over the last few months and I’ve finally managed the BIG SORT that I’ve been threatening (and dreading) for what seems like aeons.

Now it looks absolutely huge! But in order to create some more space I had to stack most of my books flat… why does this hurt me so much inside?

It’s just so wrong… but the trade-off means I’m just going to have to deal with it for now. I do have way too many books in here, but the art books are non-negotiable, period. So if they have to get stacked, at least they’re staying here with me.

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