Blooming Beautiful Paintings

Over the last few weeks, I've been working on some new paintings.  However, they're not of my usual stuff.  I've been taking photos of flowers around my old stomping grounds of where I used to live here at Springwood and then printed out 6 of the photos and bought 6 differently-sized canvas' at Sam's Warehouse and drew the flowers onto them.

Now, I've almost finished the first 3 of them and have the other three drawn up ready to paint.  I'm going to get in and work on the them this afternoon and tonight.  I can't wait to finish them, hook them up and then hang them in my bedroom to make it look wonderful!
However, not all of the paintings will be for the walls.  I've decided two of them will be used for the beside tables; to move the art from the walls to the new bedroom suite I'm hoping to buy before I have an operation done next month.  I can't wait to get these smaller ones framed up and looking lovely.  When I get home, I'll update this post with photo links to photobucket and you can all see what I've been up to lately.  Until my next post, keep creating!

Turning Your Hobby Into A Business

I've been busy lately.  Busy with my Crafty Pegs, busy with my house and busy painting bigger things too.  And on Saturday, I was busy at the Logan Art Gallery doing volunteer work - well, trying to, as I was rostered on, but I was also invited to attend a workshop about turning my hobby into a business.  This is something I'm definitely interested in!

There were three or four guest speakers from different areas of the business world.  John Kenny was a lawyer who worked in the music industry to begin with and is now in the arts and other industries.  Then, there were two ladies who had begun a business named 'Made of Australia' which was begun with almost no money, but they've gotten it off the ground.  Then, the last speaker was Brian Tucker who is an artist and art collector, but is an accountant by trade.  He gave us all the information we'd need about ABN's (Australian Business Numbers), tax returns and what to claim on them and what can't be claimed.  All our speakers made the change from our love of art - and making arty things - from a hobby into a business where we make money from it.
Brian made the line between a hobby and a business very clear.  He told us that if we enjoyed making our arty things but gave them away freely, it was just a hobby, nothing more.  However, if we are forever trying to sell it, trying to get people to buy them from us at any cost, we are seeing a bottom line and have turned that corner from being a hobbiest to being a person who wants our art to start making money for us.  
When he mentioned this, I knew that for a long time, I've been trying to sell my artworks; for over 10 years in fact.  Each time somebody looks at my paintings, I'm always trying to figure out a price for them to pay me and how much I'd be prepared to go down in price; even if we didn't talk money, I'd still have the prices  go through my head for about a minute.  

After the hour and half workshop, we all got to talk about our arts and how we wanted to work on making them a business with the people who talked.  It was wonderful.  I totally enjoyed being there; but knew that I also had to be at the front desk too.   

This was a great insight to seeing what goes into a business and how easy it was to know when people are ready to get their arts and craft turned into a business.  And honestly, I think I'm ready.  I've got my pegs and my ideas and really, all I need is a business plan a little help in marketing.  Well, until my next post, keep creating!