Exhibiting at the Botanic Gardens in Durham

Pictures all put up before the main rush of customers arrived at 10.30am.  The large canvases look quite modest in this very spacious cafe, but even the small ones hold their own because of the colour and bold shapes. We decided to allow pictures to be sold off the wall in case anyone wanted one for a Christmas present. Don't know if we will sell any, but perhaps someone will visit the website and decide they like one enough to buy it.

Unfortunately, no sales, but hopefully there will be some visitors to the website.

Postmortem

Well, that wasn't the most profitable craft fair.  Only two canvases sold, one large and one medium.  Crowds of people came, but they were mostly looking rather than buying.  As the first day was 'Black Friday' and rather quiet, I can only assume that many people were at sales, and if they spent all the Christmas money there, they couldn't afford to spend much at the craft fair.

However, we have had an order for two large canvases of a customer's own photos.

Tomorrow, Lynn and Luke are going to set up an exhibition at the Botanic Gardens in Durham.  We don't expect to sell anything, but maybe someone will look online and buy something in the future. 

Getting ready for the Craft Fair this weekend

We have 6 new canvases ready for the craft fair - two small canvases from the cafe which haven't been shown here for at least a year, and four medium ones which I've just bought. But the main new attraction is Boat and pier, taken at Loch Ranza on the Isle of Arran.  I'm hoping this will be popular. It looks stunning at 30 x 20 inches.

Setting up is on Thursday, and the fair opens on Friday morning.  We usually do quite well at the November fair, though people seem to buy for themselves rather than as Christmas presents.

We tried out some A5 cards at the July fair and they went very well, so I've increased the number of designs and also the quantities available.  These are all printed out ready in their cello bags, but the numbers of each design needs to be checked as they have been plundered since I printed them!

So tomorrow I'll check everything ready for setting up on Thursday.  I'm always afraid I will have forgotten something vital, but so far that hasn't happened. Fingers crossed.

Hand held at one tenth of a second!

I went down to the church last night, because there was an event happening and the lights would be on.  The Boyen choir was to perform and were rehearsing.  The reason for going down, though, was not the choir, but to see what the new East window looked like from the outside when lit up.

It was rather disappointing.  There is so much almost clear glass that the lights inside are clearly visible.  Might try taking a photo with the closest lights are off, and rely on those in the nave.

I took quite a few photos trying to obscure the lights behind the stone parts of the window, but it wasn't very satisfactory.  That and the fact that is was getting progressively darker made me decide to leave it.  When I came home and put it on the computer, I feared that most of the photos would be subject to camera shake. I was wrong.  This photo was taken handheld at a tenth of a second and is very sharp.  All down to the Lumix's stablisation technology.

Amazing!

The website is up and running!

Still needs some tweaking and more interesting descriptions, but the website is at last online.  A big relief that it will be available for the November Craft Fair.

We've just had this picture of a boat and the pier at Loch Ranza, Arran, made into a canvas for the November Craft Fair.  It looks great at 30"x 20".

This is where the summer ferry connects with the Mull of Kintyre (pause for song) and it is where wild red deer, mainly hinds, make unsuspecting travellers offers they can't refuse.  They are very persistent (and big) and any kind of food is fair game.

Website rescued!

It looks as though Luke will have the website back online in a few days.  It has been absent for several months when the person who originally set it up and took payment for hosting it seemed to have disappeared, along with our website!

We have purchased a WordPress preset programme and Luke is in the process of uploading the images.  In the process, some of the less popular (and less interesting!) images are being left out and some new images added, one of which is shown below.

I took this photo at The James Muir Country Park, south of Edinburgh.  I was mainly interested in the bay and the view across the Forth estuary, so the children were of only secondary interest.  Altogether a fairly boring flat photo.

However, after I had cropped it, enhanced the colour and changed the children's positions, then finally the whole picture 'buzzed', I produced the picture below.  Which I'm quite pleased with!

BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND - SNODS ART EXHIBITION

I haven't posted on here for several months, partly through inertia and partly because I haven't had the opportunity to take many photos.  This year we have shown and sold at both Brancepeth Castle arts and craft event and this one at Snods Edge, near Shotley Bridge.

We sold four canvases at each show, which wasn't bad, though not as good as the Christmas fair at Brancepeth.  We are booked in to hang some canvases in the Botanic Gardens at Durham immediately after the Brancepeth fair, though we don't have any details about how or when we can set things up.  

Because it will be so near Christmas (starting on 1st December), there won't be time to get canvases printed and sent to buyers or recipients, so we will allow the canvases to be sold off the wall.  It is to be hoped that they will provide last minute gifts for 'difficult' friends and relatives who have everything (except one of our canvases!)

We have retrieved all the small canvases from the cafe in Durham where I fear they were becoming just decoration rather than something to be properly looked at.  Part of this was due to our not visiting regularly and changing the layout.  

Perhaps we should look for somewhere better placed and/or more upmarket to exhibit our goods.  It might be worth putting some of them on ebay at the moment, because it costs nothing to post things, just after they sell.  

Pricing them at the normal level might mean they are less attractive, but selling them below our usual price if not fair to people who have paid the full price.  And there's nothing to lose. Can't be bad.

At last, the calm after the storm.

Yes, it's beautifully calm here after the high winds, but that's not what the title refers to.  Now that all the ordered canvases and subsequent orders have been completed and delivered, I can relax, at least a bit.

I ordered a canvas yesterday for a woman who sent us a very poor quality shot that she wanted to have printed on a 30 x 20 canvas, and discovered that Cool4Cards our usual printer had upped his price by 49% to £26.00 from £17.49.  I had completed the order before I noticed the price.  This £8.51 extra doesn't seem like a lot but it will cut into our profits quite a bit in future.  For example, we charged £39.95 to sort out the poor photo and get it printed.  This leaves only £13.95 profit for at least 3 hours work for Luke and me.  Not a great profit.

There are several canvas printers on ebay varying from £ 15.99 to £26.99 for 30 x 20, (C4C now being the second highest). The median of seven is £19.99 and the mean is £19.90 (no mode).

We will have to decide on what to do about this unexpected hike in our current suppliers charges.  Possibilities include
1. Change nothing, wait and see if this is just for Christmas business
2. Increase our prices to include the increase in costs
3. Increase our prices to partially include the increase in costs
4. Use a cheaper supplier

In the meantime, until a decision has been reached, the prices on the website will remain the same.  There are possibly another two or three potential orders for canvases of people's own photos - all wanted for Christmas, of course, and we will have to stand by our quoted prices.

Nothing much happening in photography

January has been a dismal month - heavy cloud, rain and wind.  I haven't done much photography other than to take a shot of the castle reflected in a large puddle in front of the church gates.  As this puddle will disappear shortly beneath a coating of tarmac, I put the photo on the back of the February newsletter.  Came out reasonably well, considering it was printed on pale blue paper.

I had hoped for snow to photograph, but nothing here in the village yet.  When we went up to Stanhope yesterday, we could see the Weardale hilltops were well covered, so probably the villages in upper Weardale would also have some snow.  Still February still to come, so maybe there's still a chance.