Time
It’s been a long time since my last postI I’ve been busy at work, moving apartments and cities, and also working away on new products for my shop and for clients. So, something had to be put on the back burner, and that was sadly the blog.
Now I have more time for my own projects, since I’ve finally left my job and now work from home, self-employed! It’s still all very exciting and new, and only time will tell if this move has paid off or not. Mentally, it definitely has already.
Colour
Since the last blog post, a lot has happened in my online shop. Where, for the first few years, it was all posters in black and white, there’s now a lot of colour to be discovered.
I started drawing animals in colour a while ago but wasn’t happy with my skill level for a long time. Coloured drawings were new to me, and I had also never used alcohol markers before. It was a lot of trial and error, and at many stages on the journey, I wasn’t sure if this was going anywhere I wanted to go. Confidence is a funny thing, it often takes only small things to knock back a lot of progress and it returns in unexpected places.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, at that time I got the chance to create two drawings of hummingbirds for a client, and that meant I had to get serious about drawing in colour. Eventually, I finished the commission with two drawings I was proud of and that that filled me with confidence to tackle more projects in a similar style. I was the push I needed to put in the hours and practice a new technique.
Bags
I wanted to create something colourful for my shop, but not just for the sake of it. I try not to sell stuff that people buy and then never use again. It should be something useful, with as little impact on the planet as possible, and something that lasts for a very long time and can be used repeatedly.
One day, I came across an offer for printable tote bags, and that immediately seemed like a good product to test. I use reusable bags all the time, mostly for shopping. So, I redrew a grey-handed night monkey I’d already cone once before and printed it on a tote bag, thinking I could at least use the bag myself if the drawing was sub-standard.
I immediately liked the contrast between a colourful animal and a neutral, natural brown—beige cotton bag. While trying several different coloured fabrics from various print companies, I always gravitated towards the simplicity of that natural beige cotton.
This sparked the idea to release a series of animal prints on tote bags. I would be able to choose the animals, and the number of different subjects would be nearly infinite. I experimented with several animals—a bird, a monkey, a frog, and a turtle—and found it worked well with all kinds of colours and creatures. Especially the monkey seemed to hit a sweet spot with everyone who saw it, so I decided to go for it.
Versatility
Apart from the fact that the bags are not selling that well at the moment (due to a lack of attention on my part to social media and a lack of money for advertisement), it was a really good decision to launch these tote bags. They add a lot of colour to the shop and especially to social media, where I find it hard to get people excited with black-and-white drawings. They give me the opportunity to engage in a lot of different #InternationalAnimalDays, and the product itself is something I truly believe in. We use the bags daily in our house for shopping, and they really are a product worth the money.
Plus, it opened the doors for me to my first bigger client, also someone I can fully stand behind. More about that in a future blog post. We might end up in a zoo.
