Sep 153 min read

August Newsletter: Goals for Printing Art

My biggest August news is that I got a printer for my art business! For a long time I've thought about a convenient and economical strategy to provide prints of my work to clients. I'm very careful and don't like doing things halfheartedly and am therefore slow to make big decisions. So I pondered and researched for a very, very long time. I finally came to the conclusion that if I was to commit fully and long term to my art business, I'd better go all in. So, I invested in a printer for my art business! YAY!

My goals for 2024

Making my work easily available in print was one of the goals I set for my art business in 2024. I’ve not been a huge goal setter in my life and I've often struggled with planning and narrowing down goals towards where I actually want to reach. Now, I've started using task lists and project management tools (Trello) much more and that is changing how I view my work and my achievements. Before I had a hard time noticing when I'd actually reached important milestones on the way to where I planned to go. Therefore I also missed opportunities to check of lists and give myself a pat on the back!

Why set goals?

I don't pretend to be a life coach and am far from a specialist in goal setting. I just know that noting down plans, schedules, milestones, goals etc. helps break big projects into smaller achievable bites. It helps with procrastination tendencies too, something I've dealt with my whole life. Failing to do one little task in a project today, and having to move it to tomorrow, is much easier to accept than the feeling that you already "failed the whole project" just because you couldn't start doing the whole thing. I hope you get what I'm trying to say. Also ticking of a list and reaching milestones feels like kind of magic. It gives you a clear moment in time that you are "allowed" to pat yourself on the back. Not to mention the magic release of all that dopamine when you check off that item on your list!

2024 Goals for my Art Business

At the beginning of 2024 I did set clear goals for my art business! These have all been broken down into smaller tasks, carefully noted in the project management tool I use, Trello. Those who read my first newsletter of the year, know that I committed to these goals:

To write and publish a monthly Art Newsletter on my website.
To set up a subscription button on my website.
To send news and newsletters to my subscribers.
To make my work available in prints.
To take part in an art event, market; conference; show or similar.

I have been holding myself accountable through the year and am happy to say that I have already successfully worked on fulfilling the first three. I’ve published a regular newsletter, added a subscription button to my website and faithfully sent newsletter updates to my subscribers.

As I talked about at the start of this post I finally invested in an ART PRINTER for my art business. Now I'm able to make art prints available and goal number 4 is checked off!

A photograph of two white sheets of paper with artwork printed on them. They are lying on the tray of a black printer. The printer is sitting on a wooden drawer. The first artwork shows a mixed media illustration of a white house with a red roof placed with a dark blue background. The house is “looking” in the direction of a yellow moon that has a smiling face. Two people are walking in front of the houses. The second artwork shows a big red capped mushroom with smaller vegetation beneath it in black and brownish color. Set on a dark blue background.

Ready to Print Art

I have my printer fully set up in my studio I can print my artwork in the finest art quality standard and in sheets of up to 42 x 59 cm (A2) too! Through the years I have so often been asked if I sell art prints but have not had the setup to be able to deliver effectively. I feel that this upgrade to my little studio is going to help me to better reach the community that has supported me for all these years. This makes me a very, very happy artist!

What Next?

This leaves only one goal left this year. That is "taking part in an art event or market". I hope I will be able to get myself and my art prints into a market or a pop up shop somewhere in the months before Christmas. If you, dear reader, have any tips about nice markets or pop ups I could join, please feel free to share them in comments 🥰

Now I'm enjoying getting to know my new printer and learning all kinds of new things about printing and profiles. For the remainder of 2024 I’m gonna carry on pushing my goals forward and then, when the 2024 drawing to a close, I'll carry on and set my art business goals for 2025.

That's it for now!

Until next time, be safe and carry on dreaming ❤

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