What artist and craft people don' t tell their customers: Sometimes products/art doesn't come out the first time!

I am going to talk about something that seems a bit taboo in the art/crafting world.

By the time the customer see's something whether it be a card, a print, a bookmark, a painting; really anything, the item has probably either been done before but has not worked or it has been changed and reworked to be made what it is.

I know for my store LoveUPaperly I make a lot of cards that don' t work, put images together that I thought would look awesome but don't, use too much ink, not enough ink, the words look too light, etc...

I have considered myself an artist since I was about 18, but after opening LoveUPaperly I have finally realized that making these mistakes and experimenting is not wasting supplies (I always thought it was)!  Instead the process of making things that don't seem to work or I don't like is pushing me to make images and words that do work!

Now I am going to take this one step further and actually show you some cards and prints I have tried that in my head looked awesome, but on paper I thought failed.  I am also going to go over the reasons why I didn't like them.

Separately, I liked the idea of this print.  I liked the UR AWESOME, the dog image in red, and the frog image in pink.  My first problem was that I didn't leave enough space for an E, oops!  The second part I didn't think was working were the two animal images together.  They weren't cohesive.  I felt that instead of allowing your eye to move across the print each separate image was it's own entity.

This card I don't think was working at all!  I was on an inspirational kick and that weekend was watching a lot of Harry Potter!  I tried to do the elf, Dobby, that only wanted to be free.  I don't think anything was working!  the colors, the ink....major fail on this one!

About these cards.  I LOVE my chicken stamp.  I really, really do!  However, in my chicken frenzy I started to make tons of cards that said Chicken Love.  I think the images themselves work and the words work with the images, but the whole concept seems a bit out there!

This is the final image I am going to show you.  I am still thinking through this.  I want to offer custom stamps from pictures on LoveUPaperly but I was trying to make examples and thought using Meridyth and myself would be great.  I love the picture in real like that I used but the dark colored stamp with the light letters is not working, and as a stamp the image itself is just o.k.

So there you have it!

I don't know how other artists/shop owners work, but for me it is a process of creating/discarding/tweaking/and creating.

I hope you found this enlightening!

Until tomorrow,

Love,

Jess