Taking a Risk
I’ve done a thing. And I’m going to be honest, it feels a bit vulnerable to share something that is still in its infancy stage. I have had this blog now for about ten months. I have been a bit surprised at how easy it has become to share my ideas, things I have learned, discuss my art, and share resources that I hope might be useful to somebody who was like me a couple years ago. When I started this website, it felt like a risk. I was making an investment of money, of time, without really knowing what the outcome would be.
As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’m not sure anybody would describe me as a risk taker. I’m an overthinker, a debater, and cautious. Looking back on the decision to start a website and a blog seems like a pretty small risk months later. What is the worst that could have happened? My fears at the time were that nobody would see it and worse that they would! Sometimes I think fear of success is something that makes me overthink things as much as fear of failure. But I’m still here ten months later, mainly because I enjoy my website and I enjoy my blog. This medium is as much for me as for anybody else. I’m not sure what my world will look like one year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, but I think I will enjoy looking back at it at some point.
The Art to Print online course is offered by artist Laurie Anne Gonzalez.
So, what is this thing that I have debated sharing about this early in the process?
I bought a course. Specifically the course Art to Print by Laurie Anne Gonzalez. When I first started painting and sharing my art on Instagram, Laurie Ann was one of the first artists I followed. I loved her art, her personality, and I was fascinated by how she turned her tiny artworks, often only 4 x 6 inches, into huge canvas art prints, sometimes as big as 36 x 48. Over time I learned that she also offered a course called Art to Print where she would teach you to make prints yourself from your work.
I have a Google Doc from forever ago (c. 2020) where I started putting ideas for things to try and learn, and Art to Print was there towards the top. So why did I decide to purchase the course now? At the conclusion of my Summer Vibes project, I found myself feeling a bit uncertain about what to do next. I felt like I needed to make a decision between maintaining the current path of painting and sharing my art, which feels safe, and taking a bit of a leap that will push me to stretch my skills a little bit. Art to Print is one of a few course ideas that have been rotating over in my brain for probably the past year.
My decision to go for Art to Print now was based on several considerations:
Recent original works from 2023 and opportunities for future prints.
Laurie Ann recently offered a free four day workshop where she talked specifically about how to sell art prints and provided a lot of resources for how to create a plan in time for the holiday season. She also answered a lot of questions about the course and how to implement it. I know the whole purpose of a free course is to encourage you to buy the paid course, but I got a lot of useful resources that I have already started to implement.
The course was about to go up in price, by $300, which is a significant increase for something I knew I wanted to do “at some point.”
It’s self-paced and feels like a good project to dive into as fall turns to winter.
There is lifetime access and free updates so it’s not like the course goes bad.
What I have right now in excess is original paintings. And I admit that I am not in a hurry to sell them because they feel really special to me. Perhaps prints are an option.
The skills I’ll learn in the course: documenting my art, photoshop, shipping, promotion, are all things that I want and need.
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Despite all of these perfectly good reasons for why the course was a good idea, there are also these fears playing on repeat as well:
What if your art isn’t good enough?
What if your art doesn’t translate well to prints?
How are you going to sell them?
Who is going to want to buy them?
What if somebody does buy one and hates it?
Maybe this will be a waste of time?
Maybe it will be a waste of money?
Maybe people will be mean to you?
And the truth is maybe all of those fears will come to fruition…but maybe they won’t. I won’t know until I try. And let’s be real, it isn’t going to be easy and some of my first attempts are definitely going to be duds.
I saw this photo of a quote going around on Instagram that I loved. It said:
Your first ANYTHING will be bad.
But you can't make your 100th
without making your first.
So put your ego aside, and start.
So that’s what I’m going to do. This course feels like a risk right now, when all I have done is clicked enrolled, but it is a calculated risk. I just need to start. I need something to push me out of my comfort zone and consider some possibilities I haven’t even imagined yet. I’m not sure how long it will take or what it will look like along the way, but I’m excited to get started.
Instagram post by @hidden.ny