Successful BGAA Art studio tour - even sold a painting!

On Saturday our local arts group - Battle Ground Art Alliance - held our 2nd annual studio tour. I thought it went great - I had around 30 visitors from around town come by my studio to view the work and chat.  I spent the day both talking and painting.  I was working on a new portrait of my 9-year old son Garrett - which actually is turning out okay.  It was fun to meet with people, and to watch how they reacted to my work.  I had a number of paintings on the walls.  There was a great mixture from what I would call generally pleased, all the way up to some who seemed honestly pretty blown away (love those!).   It's interesting to see what people like, and what some aren't interested in.  

The show went all day, from 10-4pm, and I didn't honestly expect to sell anything.  I guess I think that most people around here aren't going to walk in and spend around $1000 for an original oil painting - but wouldn't you know it, it happened!  A woman came in at about 3:45, all the way from Portland, as things were really winding down. She had seen my "Shoreline" painting last weekend in town where we had a small booth to promote our tour this weekend.  She thought about it all week long, and said she was trying to talk herself out of coming over.  But in the end, she made the trip - and boy am I happy she did! 

Makes me feel so much better about heading up next weekend to attend the workshop with David Kassan - which, considering workshop costs, meals and a place to stay, is a bit pricey.  But Amy pointed out - this sale just about pays for the trip!

I was also reflecting - I've been doing pretty well this year.  So far I've completed 1 painting a month, 8 paintings total - and I've sold 3.  I'll take that.  I know it's not professional full-time artist level yet, but considering that I also work full-time that's pretty good.  My previous yearly output was about 3-4 paintings in a year.