2 years of Animal Spirit!

(and also nearly two years since creating, and then almost immediately forgetting about this blog)

Crazy to think that just over two years ago I released such a huge piece of my heart into the world! I learned so much about myself during the creation of this collection but also even more about myself in the year since its release.

If you would have asked me 3 years ago if I ever thought I would be selling my art in multiple countries across the world and running my own business, it would have been a definite NO! Now in the past year, Ive sold paintings, stickers, prints, notebooks and calendars across Canada, the U.S and even as far as the UK and Germany! Before, the thought of doing these type things absolutely terrified me!

Until then I never realized how important a strong support group is. Its one thing for your mom to love everything you create (thanks mom!) and for your family members to buy art from you, but it opens up a whole new world when you connect with like minded people with the same ideas and passion as you. For me this started back in 2017 with online painting classes by Linzy Arnott, my incredibly talented mentor and friend. From this I began to explore my artistic style, connected with artists from all over the world and gained a bunch of new friendships and support. It continued when I was apart of a more in depth artist mentorship where we delved more into the passionate, spiritual and business side of art. This is where my confidence started to grow and I began to take my art and business more seriously (sometimes maybe too serious, more on that later)and realize that this could be something I do for a living, a life long dream of mine.

This was the start of my Animal Spirit series. There was a lot of highs and lows that went along with creating this series. The pressure to be perfect, the fear of allowing yourself to be vulnerable, feeling like you had to be an expert in business, marketing, photographing your art, print making etc, or feeling like you’ve put yourself and your art into box. Then on the other side of the coin, the incredible rush and happy dances that go along with someone buying your products.

With the added stress of personal health battles and raising 4 kids during a world wide pandemic while having a husband in the medical field, I had to learn to be easy on myself and learn where to ease up on my constant quest for perfection to make life just a little bit easier. Don’t get me wrong, tons of time, research, wins and losses still went into the process, but isn’t there always when starting a new business? Because I did need to realize that it was in fact a business that I was responsible for whether I liked it or not. If I wanted to be successful I would have to step up and learn how to run a website and market not only my art, but myself as well.

The creation of my Animal Spirit notebooks was a success I definitely didn’t expect. My first small batch of notebooks I ordered sold out in under 5 minutes! Then came the big scary bulk order, which also did well. This was a great jumping off point for me, realizing that creating multiple items with my art on them opens up your potential pool of clients much more. Is this route for everyone? Of course not, but I LOVE it. Finding appropriate producers for products was definitely timely (and costly) I ultimately had to break up with my notebook vendor when shipping and custom fees became increasingly high. And then there was the travel mug fiasco of 2021, when i was sent a great looking sample, but when I ordered a bunch more, over half of them looked like crap. The replacements weren’t much better either. So although these products were super popular, I am still in the process of finding a supplier that I am happy with for notebooks and mugs.

Once the rush of the initial release started to die down, I felt a little lost. Kind of a now what moment. At this time I had joined an online artist mastermind group started by the wonderful Alice Ladkin. It was made up of me and 5 other creators from Canada, the US and the UK. It was so interesting to hear experiences and realize that my struggles were not just my own, but that even other artists that I thought were so professional and established sometimes don’t know what the hell they’re doing either! So refreshing to come to that realization!

Over the past year my art work has began to evolve as I explored other mediums and styles. While I still love this series with all my heart, Ive loved growing and learning and look forward to incorporating all of it into one big crazy style that is my own, so thank you to those who have been on this journey with me and continue to support whatever craziness I get myself into.

These blog posts have been very few and far between (this post actually started out as the one year anniversary post until…. I forgot about it lol) but now with a few more available hours I can dedicate to my art and business I look forward to sharing more of my journey with you. Again, thank you for being here.

xo Brandy