Boosting My Side Hustle So I Can Become An Artist

Wow, this month went by in a flash. Though I did not manage to complete all the tasks set out, I feel like I’ve build a solid foundation that will allow me to promote my brand more easily in the future. It’s a huge task to start a business and much of it is cumbersome work, at least for me. I am so happy to have made this specific 30 day project because, frankly, I doubt I would have gotten any of it done if I hadn’t decided on deadlines, weekly goals and daily tasks. It has been a little rough to pull through, but I have made great progress and it will lighten my burden in the forthcoming months, where I can instead allow myself to focus on making great art. I’ll give myself a well deserved pad on the back for making my life easier!

This week was as unproductive as could possibly be. Energy and motivation has been very low. Luckily, I knew this was probably going to happen (experience from prior 30 day projects), so I had deliberately put very few things on the schedule for week 3.

What I did accomplish: Publish Facebook page and website, research equipment and shipping supply prises, schedule a few weeks ahead. I also posted close to regularly on Instagram.

This final week I will focus on producing and schedule content for social media and website. I want a clear strategy and plan for at least the rest of march - obviously with room for adjustments along the way. I have several ideas for video content that I want to create and share, so that has me a bit excited to carry on. Final week, let’s goooooo!

Two weeks in by now, and I’ll have to at least slightly adjust my weekly and overall goals for this project. But all in all, I think I’m doing okay. Granted, it’s a mess inside my head but I’m working hard to systematize and write down ideas and thoughts to nail them down better.

I have a good foundation for my new website and facebook page, now I just need to tweak a few things and start painting more portfolio pieces to add along the way. I hope to have both public by the end of week three.

Scheduling is tough, but I will make a draft today and consult a few people in my network to get inputs.

I’m at a point now where I need to invest quite a bit of money in my business, and that always takes a lot of time and energy due to my being super eager to get the best deals possible. I need to do it in order to promote my sites in a professional manner. I bought a domain today and linked it to Wordpress, so that’s a start!

I’ve made some important decisions during the last few days and though I’ve been procrastinating a lot I think I’m making decent progress.

I’ve selected a logo design. Now I need to make the final adjustments and incorporate it in my branding. There will be iterations depending on where and how I use it, but it’s going to look something like this:

I’m going with the S because I sign my art with my last name (starting with S), and it also fits into my social media tag (SketchyMille). This way I don’t have to come up with a better name for my sites just yet. To keep my SketchyMille tag was also a big decision and I’m still not convinced I’ll keep it for the long run, but I’ve grown to like it quite a bit and having ‘sketchy’ in my branding certainly takes some pressure off. No need to be perfect, it’s just sketches.

I’ve picked Squarespace for building my website and I’ve started dabbling in the design and setup. I might need to look into some tutorials to make it look professional because I find it very hard to customize. We’ll make it work!

It’s been hard to pull myself together lately. I think it’s because my to do-list is very long and so few things actually get to a stage where I can call them done. I have to schedule in a way that allows me to have a few tasks a day that can be completed within an hour or so to motivate me. And I also have to prioritize my list and make sure I do things in the best order to make my work more efficient.

End of week 1 update

I did pretty well this first week and got almost everything on my list done. Even setting prices which was about time, since I’ve already been asked for prices several times by potential costumers! So that’s certainly a burden off my shoulders.

The coming week will require a lot of work, both in regard to paid work, artwork and the DK30 goals. I hope to spend a few full days with the website design and some evenings toggling the rest such as scheduling and setting up on social media. I also have to find some people who can critique my logo design before I move on with that.

I’ve been throwing logo ideas around and played with a few options.

So my art is focused around painting buildings and places, but that might change with time (I’m easily bored) so I need the logo and typeface to represent me as a person and not what I’m painting. I generally like the first two (just the letter S for my surname in negative space), but I think the third idea has potential (it’s a C when it’s turning this way, but an S when flipped), though in it’s current state it’s not very readable. I’ll keep working on it and see where it goes!

Today and tomorrow I will fiddle a bit more with the logo and brand design and then get started on pricing my artworks. I have deliberately put pricing on my list this first week because I’m dreading it immensely, so if I can get it done and over with the rest will be a piece of cake!

It’s a tad early to start updating, but I have a few things I need to write down in order to clear my head, so here we go.

Today I procrastinated and started crocheting a sweater. Wups. But I did sneak in a bit of project-related work during the weekend, so I’m ahead of schedule regardless of my yarn detour.

First I looked into some options for scheduling:

1. OneNote templates
2. Google Sheets
3. An actual spiral back calendar

I like the digital options which allow me to adjust on the go and always have my calendar and plans available on my phone. On the other hand - and this is no surprise considering I’m painting on paper rather than digitally - I LOVE the idea of making a calendar that is more like a journal. It’s just less practical and more time consuming, and I might have to focus my creativity just slightly instead of running wild. I’ll pick one of the digital calendars after I’ve tested them on mobile device. See, writing thoughts down actually helps!

I have also done some research on logo design and started dabbling a bit, though I’ve yet to come up with a concept that sparks joy. What’s holding me back is probably the fact that I don’t know exactly what my brand is called. Could just be my name as most artists do, but I’d still need an icon or monogram for social media and website. I hope to work on the design tomorrow.