Business Plan.

A few ideas.

Recently I received a letter reminding me that I should have a business plan in place, so I thought I would share some of my ideas with you.

One of the ideas I have is to get my art on to wood either by image transfer or by laser engraving. The best subjects that I have would be my Old Master trace monotypes – these would be ideal for using as panels for contemporary furniture or as vintage style table place mats (varnished or lacquered thin MDF with rounded corners). These items could be sold on Etsy or Not on the High Street.com. Another option would be to hand produce each one by doing a trace monotype straight onto the wood – these would be more exclusive as they would be one off works of art in their own right.

Another value added product would be a limited edition production run of tote bags – say 50 bags only of each design (the designs could be of different old master paintings – maybe the Impressionists revisited - see my Carbon Paper Trace Monotypes). Each bag could be personally signed by the artist (me) with permanent marker pen and then the bags could be supplied exclusively to either a department store or boutique (fingers crossed on that one!).

Going back to wooden panels, I have noticed that there is a gap in the market for a very niche product – namely reproduction Pre Raphaelite wooden furniture panels. These could be produced quite easily by first tracing a public domain Pre Raphaelite image onto a prepared wooden panel and then sprayed with fixative before painting in acrylics (I've chosen acrylics for the quick drying times and ability to varnish straight away unlike oils). These panels could be offered for sale to cabinet makers or even vintage/shabby chic designer/restorers. There is also no reason why I could not undertake a few simple projects like bedside cabinets or blanket boxes utilising these painted wooden panels. The painted panels could be offered for sale on Etsy, Facebook buy and sell, craft fairs or a dedicated website.

Speaking of Facebook buy and sell, I did have a go at selling some artwork not too long ago, but had no luck. I am going to try again with some 19^th Century reproductions - Carbon Paper Trace Monotypes of cats and kittens at play. I'm also considering producing copies of 19^th Century seascapes and copies of some of the American Ashcan School of artists who in my opinion influenced Edward Hopper.

An idea I would like to experiment with soon, is producing hand coloured prints by first doing a trace monotype onto stretched cartridge paper using Genesis Heat Set Oil paint and then hand colouring this once I've dried it using a Genesis Heat Set Drying Gun. I would like to see how a print would look using watercolours over the dried heat set paint, or maybe work the print up into a finished painting by carrying on with different heat set colours. The print may have to be done on the reverse side of thick watercolour paper if the cartridge paper proves to be too thin.

Another idea I had after seeing an advert online. A company is charging a very competitive price to produce the silk-screen screen needed to do printing from a graphic image (no tones). This would be useful for producing limited edition prints on paper – particularly the copyist trace monotype works I can produce using Genesis Heat Set paint.

I've talked about some of the more adventurous plans I have in mind, but there are also some more modest plans afoot. I am currently producing works on cardboard (cereal boxes) to keep costs as low as I can (we eat cereal anyway, so that costs nothing, the other costs could be paint, fine brushes if they splay, carbon or transfer paper, cheap frames if framing, or mountboard and mounts with cellophane etc.). There is a reason for this – car boots sales, craft fairs etc. People don't seem to have money to part with nowadays, so unless I become really famous, I don't see much need for archival substrates and the best quality thirty pounds a tube paint when the buying public are not able to pay ten pounds or even five pounds for works of art. Anyway there is method to my madness, the finished image can be scanned and uploaded to a company that produces Giclee prints and postcards etc. So you can sell your postcards for example at craft fairs and car boots or local shops may stock them for you - sale or return. The buying public isn't worried that your original work of art is on a cereal box – they have their postcard printed onto thick card that looks and feels professional, you make a small profit and everything's right with the world!

I did consider framing laser printed copies of my graphic b/w artworks at a cost of 15p for the laser printout and under two pounds for a frame. But I'm not sure how long a laser printed image would last – I could say it is 'laser printed wall art' or 'laser printed posters' if I were selling them on a market stall for example, and my son did get a laser printed certificate from Santa at a grotto this Christmas, so if it's OK for Santa to give laser printed certificates, then maybe it's OK for me.