Friday, August 23, 2013

Preparing Drawings to Post

Last Import-6 by Birgit Deubner
Last Import-6, a photo by Birgit Deubner on Flickr.
This process always takes much, much longer than I make allowances for. Cutting the mount card, finding the right photo corners (a 3 hour mission of cycling around the city yesterday was needed before I got lucky), then the packaging: Why does it take 60-80 minutes to wrap 4 packages? I really need to find a better way because this is eating into my making drawings time and I can't imagine how I can keep on top of punctual postage if I was to offer all my drawings for sale at once.. It's like keeping a box of ants and fleas under control.

I have a new plan, which is to list half of my drawings from this still ongoing series on ebay and make the other half available on Etsy. It is a way of allowing people to buy 'now' instead of waiting for the ebay bids to conclude and at the same time will help me get feedback on Etsy, I hope.

I really love Ebay. It has been fantastic to get such a positive response from Ebay bidders and buyers.

If you are reading this and would like a drawing, too then just click on the tab on the top right {100 drawings sale} or follow one of my Etsy tabs and see what I have there. (You can reach my Etsy shops by clicking on the tabs on the top left).

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Quantities and Qualities

It's just the sheer quantities that get me all the time..
This is very simply and almost beautifully filmed. No lecturing, no gore, no sensationalism, just a document of chicken, beef, piggy to tummy...
Thought provoking I think.
I imagine that most of us have food spoils from time to time (or shockingly weekly). Just stopping our own waste of food, any food, including vegetables, that alone would make things so MUCh easier on our ecosystem (and wallets and bodies)

I know some of you waste food, I've seen it.
Couldn't we begin at that place to make a change?
I also know that you all speak or think about positive changes, too.

Let's do it them.
I'll race you to the finish line. xxx

ready, steady, go... !


La surconsommation from Lasurconsommation on Vimeo.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Back to the Drawing Board


I am back from a few days of very reduced activity, while I was seeing of J (who returned to blowing glass in California).

I finally launched into productivity over the past 2 hours and listed a new drawing on Ebay for the Penny Drawings Sale where I try and list at least one drawing per day starting with #1 at 1 penny and increasing the price per listing by an additional penny. I am at last up to drawing #61 and just noticed how one of the items has attracted quite a few bids.

It is such a nice compliment when complete strangers bid on something that I have made. Of course I have sold photographs as well as drawings anywhere between £150 - £850 but those sales overall didn't match my production costs. So while it sounds glamorous it still left me with a loss. (That never fails to puzzle me... I also wonder how does one keep buyers coming? At that price range?)

Anyhow what I find very special about the Ebay buyers is that they could be absolutely anybody. Over the past days I had a little time to think about this and I realized that the Ebay buyers are actually the audience that I originally was most interested in when I decided to move into the arts. I had this idealistic optimism and wanted to make Art for People. I didn't want to 'dumb' anything down, nor did I want to pander to demand either (not along the line of the media ratings system anyway) but I did want to create situations. Art works, performances and drawings that had complexity, validity and value without alienating Jane Doe or Joe Blogs, whoever they may be...

But I had  to admit that the Ebay action is taking an extraordinary amount of my time and I can't tell if people appreciate it when they receive something that I may have spent 15 or 60 minutes making. (I am trying ahrd to avoid listing anything more precious than works that I made in or under around an hour.) So when somebody receives a drawing that I really did spend 60 minutes on then I hope they understand that the item is hand made , that imperfection is part of the very nature of Art, that what I send I sent the best I could and made the best I could within the limitations of time and investment.

For example: The sturdy card that I send with most drawings to protect the drawings would often cost me more than the money the ebay bidder spent on their drawing in the first place.. I happen to have a lot of card in stock.. Should I really spend it on this project that will make me an average of 50 pence per hour income...? Probably not..

But mad as I am I am persevering and hope that I will be able to keep on top of posting the drawings in a timely fashion over the coming days.. It would really upset me if I got a bad feedback for the efforts.. So I am continuously nervous, keeping an eye on the feedbacks...

I hope it all goes smoothly.

I would like to list my little men paintings on ebay, too and see if I can get £35 for them. I just really doubt it, but they have sold for £75 in the past and it would seem plain crazy to sell for less than half price now.. wouldn't it??? 

Saturday, August 03, 2013

Get ready for when the sun goes on holiday!

Hi everybody, here a new video showing you some of my crochet neckwarmers and cowls. Yum. 
Get ready for when the sun goes on holiday!

Thursday, August 01, 2013

New fun project: Penny Drawings Sale

img643 by Birgit Deubner
img643, a photo by Birgit Deubner on Flickr.

As promised yesterday on my blog 'Surplus Possessions Sales" I have now started to list the first penny drawings on Ebay. In order to get going to a good start I went wild and listed a whole 17 of them.

This means that you can buy original drawings for 1 penny to 17 pence on Ebay.

The idea is that with each subsequent drawing that I list I will add a penny to the cost. I would love it if you took a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/birgit_75/m.html?item=251313532590&ViewItem=&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562


(I haven't had time yet to make new listings over in Etsy, but you can drop by anyway and take a look at what is already there. Some real bargains, too! http://www.etsy.com/shop/over7seas)