Wednesday, July 1, 2015:
Today was my first time ever showing my art at a vendor booth. Canada Day by the Bay was a great experience and I learned lots about what to do and what not to do. First off location is key, the organizers of the event positioned my booth just west of the pier which is where the majority of the pedestrian traffic is concentrated. However, this section of grass has a fairly high ledge which takes a solid effort for people to actually step up and come into the booth. This definitely was a negative, as the demographic of White Rock is mostly seniors, and of course families with strollers and small children.
Art by Mal: Canada Day by the Bay 2015, July 1, 2015, West Beach, White Rock, BC
Another challenge was that the grass where my booth was located was on a slant. Therefore, I had to be make sure that my canopy and easels were set up so that they would not blow over when there was a large gust of wind. I was able to secure the canopy, but we had a couple moments of panic when paintings and easels went toppling over. Note to self: bring bean bags to weigh down the easels. The easels and paintings weren't the only things we had to worry about. Everything that I had laid out on the back table such as drawings, prints, and frames, would blow away when it was really windy. We ended up taping the drawings and prints to the table but this didn't work for long either. A better solution would have been to use some sort of paper weights.
Art by Mal: Canada Day by the Bay 2015, July 1, 2015, West Beach, White Rock, BC
My favourite part of the day was painting live in my booth. I started out a little shaky because I was a bit nervous painting where everyone could see me, but I'm almost positive that the wind had something to do with it too. Afterwards, I was able to focus on the painting and I really got into it. I would hear people walking by saying "Oh, look she's painting!". It was a pretty cool experience. Sometimes I could feel that someone was watching and I didn't want to be one of those anti-social artists so I would say hello. However, a lot of the time once someone knew that I knew that they were watching me paint they would scurry away as if they weren't supposed to watch.
It was a challenge working with paints in the heat and humidity since I had to work fast so that my paints wouldn't dry out. I brought a small travel container for some water, as well as a small syringe, which I used to add water to my paints when they needed to be rejuvenated. I finished the painting earlier than I had expected and I wish that I had brought other canvases with me to paint because I finished the painting before the biggest rush of the day. Once I finished the big painting I painted a couple small paintings on 6x6" cardboard. After that I drew a pen drawing on a postcard and painted it with watercolours.
Another thing that I really appreciated were the conversations I had with people throughout the day. I had a discussion with the artist in the booth beside me where we talked about how important it is to paint for you and to have fun. Yes, that's right, art is supposed to be fun! She said that she could tell that I had fun doing my paintings.
I talked to a woman who couldn't believe that my paintings were done with acrylics, she didn't quite know why, all she could say was that they had a different feel than other acrylic paintings she's used to seeing.
Another great interaction that I had was with a three or four year old girl. She was sitting with her family on the grass just behind my booth. I was working on my painting, when I saw her poke her head around the corner. She was really excited that I was painting but she wanted to know what it was. Then I realized that I would have to explain in the simplest terms to this young girl that although it kind of looks like a painting of wave it was an "abstract" wave. It was good practice for explaining my art in a way that someone without any outside knowledge of art would understand.
This event was not about selling my art, but rather getting it out there for the public to see and learning from the experience as a whole. People were definitely interested in my art and I heard several people tell me that my booth stood out and was very different from the other vendors. Everyone that was part of the event including those who were running the show, the volunteers, the other vendors, and the passersby were all extremely friendly and it was a great Canada Day experience that I would definitely like to be a part of in the future.
Happy Canada Day!
Art by Mal: Canada Day by the Bay 2015, July 1, 2015, West Beach, White Rock, BC