since march 28th, my orange elephant art shop has been open for business and it has been a journey. there have been a lot of firsts, including writing my first blog post! with starting an art business I’ve had to learn a load of new skills and wear many different hats: a content creator, photographer, editor, writer, website designer, marketer, accountant and most importantly an artist! as an introduction to my website/ blog / newsletter, i thought i should probably catch you up on what’s been going on…

my first etsy listing

i opened my etsy shop and posted my first etsy listing on the 28th March. launching my shop on instagram was a bit scary but also i did it a bit spur of the moment which helped take away some jitters. i had previously planned to launch my shop on the 27th May - my friend Sam Tovey had asked me if i would like to have an art stall at his Chorlton Arts open mic poetry event, so i thought it was the perfect opportunity to fulfil my new year’s resolution of making prints and opening an art shop! i wanted to have 5 prints ready in time. we had chatted a while ago about a collaboration of his poetry and my artwork, and this is where i decided to start - there was a beautiful weed in my front garden that reminded me of his poem ‘weeds can be beautiful too‘ so that’s what i painted! i posted it on my orange elephant art instagram page, which at the time was just a showcase of my artwork, and i actually got a lot of interest very quickly, so i thought i shouldn’t waste the sales opportunity and set it up straight away!

my first sales

still feeling so warm that there’s now a handful of people out in the world with  my art in their homes… by choice too! wild! my top selling piece is ‘weeds can be beautiful too’ a collaboration with poet Sam Tovey, and this was the first print that I sold. The first original piece that I sold was my Bar San Juan painting.

my first art stall

i did my first little pop up art stall on may 27th at Sam Tovey’s chorlton arts poetry night. i had so much fun chatting to people and getting some experience in in-person sales! i was so grateful for my super supportive friends and i even had complete strangers buy some of my stuff! it is still wild to think that people have my art up in their homes!

my first art series

after chorlton arts festival, i was feeling so warmly about chorlton and inspired by the community artistic spirit. i had already drawn ‘chorlton skies’ which included some local businesses and had really enjoyed it, and decided to 

my first website

technically i made a website in as a teenager for school but i don’t remember any of that. this was SO hard. i knew it would be tough before i started, but this was harder than expected. but at the same time kinda fun and it was a completely new skill (14 year old abbie does not count) so i feel like i learned a lot and it will be something that i continue to learn about and get better at! i feel like what i have right now is quite basic but i’ll be updating stuff when needed. any feedback would be greatly appreciated. (Insert contact me form).

my first newsletter

along with creating a website, I decided it was time to start a newsletter. with my research about small business art shops, a lot of sources encouraged getting an email list and writing a regular newsletter. I kept putting it off because I wasn’t sure was to include and I didn’t know if I had enough to write about. Definitely something I didn’t need to worry about!

the first four months of running orange elephant art have been so exciting and fulfilling. there’s been so much to learn that might brain might still explode. hopefully it doesn’t, so i can keep learning more and creating!