Tuesday 24 September 2013

Brand New LIMITED EDITION A3 Prints by Sarah Lovell Art

I have been working on a couple of new designs and had them printed as limited edition (run of 50) A3 prints. They are a bit different from my other prints, but think you will still be able to see they are by Sarah Lovell Art!

The first is 'Midsummer Night Fairground' an illustration of a magical carousel that appears in the woods one magical summer night. take your pick of a ride on a beautiful pink unicorn, a leaping brown hare or proud mint green deer, all set amongst the trees lit by fire fly fairy lights. Who knows where they will take you....


I always like to think of stories to go with my drawings, and this one conjures up a million adventures in my head. 
It would be great in a child's bedroom, imagine lying back together at bedtime and thinking up stories together about the magical Midsummer Night Fairground!


The second new one is 'The Girl and The White Horse' a magical meeting of a young girl and a mystical white horse who meet in a flower meadow on top of a hill surrounded by yellow butterflies on a beautiful summer's day. Anyone who shares my love of horses and what wonderful creatures they are and what good friends they can become will identify with this drawing. I loved drawing it, and hope it will bring you happiness if you purchase a copy.


All the prints are signed and you can get yourself one right here for £12.95 (excl p & p) , a perfect gift for Christmas or birthday, and remember, if you do get one, you will be one of only 50 people in the whole wide world to own one!

I would love to hear what you think if you leave a comment below, thanks for reading! xx


Tuesday 17 September 2013

What I learnt on my trip to the Autumn Fair at the NEC

Sounds like a title for a piece of school home work, but my trip to the Autumn Fair at the NEC was really useful, and gave lots of new ideas about how to go forwards with my designs for future cards. The fair was huge, and really exciting to see so many new and inspiring designs and meet some people who have been in the industry for a while, all of whom were lovely and gave me some great tips.

I took along one of each of my cards and was armed with smaller sample packs to give to people if they wished. I felt prepared, but what I love to do is draw, and am not necessarily so good at selling, it doesn't come very naturally to me, so I was quite nervous to begin with. The show is a trade show, so people go there to sell to shops, one day I would love my own stand,but this time I just went along to see what I could find out about the card industry.

One of the main things that I learnt is that it's good to have collections of card designs that all link, I do have collections (see a couple of examples below) but I think I need to do some with more designs, more like 10 in a collection rather than 3 or 4.

Spring and Summer Flowers collection

Bike card collection

So I think I will be working on adding to these ones to make bigger collections, then I guess shops have more choice which is always a good thing!

I have also started working on a new collection of cards featuring a girl and a white horse and their adventures together, these are the first 2 (first one complete, 2nd one work in progress) so watch this space for when they are printed as cards.


  
I also learnt about licensing and getting an agent. 

Licensing is when you license your designs and get a royalty on any cards sold or a flat fee for the license for the design. 

Getting an agent would mean some one who sells your designs to shops for you, I met some lovely people who were there with their beautiful cards on display, and then agents would come and speak to them about taking on their designs. 

So I got lots of contacts and am making my way through emailing them all. 

Ideally I think I would love to have a pitch at one of these fairs some day, and see what comes of it. I know that my cards sell as they are going well in the shops they are in, I just need to keep on going with it all. I do love it, and it all fits in well with looking after my children, and hopefully it inspires them, they both seem to love drawing too .

Another good thing that came of it all, was that once I got over the nerves of chatting to the first few people about my designs, it wasn't so scary after all. I even was really enjoying by the end of the day!

If you would like to see my designs, you can do so here and if you would like any more information please leave a comment below, or email me at sarah@sarahlovellart.co.uk .

Thanks for having a read xx