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The Waiting Game…

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Hello folks…!

My last few days have been spent resting, doing some quiet work on the computer, and making a few pieces of jewellery… At the moment of writing this I am two days late with the arrival of baby #2 so I don’t venture very far!

I have put a little notice on the shop section of my website and also on my etsy shop, advising people who wish to make a purchase that it may take me a little longer than usual to fill and send an order… I’m letting you know just in case, and for the same reason I may not be able to reply to questions and comments as quick as usual on my Facebook page.

You will all know soon enough about my new junior studio assistant!

Thank you all!

Amélie

 

 

Exhibition opening June 12th…

I am part of a summery show at the Boathouse Gallery in Kinsale, opening this Friday June 12th at 7pm. I will be co-exhibiting with some great fellow artists which I have personally known for a long time: Mark Eldred, John Hurley and John Morris. We all have been showing at the Killarney Art Gallery for a long time and have been part of the Rotary Club’s annual Wine & Art evening, so you may very well be familiar with them!

My paintings for the show have a lovely floral influence and I have enjoyed working on them in the last few months, even if circumstances have slowed me down considerably, which leads me to my next news which you might not know if you are not following me on my different social media outlets:
I am expecting again, and not for much longer! 
The birth of my junior studio assistant is due in about 5 weeks, so needless to say painting time has gone down quite a bit, and now the exhibition is ready I will probably put my brushes down for the next month or two. But in the mean time, there are still lovely things for grab in my online shop if you would like to have a look, and to celebrate the big changes coming, here is a  15% off coupon code for the items in the shop section: JUNESPECIAL15  which will be valid until the end of June.
So that’s it for now…! If you’re around Kinsale on Friday night, please do come and say hi!

Many thanks for reading!

Amélie

Click here to see the paintings that will be part of the show!

 

Showcase 2015 – My afternoon in Dublin

I had a quick afternoon in the Capital yesterday, to check out a show that I have never taken part of before but that I am strongly considering: Showcase Ireland.

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Showcase is a trade-only event for retailers, presenting a super vast selection of Irish crafts, designs, jewellery etc… It is not a show to sell individual items, but to take wholesale orders from different shops around the country. Since getting into the wholesale business is one of my major goals at the moment, I think it would be a good one to do next! Obviously this would not be for my original art pieces, but rather for my prints, cards, coasters, and MAYBE for my jewellery as well.

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I really enjoyed walking the aisles and having a good look at how things were hanging, the displays, the props etc, (my background, after all, is in Visual Merchandising) so I just love to look at these things, (and to collect ideas on my Pinterest boards!) I think I’m not too bad at putting a stand together myself…! Here are a couple of my favorites that I have done:

IMG_3078Art Fair RDS 2011 low res

It was a quick enough visit, I only had a couple of hours between my two trains, (I live 3h+ from Dublin) but I’m very happy I went. My head is buzzing with possibilities, and I LOVE when that happens.

Here’s to possibilities…!

Amélie 🙂

 

January Blues – I mean, News.

We are well into the first month of 2015, I hope it is treating you well so far…!

I just realised I have not posted anything on this beautiful new website/blog since October, and it’s time to change that… In one of my last posts I shared with you some goals I had before the end of the year, I haven’t accomplished them all but the ones I did were met with success!

I always find it hard to get going in January. I feel that it takes a while to shake the Holiday feeling, and I just cannot face doing any work while the Christmas decorations are still up. I finally picked up my brushes last week (which I shared on Facebook…!) and I have also been doing a lot of planning and thinking. (read here: spent a lot of time on Pinterest.)

So! My first thing to do at the moment is give Valentine’s Day a little attention…

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There is a lot of lovely little goodies in my online shop which would make a nice little present for a girlfriend, a mother or a sister…! And to say thank you for having read this post so far, here is a little coupon code for you for 15% off any print, card or jewellery item. Just enter VALENTINESDAY2015 (no spaces) when you get to the checkout 🙂

Talk soon…! Amélie

Well Hello, New Website!

A BIG, BIG, BIG Welcome to you all, if you are reading this you are finally on my new website, I’m so glad you’re here for a visit!

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What has changed?

Well I have gone through a bit of a re-branding as you can tell, and my domain name now includes my full name ( Amélie Gagné) and the domain name ameliegagne.com also points to this website.  According to my statistics, 85% of get to me by typing my name directly as a search term.

 

Why did I make this change? I loved my old website,  but it was a Flash website that didn’t allow me a lot of control over the different elements, hence my move to WordPress.

My Licensing collection is also better presented now and I’m hoping to do more work in this department in the future…!

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My online shop will show you prints and jewellery available for purchase. At the moment it is a live feed from my Etsy shop, and Etsy handles the transaction when you are ready to check out. Very soon the shop section will be handled by Woocommerce.

There is also a wholesale section for retailers who would like to carry my line of prints and greeting cards. coasters and cards

So there! I wanted all these pages along with my blog and my original art to be under one brand new and colourful roof.

I would love to hear your thoughts! Many thanks for being here,

Amélie 🙂

15 Before 2015 : Taking on the Challenge!

It’s only this year that I have discovered the wonderful blog of Lisa Jacob, Market Your Creativity. I took an online class over the summer with Lisa and she was full of fabulous insights. In a recent post she encourages people to write a list of 15 goals to accomplish before the end of the year… I have decided to give it a go since I haven’t done much goal setting this year…! So here we go, these are a mixture of personal and professional goals, in no particular order:

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1.Do a complete Fall cleaning in the house. With my last exhibition and then getting this website ready, house cleaning (which was never my forte I must admit) was put a little on the back burner… Say no more.

2.Find retailers to wholesale my line of prints and greeting cards. It’s something I had in mind for a while! I even have a webpage for it…

3.Write a list of Goals for 2015. I’m usually good at it but I don’t think I did it last year… 2013 and 2014 have been a little quiet since I became a mum and I want to be more prepared and focus for the coming year.

4.Put some systems in place to be better organised for 2015. From accountancy to supplies order, I have a constant feeling of being all over the place…

5.Take part in the annual Wine & Art event in the Malton, Killarney. Always a lovely night out and with the proceeds going to a local charity.

6.Take part in the Christmas Craft Fair in the Killarney Outlet Centre. My prints and jewellery did quite well at this fair over the years, and I like to pick a few presents there while I’m at it!

7.Do a MAJOR clean up in the studio. Seriously. I can’t see the table anymore.

8.Launch my new series of inspirational prints. Judging by the reactions I’ve had on Facebook, they should be quite popular! I will organise a pre-order very soon.

9.Create a Gift Guide for Christmas. Something I would send to my subscribers, with suggestions for your spouse, your work colleague, your best friend etc…!

10.Do up a Marketing Calendar. (Thanks again to Lisa Jacob for this one!) Something that  will include the different holidays, when to send newsletters accordingly etc…

11.Start going to the pool with my son. We’ve had a nice summer so plenty of playing outside but with the winter setting in it would be a great activity for me and him, and he loooooves water.

12.Get to 2000 fans on Facebook. I’m getting really close and with your help I will get there!

13.Have a successful holiday season. With a combination of gallery sales, craft fair sales and online sales…

14.Make Christmas truly magical for my little boy. He was still a baby last year but he’s a little curious toddler now and I can’t wait to see him discover all the magic of Christmas!

15.Host a fab dinner party to ring in the New Year. We are receiving the whole family on my partner’s side for dinner on New Year’s eve, it’s the first time that we are hosting this traditional event, which usually involves everybody staying over, lounging, watching movies and have a few drinks. A little daunting (7 adults and 7 kids) but I’m looking forward to it!

Do you fancy taking up the challenge too…? Please feel free to let me know!

So what’s next??

After the rush of an exhibition, I like to take a little break from painting… But rest assured I’m not sitting there just twidling my thumbs! I have two things I want to focus on for the next little while..

– Find markets to wholesale my prints
– Complete my new website
I am working on a submission to send to different shops right now, and on top of my framed prints, I will also be offering fine art coaster sets, and a selection of greeting cards.
Would you like to help me? 
If you can think of a nice local gift shop where you live (in Ireland only for now) and where my prints could fit in nicely,  then please share your suggestion with me and I’ll research it further. If it ends up with a collaboration I’ll make sure you get a little present 🙂 I am looking for wholesale opportunities only as I have several galleries working on a sale-or-return basis.
The Elusive New Website…
I have been working on that for a few months, and then the painting took priority because of the exhibition in Kinsale… I have my current website for quite a few years, and while I still think it looks great, it doesn’t give me much flexibility, I cannot direct people to a specific painting with it’s own url, and it has no shopping cart facility for online purchases… So I am working on a self-hosted  Wordpress site at the minute, which seems the way to go when you want more flexibility.
As I mentioned before in this post, the new site will include my paintings, my blog, my collection available for art licensing, and eventually an online store with my prints etc…
I have been using Blogger since I started this blog, and it has been soooo easy, so I find WordPress a lot trickier and I’m learning my way through plugins and widgets, and I do think it’s coming along nicely, so bare with me! I am hoping to organise a little launch event when everything is ready…
So there! I just didn’t want you to think that I’m being lazy 🙂
Thanks for reading folks, and thank you for your continued encouragements.
Amélie

My Next Exhibition…

As a lot of you will know, every year I have an exhibition at the Boathouse Gallery in Kinsale, County Cork, for the whole month of September. This is what I have been working towards lately…

(If you follow my Facebook updates you have already seen a few images..!)

Room With A View

If you haven’t seen any of them on Facebook, here is a little preview…

I have an official date for the Opening…

Friday August 22nd at 7pm. Come and join me for glass of wine and a chat, and meet my co-exhibitor and fellow artist Mark Eldred.

Kinsale is a fantastic town that I am very fond of, it’s pretty, colourful, great food, and cute boutiques and galleries…

The Boathouse Gallery is a lovely space full of natural light,

And Liz the owner is so great!

 

So come and join us at the opening, and please make sure to say hello. If you miss the opening, the paintings will be on show for the whole month of September.

My website will be updated shortly with all the new pieces for the show!

Hope to see you there,

Amélie 🙂

What’s happening with my Blog..?

(*this post was originally in my old blog!)

I know, I have given it very little attention lately…  You may remember me mentioning that I was working on a new website.. If you don’t, well, in a nutshell, I am working on a website which will present my original paintings, showcase my art licensing portfolio, house an online shop with my prints and jewellery, AND my blog, all under one roof.  This is why I have been so absent from my blog, I was always hoping I would get the new one up and post from there… But juggling motherhood, a part-time job, and preparing for my annual show in Kinsale at the end of August is not always easy!

But all in good times,  it is coming along nicely, and I’m looking forward to show you the new overall image…! Here’s a sneak peek of a part of the front page:

Nearly there…!

I have been slowly learning my way through WordPress to create this new website, where everything will be under one roof… My portfolio, my blog, my shop, and the new addition of a licensing portfolio… Please re-visit regularly as I tweak everything…!

In the mean time, if you really wanted to read my blog, it is still located right here…

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To get in touch with me, please drop me a line on my contact page right here or send me an email at ameliegagnestudio@gmail.com

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