I start by finding a photo that catches my interest. Then I sketch the basic outline of the image onto the plaque of choice. After that it's several hours of patient shading. Of course my hope in all of this is to show my work to the world. Whenever you spend this many tedious hours hard at work at something you truly love, you kind of want to show it off.
This summer I have several faires and events that I'll be attending, selling my work. So far I've done three. The first one was a bigger success than I anticipated and so it spurred me on to keep at it. The second was a total bust and the third got so many compliments that my face hurt from smiling so much. Unfortunately the compliments were verbal and not monetary. You just never can predict the buying habits of people at art shows.
To illustrate a little better how far I've come and what I've worked to accomplish, here's one of my first plaques:
Now, granted this one was only a 3"x5" as opposed to a 7"x9", which means you can't get the detail as intricate - but it's a marked difference.
In between events this summer I'll be working to restock and keep up my back stock - but of course this is intermixed with special orders, too. Friends and family have requested custom pieces, and I find that I enjoy doing those much more. I put extra care into them to ensure that they turn out with the highest quality. My profile picture is one such special order. Here's a larger version of it:
This was a horse a friend of mine had when she was growing up. She had a standard 3x5 photo and I made this 8 1/2" x 11" plaque from it. Like I said, the bigger the plaque, the more detail you get
So on I go! I can't wait to see what people request and what I can create for them!
You want one?
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