Phew! At last I have finished the biggest commission I have ever undertaken. I will reveal all when I have been paid. I seem to have spent most of this beautiful summer indoors working.
I have taught three special workshops for my class and others and it has been good to meet people again who have been on my mailing list for some time. It is a time consuming process planning a good workshop taking at least a whole day to prepare and often many materials to buy in order to sell enough for beginners to try something out. It does not always work out to be cost effective either and I have decided I need to be much more business like.
I have started by writing up some price plans for commissions so I do not have to make individual quotes for every email enquiry. I am seriously considering giving a discount to clients who make the effort to visit me - these commissions tend to be much more satisfying as I can get a real idea of what someone wants by talking to them and seeing their reaction to different pieces of work rather than by the stilted process of email where brevity can come across as rudeness.
I feel the need to educate clients more about the process of creating a piece of calligraphy - it really isn't the same as hand writing and it is the invisible process of trials, planning, ruling up and rubbing out that takes the time. The actual process of completing a piece is the most rewarding and sometimes the easiest bit. Don't forget the years and years of learning new hands, practising and developing skills too.
Now I want to spend a little time on some work for myself and I am going to start by finishing a book I started in an Oxford Scribes Workshop in June with Edward Wates inspired by his work and that of his mentor Hans Joachim Burgert, such as this below:
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