The Age of Upgrade

BIG BATCH OF HAND PAINTED WAX FOR SAN FRANCISCO

I wanted to do a  blog about the upgrade I'm doing and why. Because I am an artist and not a business person I have been lax on so many things I shouldn't have been and caused myself a lot of headaches. This was a year of growing pains for my business and days before my birthday I decided my new age of 39 would be one of grand changes.

For starters...I'm typing this on an old Android phone. It's the only equipment I have. My old Mac finally gave up the ghost and I can no longer do any graphic designing in Photoshop or even save files. This will need to be upgraded, I need a computer.

Let's talk about vinyl though...I started doing the vinyl about 6 years ago and they were pretty basic novice attempts at painting on vinyl. After many experiments, failures and tons of practice... I have brought them into their own. They started as $30 discs and climbed as I got better. I marked everything DOWN to $50 this year and it was a mixed blessing. Firstly I got so many orders that the rest of my month is booked solid. That would be great if I had not had a giant mural project to get into in the middle of all the orders. Overwhelmed much? Yes. But grateful. I figured it was a Summer of learning. And learning I did.

The brutal hot sun coupled with some chemistry and careless postal workers taught me some new lessons with the vinyl. 

One...I had to upgrade my acrylic gloss protector as something else I had been using for years was suddenly reacting to the base coat paint. All my hard work was ruined on a couple of discs the minute the gloss hit the paint. Gloss upgrade meant more $. 

Two...I had been using media mail to save my customers money. Until I discovered it was taking upwards of two weeks for packages to arrive when sent locally even..Dallas to Ft Worth was two weeks with an inexplicable delay somewhere. This would not do. Speedy postage meant more $.

Records boxes for shipping = more money.

The brutal hot sun wreaked havoc on a few discs, it reactivated the gloss and made it stick to the paper sleeves. This caused damage I had to fix. I now take this added precaution of wax paper inserts in with your discs, this means more money. 

A careless post office worker must have thrown my package of discs at one point because I had to repaint a broken Kurt Cobain at my expense. No insurance on package...My lesson learned.

Add into all this that anything a person could ask for all crammed onto one record...They did. "Could you paint gumby?" would turn into "can you paint Gumby in Carravaggio style kissing Mona Lisa while fireworks go off in the background and add my little sister in there and my band logo"  Ohhh and it's a gift so I need it like tomorrow.

"QUE? JOO NEEDIT WHEN?"

That's an exaggerated example but not far from the truth. So I learned how long each thing took to paint and how to charge for it accordingly. Like adding text is $10 extra and any complicated logos we will discuss further. Adding extra people next to Gumby is more time..which means more money.

So far since the price change I've had two people ask the price of records and when I said $75 they disappeared. I've had one who has a complex project worth $125 readily say YES PLEASE. And that's what I want and appreciate...someone who appreciates my labor and time, all the headaches I've been through the hard way to bring you..YOU..The best I possibly can. 

In brief here's what your record goes through with me:

I get a disc and clean it of any dust, etc.

I base coat primer the background colors to your choice. It then dries (cures) for at least 24 hrs.

While drying I take the image you sent me and make a drawing from it scaled up to be visually striking on the disc. Then I transfer that drawing to the disc and...The magic happens. I sit there for hours HAND PAINTING your record, some things require glazes and glazes (like portrait work, faces, flesh tones) and everything requires multiple layers of paint that I speed up drying time with a hair dryer on.

When it's finished it gets a little attachment piece put on the back and it's taken back outside for gloss protecting, multiple coats...Then it needs about 48 hours to cure before it can be ready for shipping.

Shipping entails putting it into a sleeve with wax paper inserts, bubble wrap or appropriate padding and I hand write a thank you note before sealing the whole thing up, labeling it and driving or biking to the post office to send it out to you.

Simple. And definitely worth $75 thank you very much :-)