One Thing Done, 20 Left!

Okay, maybe there's not 20 things left on my to-do list. Maybe there's more, or at least that's how it feels.

But one thing's done. I finished the knitted hat for someone. I'll take pictures of it tomorrow and talk more about it, but it's weird!!!

I still have a long list of things to do, but I did make some progress on several items today, so I feel better. I know I shouldn't let commissions pile up and once I'm done with all of them, I will do them as soon as I get them. It just always seems that something comes up and I get distracted.

Part of the problem is that for most of my artwork, I'm not getting nearly a living wage or even minimum wage. Since hubby's truck had problems a few years ago (blew an engine -- $20,000) and we built up a fair amount of credit card debt, I feel like I can't turn down any opportunity to make money. Hence, I end up doing portraits, logos, websites, knitting, and other art all at once. If I was getting even $10 per hour, then I could pick and choose to some degree. As it is, only on the portraits do I make about $10 per hour. The botanicals come in at about $5/hr, florals at $6-10/hr depending on medium, still lifes at $3-5/hr for the smoothly blended ones, and about $1-3/hr for sculptures. The last item is why I'm not doing any sculptures right now -- I can't work long enough hours to make even a tiny dent in the credit card debt.

On the other hand, I get about $25/hr for logos and websites and about $10-15 /hr for some knitting. (The hat I just finished would be about $2/hr, because it is knitted fairly tightly.) Unfortunately, there are already too many people doing websites and logos to make that the major part of my income. Also, there's my lack of interest in doing either full time.

So, I'm left piecing things together to make a living. While I would rather make my living from selling 4 or 5 paintings a year, I still would rather do 20 different things at once than get one of those "real" jobs.