[FREE] I'm in!

Heeeey! How are things? I am very happy to report that I am writing this from the new studio. I’m innnnn, baby! (…in my head, that must be said in the voice of Joey from Friends).

One of my first concerns, was the cost of growing the business like this. I have tried to keep costs down as much as possible, and B&Q (which luckily enough is just across the road from me here) have been very kind by having a lot of sales and they keep sending me discounts codes (…er, why are you stalking me like this B&Q, but okay.) In complete honesty, I don’t know how long I’m going to be here for, will it be short term, will it be long term? Will it work for me? Will I be comfy here? I’m in a very fortunate position that I didn’t need to pay a lease to rent the space (I know, riiiight), and I only need to give one month’s notice, so I’m definitely here until Christmas and with that in mind, I didn’t want to invest in big bulky furniture.

So for now, I have snazzy plastic shelving, plastic drawers, fold up tables (which I need anyway for markets and that) and our old dining table that has been sitting in our utility room since we moved house (my husband is delighted that it’s gone, haha). The plan would be, if I do want to stay here long term, then I might consider buying better furniture and giving away what I have now… but that’s way in the future, so let’s see. One step at a time, Marc!

New pinboards and my trusty branded pencil (often found at shows with me)

I see a lot of creative biz pals moving into studio spaces, and the first thing they do is decorate. Awesome. Love that. But, with the length of my tenancy being undetermined, a) I don’t have time now and b) I probably don’t have time in potentially four months to bring the walls back to a neutral colour. So, I picked up some mega cheap pinboards (thank you, The Range) and some even cheaper poster paint (ew, I haven’t used poster paint since school) mixed with PVA glue (hello, colourfast hack) and painted them in the six colours found on the colour dots in my logo. What a brilliant idea, I thought! The vision in my head was soooo impressive. Absolute chef’s kiss. Yet, somehow, in reality, I fear I’ve transformed my studio into a 90s classroom, you’d see on something like Saved by the Bell. Eat your heart out, Zack Morris! Oh well. Better that than blank walls, I guess.

I’m going to be sharing a big project I’m working on, from the studio very soon. So you’ll see exactly why I need the space, and what I’m going to be working on from the studio. In other parts of studio life, it has been so great just to bring over boxes of stock, to help me get my more organised. Already the spare room is starting to look more like a spare room, which brings me a lot of joy! I was panicking about not having my Christmas cards ready for 2024, but then I found lots of left over cards from last year… which I probably would have forgotten about, had I not had the need to sort through everything in this way.

Simple display units, stuck to the walls with Command Strips. Yay!

I have also been able to repurpose set pieces and displays I usually take to shows, to put up in the studio, allowing me to utilise them AND easily click off the walls (thank you, command strips) when I have a market or show. Woohoo. This piccie is what I mean… the plan would be to have different cards on display, but these were easier to pop up in the mean time to stop the space being empty.

All in all, I’m a happy Marcy (is that how you spell Marcy? Marcky? Marky?). Sharing in this way has also got me thinking about how I’m going to be sharing with you, over here on Substack. Originally, my intention was to share more about me as an illustrator, and less about MarcoLooks as a product and service based business, but I think I’m going to hybrid (cue those aliens from Toy Story; “OooooOoOoOO”). I’m going to share studio updates like this, in the week, in a free format for everyone to read, then more about my work, what inspires me and all that, as exclusive content for subscribers, probably at the weekends. Not every week and weekend, you understand… consider my posts more like an unexpected text message asking how you’re doing and let’s catch up. Yay. Hope that’s ok?

As always, thanks so much for being here. It really means a lot.