The Denim Collection
One of my favorite parts of creating is getting to make something out of a blank canvas or give an old item new life. During the fall of 2024, I had the idea to create paintings out of my old pairs of jeans. I’ve seen other creators paint on denim before, but never as a piece of wall art. I’ve already enjoyed painting on my old longboard from high school and painting a custom flag for my brother and sister-in-law’s post wedding tailgate, so why not try out denim.
Having recently cleaned out my closet, I decided to take a few pairs of beat up jeans and cut them up. I knew I wanted to test out creating mini paintings on the pockets, but as I was cutting the jeans up, I could see the vision for other swatches and shapes too.
The first denim painting I created was “Howdy.” At first, I thought about taking a western style route and creating an entire collection that way. Denim has always reminded me of fall and a western/country aesthetic, especially since that style was trending at the time. But after creating “Howdy,” I didn’t think that felt authentic to me and was having a hard time coming up with similar ideas. I had a few other random ideas, such as painting sunglasses on a few different pieces, but those didn’t pan out as I had hoped and I ended up painting over them to start fresh.
I continued to scroll on Pinterest and look around for other inspiration and ideas for the pockets. Lips ended up being my next idea. Switching it up from the pockets, as I was afraid I was about to run out of them, I picked a hem swatch and spent an afternoon painting the piece known as “Smooch.” I was really proud of this piece, but again, didn’t think a full collection could come from this style.
I put the denim aside for the rest of the year, spending time creating my stationery and making all my holiday gifts.
January 2025 rolled around and I made it my goal to go all in on my business and make art work. This certainly came with some stress, as expected, but also made me want to stop overthinking my work. One day in the studio, I was itching to get back to the denim ideas. But this time, I just wanted to play around, get out of my head, and create without a plan. I cut a few other pairs of jeans up and grabbed one of the pockets. I had just started to get more colors in heavy body acrylic paint (basically just a really thick acrylic paint that also resists fading which is awesome) and loved how vibrant the colors all were. I picked out a few paints, grabbed my new palette knives and started creating. From that point, I was hooked; the first abstract piece, No. 1, was painted and I was hungry to keep painting.
The rest of the collection came pretty quickly after that. I messed around with different color combinations, palette knife shapes and sizes, and even used a plastic fork to create a different texture. For some pieces, I went right in on the denim; others, I painted a blank background first (this added some sturdiness to the denim and also I just wanted to see how the pieces would differ).
As I went, I figured out which cuts I liked best, what colors I was missing or maybe had done plenty of, which palette knives I liked best, and so on. I still took on each painting with little planning, which, as a perfectionist, was equally freeing and terrifying. This entire painting experiment was truly addicting and made me feel even more confident in my choice to pursue art.
After all 36 pieces were painted and dry, it was time to name them all. I had brainstormed some ideas along the way, but coming up with 36 took longer than I expected (although I probably should’ve realized it would take a while). I took torn up pieces of paper and started writing down name ideas. I placed the papers on top of the piece I envisioned it with. Some names got swapped around or totally thrown out as I went through. After a few days, all 36 paintings of The Denim Collection had their titles.
Getting high quality photos was next on the to-do list. To fully let you in on my secret, for small paintings like these, I placed them on a large piece of white paper under the skylights in the family room of my house (thankful for all the natural light). I honestly felt like these look quite professional for such a makeshift set up (I still use this set up today). For any artists reading this, please know that if you’re going to create a collection with 36 paintings, you need to understand how long the photographing and editing process will take.
With all the photos taken and edited, I began prepping all the product listings for my website. Listings are about as straight forward as you’d expect - adding photos, a description, pricing, and so on. The one part I a) didn’t expect and b) didn’t think would take so long was measuring and weighing each item (my shipping rates are based on weight and size). At this point, I turned on Love Island, grabbed our food scale from the kitchen (this comes in handy more than you know), and sat down on my studio floor to weigh everything. Please note: I later learned it’s more about the size of the package it’ll ship in, not just the item, so I did have to redo this process.
Fast forward, all 36 paintings were now live and available for purchase. On drop day, I sold two paintings (which my mom purchased). I was so excited and proud of myself for creating and releasing this collection, so not selling more pieces was definitely disappointing.
A few months later, I still hadn’t sold any more paintings. I was afraid people weren’t sure exactly what to do with these pieces of denim, so I decided to take some staged photos of the paintings in a shadowbox (aka hanging them up on my bedroom wall - yes the nail is still there). Of course, this took quite a long time again. Honestly, I didn’t love how these photos came out, but it was worth trying.
After my mom purchased her two denim paintings, we took them to our local Framebridge location to get them framed. I had heard about Framebridge online and saw that they framed 3D items in a “floater” frame, so I felt this could be a great option for the denim pieces. A few months later in August, I decided to take a few more paintings to get framed. I thought that maybe the denim pieces felt unfinished on their own; framing them could help me complete the creative vision for each painting.
I took three of my favorite pieces and truly had so much fun picking out the frames for each piece. I’m so happy with how the framing came out; each frame truly elevates the painting, making it feel more luxurious and one of a kind. This certainly was a risk, but it felt like a necessary step and I can’t wait for them to drop on my website (dropping 9.18 !!!).
One of my goals for my business has always been to offer accessible ways for people to collect art. I’ve been wanting to add more prints to my shop, but frankly they stressed me out for a while. I struggled with wondering if I was doing file prep correctly or “good enough.” I took the summer off from thinking about prints to give myself a mental break from it. Towards the end of summer, I needed to get some prints made of a commissioned portrait I created. To do so, I went back to my previous process (that had been successful before) of file prep and the prints came out great. This boosted my confidence again and I decided to dive back into print making.
I’ve seen other artists and creatives create snail mail clubs, so I can’t take credit for this idea, but I decided I wanted to create a monthly print club of my work. I personally love getting fun packages in the mail (I think this is a pretty common feeling). Getting some denim paintings framed sparked that love for the collection again inside me, so naturally I wanted to start there. I sat down and crunched the numbers to see if I could do all I wanted but still keep the club affordable. It took me only a few days to decide to officially go for it. I am truly so excited to offer this now; feeling so excited about it made me feel even more confident in choosing to do it.
As I prepped my pick for October’s print of the month, I also wanted to offer more print options outside of the subscription plan. As much as I would love for everyone to sign up for a subscription, I know not everyone would want that or choose to spend their money that way. Again, I really do want to make art collecting easy and accessible to everyone, so I also added some prints available as a one time purchase (these just released and I think they are so cool!!).
That pretty much catches us up to today. From feeling excited to very uncertain back to feeling excited, The Denim Collection has taken me on quite a journey this year. I’ve fallen more in love with these pieces over the last year, and am beyond excited to have even more ways for people to shop this collection. I hope this very long deep dive helps you all see a bit more of what goes behind creating a collection, specifically my very first one. Check out all things Denim Collection - available in my shop!
