I'm Cathy Zhang, a self taught watercolor artist from a tech/business background. I believe that life is too short to hate your job, everyone can be creative, and it's never too late to start.
After getting an MBA and climbing the corporate ladder aimlessly and with discontentment, I rekindled my childhood love of art and started painting for the first time in over a decade. I left my 10 year corporate career in 2016 to freelance in order to make time and build my own business.
I'm here to share what I've learned along the way and hope I can inspire you to live a more creative and fulfilling life. This may be your sign to finally start a creative side hustle.
Let's chase our unreasonable goals responsibly.
You don't have to have everything figured out. You just have to take the next step.
Follow my journey on IG + FB: @easysundayclub
My online store with watercolor art and baby goods: www.easysundayclub.com
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Excellent information ❤ thanks for looking deeper at the heart of the matter ❤
How does one damage a printer head? I have an epson 8500 and I definitely dont want to damage the print head. 🫤
Hello Cathy, I am one of your thousands of KZread subscribers, and after watching many of your incredible online videos I truly believe that you are an incredible artist and you have so, so much to be proud of. I was wondering if you would consider making a video tutorial on how to setup an online payment system once your Customers or Clients have decided to purchase your Product, whether you are using your own website or on someone else's website preferably your own website. I believe that this kind of video would also be extremely helpful and beneficial, especially for people like me who are very unsure on how or indeed where to even start looking. Your help and advice would truly be very much appreciated if you would even consider my idea, if not it that is ok, but if you could it would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance
Hi Mac, thanks for the positive feedback! As for online payment, if you use a website platform like Shopify or Squarespace, they have the shopping cart, checkout, and payments as preset features so you don’t have to build it yourself! Same with Etsy, Amazon etc.
Really helpful!
happy to help :).
Excellent video! Thank you so much for sharing!
Ok this is such a great perspective and such an encouragement!!
This is so useful. I am about 5 months into my process and I could not agree more with so many points you made. My main takeaway is that even if you are not completely happy with part of your process, there will be opportunities to change it down the road. I have been blown away by people I just met offering to help when I tell them what I am working on. When I mentioned to someone that I wasn't yet ready to sell at a farmers' market, she offered to let me sell at her booth. One customer service rep at a paper company asked for my shop info. So speak up because you never know where it will lead. Thank you so much for your video series.
yes I was pleasantly surprised and grateful for all the help I got from people I didn’t even know that well. Sounds like you’re off to an excellent start on your creative business journey!
What ink do you use? Does the ink need to be waterproof?
Social media is definitely something I have never been a hiuge fan of. I always felt drained after using it. So I just stopped. I have an artist portfolio on KZread and a blog on Substack, but other than that, I stay off of it.
Thank you. This was really informative.
you’re welcome!
16:36 printers are like pets 😂
😆
thanks for the super fast summary at the beginning, i will watch the 25 mins now because of it rather than skipping to the end as i usually do :)
thank you! 🙏
As always, succinct and practical. I also continue to appreciate your awareness of people's financial constraints!
second comment
Extremely helpful and timely. Thank you for your insight ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️
This is an idea I've been toying with for a while but the process always felt really overwhelming. You've perfectly laid out the important notes and made it so easily digestible - I may actually be willing to finally give it a shot! Thank you for creating this incredible resource and for sharing your experience and expertise.
I’m so happy to hear that!! Give it a shot, what’s the worst that can happen? :)
keeping up with social media is exhausting! thanks for sharing your thoughts
gets more exhausting by the year…
such an informative video! wish I had this guidance when I started!! :)
thank you, me too :).
Whats your prefered dpi for scanning
300
I appreciate your insight so much. I find myself deleting IG and then redownloading it a couple of days later. Treating IG like a portfolio seems like the right idea. I’ll also try to follow your three methods of weening off.
Appreciate you supporting my similar thoughts, Lona! Quitting AND never going back is easier said than done.
This video helped me not over-spend on a larger scanner! I normally paint on 18x24 paper, so I'll have to stitch my scans together, anyway. I'll try to find the video your mentioned from Kathy about stitching scans together. Thank YOU.
Thanks so much!!!!
Thank you! I listened while doing chores. I’ll need to go back and actually watch and listen, and take notes!
not everybody needs to have a "card" business! hah
Fantastic video as always, I love how open and straightforward you guys are. The idea of maintaining social media as a portfolio is great, because it takes so much time for us to follow up with all the changes and algorithms. Thank you!
Dear Shana, how lovely is it to see all your innovative creations here in the one video. It has been so much fun playing along over the past years. Have a beautiful day, Barbara 🇦🇺🦘
As a Sales Director at a Vendor, i have continuously pushed against the Leadership Team to retain my team of outside reps rather than shed them in place of Faire - i think both Faire and Outside Reps can work in synergy if you utilize tools and protocol that ensures no sales rep feels slighted for work done and that you are accommodating those retailers who prefer the convenience of the platform. Ultimately i completely co-sign with you on the user experience does not equate to relationships and that will always matter, as it always has. Period.
thank you for providing your industry perspective! Agreed and I hope they figure out a way to humanize the experience more as automation isn’t always better at all cost.
How do you pack your cards...to transport them to your customers...
check the timestamps; I talk about it in this video.
Very timing with the Facebook and Instagram news..
yea, there seems to be an exodus to Cara but I’m unsure how viable it is if only artists join.
I appreciate your intelligence and all of the insights offered in this video
Thank you, appreciate your positive energy :)!
I have a related question, if doing wholesale, do you have to get UPC/barcodes? And do you have tips for going this route?
from my experience most small shops don’t require your products to come with UPC codes. They’ll add their own barcodes. I did get official UPC codes from GS1 US. You’ll have to maintain an annual renewal fee. Imo I wouldn’t go that route until you’re told by a retailer to do so.
I enjoyed listening to your share. Thank you. As a singer & actress I have taken more of a stance that social media is my portfolio. However I've recently been promoting my event business and its drawn me back into a more addictive space with social media. I hate how i find myself picking up my phone every few minutes after ive put it down. Im going to keep working on not picking it up in the empty space. I also been noticing that when I pick up my phone while watching tv its usually during an emotional moment. Makes me feel like im avoiding or looking for a distraction during those times.
I and so many others relate to your struggle with picking up our phone infinite times throughout the day. Since this video there seems to be a big wave of artists deleting their work off IG or stop posting or moving to Cara app due to meta’s recent announcement that they will use our public posts to train AI models. I wonder how this will play out long term.
How do u factor in time it took to create the orginal art as well as packing?
I also sell the original work. as for packaging the cost goes down the more prints are produced/sold ie. the production process becomes more efficient.
I want to say that even though this was posted a few years ago - I find it very useful, mainly in that yours is more thoughtful and nuanced (i.e., do you like doing X or Y? If you want to do more of activity Y that you enjoy, it means cutting down on another activity and what is the cost of that). This is why I watch your channel - the thoughtfulness you put into it.
thank you. I feel like a lot of people want to watch something aspirational on youtube without the nuances, so here I am 😆.
would you reccomend the epson perfection v550?
I think the only thing that keeps me on Facebook is that most of my family uses it, and I live abroad, but also I rarely check it as now I’m a mom and just tired of looking at it… overall, I want to start writing letters or postcards… though I don’t want the recipient to feel obligated since social media is easier and cheaper 😅 I know we have email, but it doesn’t feel very personal either.
“I’m a mom and just tired of looking at it” sums it up for me too haha.
I finally got myself to stop doom scrolling on social media by switching to audiobooks 😅 It keeps me entertained while I'm working and I've been able to stay away from social media without being tempted to doom scroll all day long like I used to. As for marketing my business on social media, I honestly don't know what I'm doing 🤣 I just post stuff and don't think about it too much. I'm too busy handling everything else that I need to manage to run my business.
The only social media I do is my KZread channel. I had a business Facebook page without ever getting a personal one. After a few years meta figured that out and demanded I open a personal page. I refused, they shut me down and that was fine with me. They also won't allow me to go on any one else's Facebook or Instragram page, so if you think you can reach everyone through meta or x. You can't. You can only reach the people that use those sites.
What a great reflection on the current state of Instagram. Thank you for sharing your thoughts in this video!
I never commented before, but just wanted to let you know how grateful I am for your content! Your inputs are always sensible, intelligent and useful! I think Instagram is dead, it became tiktok, which I don'y even like. I use Instagram merely as a personal board. What I have heard a lot about though, is that Pinterest has been a very valuable tool for art businesses.
My big problem is who to sale it once I created.
This topic was shared in writing in my recent newsletter and I’ve never gotten more replies on a newsletter. If you’re interested in keeping in touch there, you can join my email list on the Easy Sunday Club website. I send very infrequently - no more than once a month.
I think the more we talk about this the more validating it is. We can't all be crazy right lol! The more we hear social media isn't serving it's purpose for small business or people in general the easier it becomes to let it go.
Yes I really hope we can collectively do better for our own health, enough to threaten social media’s bottom line. if not they’ll keep doing what works in their favor.