We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kendra Curtis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kendra below.

Kendra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

Back when I was working in retail, all I could think about was my creative business or “side hustle” with watercolor that I was enjoying. I began painting custom art for clients, building my library of work, and in any moment of spare time – I was painting. (Even during my lunch breaks!) When the shop I was working at closed due to my boss retiring, I had a choice to make. Either I’d apply for another retail job, or I could risk diving all my energy into developing my watercolor business. After much thought, I felt at peace about choosing what I was passionate about and knew I’d regret not trying it out. I made a goal to invest one year into my business and if it wasn’t profitable or sustainable by then, I’d go back into retail. Today I’m on year 4 of having my art business as my full-time career and I’m so glad I took the risk.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Growing up, I took private art lessons along with my brother and sister. There I really began to develop a love for creatively and tried several mediums of art from charcoal, acrylic, oil, pastels, and watercolor. Fast forward to high school, I began to play more with watercolor and soon enough it became my “niche” medium that I chose to work exclusively with. My Grandpa is a professional watercolor artist that has held several art galleries in Minnesota and Arizona along with being a watercolor workshop teacher in Montana. He sent me my first watercolor supply kit and I spent late nights creating watercolor portraits, florals, and landscapes.

Overtime, I narrowed down to painting just National Park watercolor landscapes. I love visiting National Parks, and that quickly has become my inspiration behind my work. I started to post my work on Facebook and Instagram. Soon later, I got asked to do pop up events to sell my art. I showed up with my art with no business name yet, no business cards, and no idea yet that what I was doing would become an actual business. I was 19 and just wrote my email on sticky notes for those that asked for a business card… I remember being flattered when people asked me for one, since at the time I viewed my craft solely as a hobby. After a couple events, I started a Squarespace website to list my art and finally ordered business cards, ha!

Fast forward to today, and I have a few income streams within my business that I developed overtime. After gaining confidence in my art and further practice, I started to teach in-person watercolor workshops at several venues in Orange County, San Diego, and eventually Paso Robles. I would ask owners of small businesses if they’d like to host a workshop – and no joke, they all said yes. I thinking asking is the hardest part because of the fear of rejection, but I realized I had nothing to lose. Today I now am starting my own watercolor YouTube channel called Kendra VanDruff Watercolors so I can reach more people out of state or abroad. It’s so rewarding to teach and I’m so thankful for my students.

Aside from teaching, I also do pop up events. There I get to meet customers in person and bring my original art, prints, and hand painted ornaments for them to check out. I have all of these items available on my website / Etsy shop as well, but nothing beats actually seeing customers in person and getting to see what paintings they enjoy putting in their home.

In addition to this, I also do custom artwork for clients. One of my favorite things to paint are family portraits in National Parks. It’s such an honor to capture people and their loved ones in one of their favorite landscapes.

More recently, I’ve been partnering with other brands and licensing my artwork. I now have my art printed on Micro Puzzles and some of my National Park paintings will also be printed with the luxury puzzle brand JIGGY Puzzles.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Since being in my first year of marriage, I realized that I needed to pivot my day to day schedule. Before being married, I was super fluid with my schedule and was a total night owl. I would paint sometimes until 2:00am and at hours at a time without taking break. I was also very sedentary which effected my energy level because I wasn’t exercising regularly and put my health on the back burner. Luckily, my husband really has been encouraging for me to maximize my work flow in a healthier way by making sure I get proper rest and take breaks to go on a walk or make time for friends. My work and personal life balance was all over the place prior, and now that I have more of a balanced schedule that prioritizes both my physical and mental health alongside work, feel so much better.

How did you build your audience on social media?

If I were to encourage anyone wanting to build their business on social media, I’d say consistency is key and to not be so hard on yourself. Recently, Instagram and its algorithm has been under a lot of heat because many people aren’t getting as much engagement from their followers due to a lack of being seen. Though I think having an Instagram for your business is both important and valuable, I say there are three other social media routes I would invest my time in that have more security and a better algorithm.

1. First, create a business Pinterest account. Just one pin on Pinterest can have up to a 1-3 month shelf life verses just the 24 hour shelf life a post on Instagram might receive. You can link your website to any pin of yours and categorize your products or services into different categories by creating different Pinterest boards on your profile. Your pins should be your own content of photos that are of your products or reflect your services.

2. YouTube is such a great platform that can allow you to share more about your brand in a deeper way then say a 15-30 second reel on Instagram can. Also, Instagram doesn’t pay you to make content (brand partnerships can, but not the platform of Instagram itself), YouTube, however, will pay you a portion of the money paid by Ads once you’re monetized.

3. An email list is super important to develop. Having one adds a blanket of security. After all, none of us “own” Instagram, Pinterest, or YouTube or any of our profiles on them…. we are at the mercy of their algorithms which could change any time. If in 5 or 10 years those platforms aren’t as popular, I could see small businesses struggle as to what to do next to do online marketing. Good news is, an email list is your own and more sustainable overtime.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kendravandruff.com
• Instagram: @kendravandruff
• Youtube: Kendra VanDruff Watercolors
• Other: https://pin.it/3QIrWHI Pinterest: Kendra VanDruff

Image Credits
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