We recently connected with Jennifer Johnson and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Jennifer thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
After getting a degree in two dimensional studies/Painting , mind you, which everyone told me not to get… I ended up continuing to work in restaurants and being a server. Getting a degree, doesn’t equal automatic employment, especially when you’re an artist. I knew that working in restaurants wasn’t my highest calling, and that I needed to do something related to my degree, so I picked up a part-time gig teaching Painting lessons.
On the days that I had to work in my restaurant job, I would grown and moan, but when I knew it was the day of the week that I was teaching, I would be super excited. So I use that as an indication that I should be teaching. The studio that I worked and taught me a lot, I learned that teaching and painting are two completely different skill sets. You have to be very concise and simple and take it into very small steps. I learned very easily that people are going to exaggerate any step that you give them and that if you bring on some thing, too hard too soon, they’ll get frustrated and give up so you really have to keep it within the range of Challenging, but not too challenging.
I love teaching, but I didn’t necessarily love working for other people and making minimum wage. So I took what I had learned, and slowly, but surely created my own teaching business. Without having any initial capital or investors, I did what I could. My first class I hosted in my dad‘s house, we took out all the furniture I created a Facebook event, And I marketed it as a fundraiser for a local dog rescue that attracted a lot of of people. I am not a particularly social person so I didn’t necessarily have a big to pull from, I also had to create that from scratch. But after the first class in my dad‘s house, I was off! I had a couple more in his backyard and then from there it grew by word-of-mouth, I started having painting classes and peoples homes and doing private parties. I continue to partner with local nonprofit and rescue groups, and that became my network for the first year.
After about a year of doing parties and peoples homes, And still not having enough money to lease my own studio, I realize that I could borrow from the paint night business model and host my classes at local bars and restaurants. I was only 25 years old at the time, and walking into these establishments and talking to the managers and owners, with some thing that took a lot of courage for me at the time, but catapult my business to the next level. From here, I was able to create a more fun and lively atmosphere, and one that I feel like is very conducive to taking the intimidation out of art making for these first time painters. The laid-back, setting, where people were allowed to have a drink or two and relax while also being out in public enjoying local food and drinks, an experience that didn’t exist anywhere else in Tucson.
I had no idea what I was doing, I was 100% winging it, but to my surprise it somehow was working. I am lucky that people in Tucson, Arizona are very supportive of small businesses and women owned businesses, and that word-of-mouth really is the best marketing. I had very loyal Customers that would come back for Painting lessons multiple times a month, and I really was able to create a community of people that were addicted to these fun art classes. They love them so much that they started bringing their friends and family, and from there, it has steadily grown over the past 10 years.
I had no idea how to run a business, and I definitely needed to mature and grow in order for it to work, especially in the realm of having these business relationships with my different venues and creating these personal relationships with my students. The reason it works is because I am obsessed with it, and I’m also very passionate and I feel like my students really appreciate the intensity and craziness that I bring to the scenario… I joke that they’re addicted to the chaos! It’s the most rewarding job I can imagine and I think people can sense that I truly love what I do.
Jennifer, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am a multimedia artist, based out of Tucson, Arizona. I actually didn’t start painting until college, where I decided somewhat on a whim to be an art major. I had always kept a notebook and loved making art, but I was so focused on sports in my youth that I really never had the time to dedicate to it. That meant that I was very far behind all of my college peers who had clearly more fundamentals and skills.
Because of this, I understood the experience of feeling like you are out of your league, or the worst artist in the room. That really set me up for my purpose and vocation now teaching art to adults who have already decided that they are not artistic people. It’s about breaking down that wall and showing them that was simple steps and a little bit of encouragement, (or liquid courage), they are actually able to create art. I see how nervous people are when they come to me for their first class, and it’s my favorite thing to watch , that attitude towards art making and their ability to make art change. I call it “the switch” and that is what gets people HOOKED and coming back to class after class.
A problem that I solve here in Arizona is that there’s not much entertainment, although Tucson isn’t a super small town, there really isn’t much to do here other than to go out and eat. So I do provide an entertainment aspect that’s desperately needed. I feel like people love to go out and do my classes because they get to be at a fun bar or restaurant setting, but they’re not just sitting at a bar drinking.
Our parties are fun and lively (sometimes even with karaoke, dancing, or jumping into a pool!) so they really go beyond a painting “class”. I like to say that we are having so much fun they don’t even realize they are learning! This is what sets Tipsy Picassos apart from other paint & sip companies. The focus is on fun and creating lively experiences, and somehow I feel that also creates better products because people aren’t as stressed out during the process. I have a very laid-back and loose teaching style that I think probably makes some people a little nervous at first, but then they grow to love it because they are able to use their own creativity. At the end of Tipsy Picasso’s classes no two paintings or projects look alike and that’s always the goal!
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
One thing having an art business has taught me is how to continuously stay afloat, using your creative thinking, and being flexible. If you stay the same, then I think your business is going to eventually go under. During Covid, all of the bars and restaurants shut down, which is where I was hosting my classes. Not only were people staying locked in their house and social distancing, but the establishments that I would have my classes weren’t even open so that wasn’t an option anymore.
I didn’t know what to do because in a day my business became completely shut down. I had the idea to somehow teach my classes online, but I didn’t know where to start. I was so used to doing classes in person and being able to see everybody’s artwork and to troubleshoot and help fix their paintings when things were going wrong, I also didn’t know how people would get their supplies. A lot of my classes I pre-sketch the design onto the canvas, and I didn’t know how people were going to do that.
So for my first class, I decided to go online, and I streamed it on Facebook live. I decided I was going to show everyone how to paint baby Yoda, who was all the rage at that time, with a simple drawing lesson at the beginning and then the painting instruction after that. I decided to put together painting with brushes and little paint pots for the class, and that people had to come to my house to pick them up.
I only expected maybe 10 people to sign up, but at the time I had zero income so I figured something is better than nothing. I had 120 people sign up for that class, they lined up down the street 6 feet apart social distancing to pick up their kits. I was astonished, but it made sense, people were dying for something to do! People had watched Netflix, they had made the banana bread, they were bored out of their mind and needing entertainment, and this filled a very necessary gap. People that normally were too busy to paint, now found themselves with the time so I got a lot of new clientele during Covid. I ended up streaming on Facebook live for two years and that helped me get through the pandemic.
I ended up learning how to do bulk shipping and create little Tipsy Picasso to go boxes where I shipped out hundreds of Painting kits all across the United States during the shutdown. I still to this day have people thank me for giving them entertainment during Covid. Once the bars and restaurants open back up, I slowly started my business again, but it was almost like starting from scratch. A lot of my clientele were still too scared to go out and there are a lot of people that I haven’t seen since Covid, but I also got a lot of new customers who tried my classes for the first time online and then started to come to my classes in person.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
Social media has been pivotal for growing my business. I do 100% of my marketing on social media, and I have built up my Facebook, and Instagram, and TikTok pages to more than 10,000 followers per page.
For some reason, I was a little bit intimidated by TikTok, I felt like it was for the younger generation or something like that. I was also spending so much time on Facebook and Instagram that I couldn’t imagine running one more social media page but after about a year of, avoiding it, I said you know what I really need to get on Tik Tok.
The only regret I have about getting on TikTok is that I didn’t do it sooner! Once I had my first thousand followers, I was able to go on TikTok live. I decided that people may enjoy watching me make art. People will literally watch people sleep on TikTok, so I figure there’s gotta be at least a handful of people who would like to watch me paint or do my other crafts.
The first time I went on TikTok live, I was wood-burning into a hat, and one of the people watching said I really love that. Can I buy it? And I was surprised, because I had been trying to sell these hats in Tucson at local farmers markets and craft fairs with little to no success, so I told the lady she could Venmo me $100 and I would ship it to her. Over the course of the next three weeks, I had over 120 orders for Custom burned hats through TikTok live.
TikTok live quickly, became a full-time side, hustle, and I am currently working on creating a TikTok shop where I can scale up this side of my business even more!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: tipsypicassos
- Facebook: https://Fb.com/tipsypicassos
- Other: Tik tok:
Tipsypicassos
