Meet Shaylene Reynolds

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shaylene Reynolds.

Shaylene, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I am a native Alaskan (Gwich’in and Yup’ik) and was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. I always loved drawing and had many talented artists in my family on both my Dad’s side and my Mom’s side. I studied fine arts at the University of Alaska Anchorage for four years before moving across the country to Richmond, Virginia.

After living in Richmond for a couple of years, I realized that I hadn’t been making time for myself to draw or paint. I started an Instagram account, so I could gain inspiration from other artists and also so I would have a place to share that art. Not long after I started posting on Instagram, I began to get messages from people asking if they could buy my art.

At this point, I didn’t have a website or pricing structure, but I started to sell random pieces here and there and just make up a price as I went along. Eventually, people would ask if I had prints of pieces that had already sold. I didn’t know how to make art prints, but I said ‘yes’ and set out on a very long journey that would eventually lead me to where I am today.

Slowly, one thing leads to the next. I built a website on WordPress which I moved to Shopify and eventually moved again to Squarespace. I started making prints, but the quality wasn’t great, and it became a lot of work to make them and ship them myself. So, I tried outsourcing. There were a couple of years of trial and error before I came up with a fast, convenient way to run my online shop.

When I moved to Dallas in 2016, I decided to take selling art more seriously. I began investing more into the quality of my photos and presentation and got my art professionally photographed by local Dallas blogger photographer Beckley & Co. I also started taking my original art to a local art scanner and framer called Coupralux in the Bishop Arts District.

By making those small investments, my website quickly became much more professional, and I’m now proud to direct people to it when they ask about my art. My print quality has also gone way up now that I have professional scans of my original artwork. I no longer worry about sending someone to my website, and I can rest easy knowing that the prints I sell are top quality.

It was a long and slow learning process, but I’m so thankful for the experiences and knowledge I gained along the way. I never set out intentionally to get to where I’m at. It was just one thing that leads to the next, and I was willing to go along with it all and learn what I needed to as things grew and changed.

Has it been a smooth road?
There were so many struggles and growing pains to get to where I’m at today, and I know I’m still not done learning. The first three years were the hardest because I didn’t even know what questions to ask or the terminology for what I needed to learn. Most of what I tried would fail. And most of my failures were long and painful. I felt very insecure about what I was doing because when someone asked what my plan was I honestly didn’t have an answer.

I just knew I was moving my life in the right direction. However, that was difficult to stick to and to defend when I was failing time and again with my friends and family (and Instagram..) watching. Probably the biggest struggled I had was trying to make quality art prints. I bought a nice DSLR camera off eBay and tried to take high-res photos of my art to make prints from. But there were always shadows, or the colors were off. So I got Photoshop and tried to adjust my images and clean them up.

However, I could only print up to 16×20″-inches before the prints started to get really grainy. Even then, the tones and lighting were inconsistent from piece to piece. I was also having a hard time figuring out where to get prints made. I met a local artist in Richmond named Addie (@addierawr on Instagram) who told me to get poster prints made at Staples. Because the files I was printing from still weren’t great, I wasn’t able to offer a quality product I could feel proud of.

Also, the holidays always presented so many problems to the point where I would get anxiety leading up to December. I would get a surge of orders around the holidays, but because it’s such a busy time for everyone, I wouldn’t get my print orders for almost a week longer than normal. I also shipped USPS at the time, and there were two years where items were getting lost in the mail or arrived late or damaged. It was one of the most stressful things I’ve ever had to deal with in learning to sell my art.

That struggle went on for years until I moved to Dallas and started to get my art scanned professionally at a local fine art scanner and framer called Coupralux as well as having my print orders drop-shipped through an online service called Printful. Now, I don’t have to worry about quality because the files from Coupralux are incredible and the products and quality control with Printful are both reliable and consistent.

If someone asks me how to make art prints, I always suggest finding a local art scanner or photographer to get the best quality file to make prints from. That investment is 100% worth it!

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I’m a freelance artist who works mostly in watercolor and charcoal. I love drawing realistic faces and portraits in charcoal and coupling that with watercolor plants and/or animals. I’m probably most known for my paintings of women in nature. My art now consistently is made up of a charcoal female portrait surrounded by watercolor plants, animals, or skulls. There is often an Alaskan and Native American element included in my art as well.

Being able to start and grow this art business the way that I have gives me a great deal of pride, but I’m most proud of the fact that I’m able to create the art that is meaningful to me. I still take commissions from time to time and do contract work, but a majority of what I’m able to create are personal pieces that nod to my Alaska roots. I believe that is a huge blessing and something that sets me apart from a lot of freelance artists and creatives.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and the least?
I love how affordable Dallas is! I’m able to afford experiences here that I couldn’t afford if I lived anywhere else. I have friends and family on both coasts, and last year (2018) I was able to travel to California, Oregon, Washington state, and twice to Georgia. That’s something I’m incredibly grateful for.

I’m also grateful to have access to the culture that Dallas has to offer. My sister and I went to our first ballet at the Majestic Theater, and we got to try goat yoga for the first time through Happy Goat Yoga Dallas. Not to mention the amazing people I was able to meet and become friends with at a local coffee shop called Drip Coffee.

However, every city has its downside. And for me, the downside to Dallas is how hot it gets in the summer. I end up stuck inside for a couple of months out of the year because it’s just too hot to go out! It’s like the total opposite of winter in Alaska; I just don’t like being stuck inside due to extreme weather.

Also, I don’t love having to drive everywhere. I’d love it if Dallas had more bike paths and hiking trails throughout the city like what they have at White Rock Lake. I’d definitely get out more if that were the case!

Pricing:

• Original Artwork: $660
• X-Large Print: $50
• Large Print: $45
• Medium Print: $30
• Small Print: $25
• Mini Print: $18
• Custom Work is priced at $1 per square inch (ex: 8×10″-inches =$80)

Contact Info:

• Website: shaylenereynolds.com
• Email: info@shaylenereynolds.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/shaylenereynolds
• Facebook: facebook.com/pages/shaylenereynolds
• Other: youtube.com/shaylenereynolds

Image Credit:
Beckley Photo:
www.beckleyphoto.com
instagram.com/beckleyco

Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.