I recently received a suggestion for a blog post from the cryptically named “GL”:

I’d love to see a post about strategies you utilize for anticipated “slow” or “off” seasons.

For many of you, the deep winter is the off season. Because my gallery is located in Scottsdale, and because Arizona is so blazing hot during the summer, our art season is exactly the opposite of a lot of other art markets who do most of their business during the summer. Our traffic declines dramatically during the summer, and, as a result, so do our sales.

Our summer slow-down is long too. People often ask me when our “off” season is, and I reply that it begins when the temperatures climb above 105° fahrenheit and ends when the temperature drops back below 105°. This usually corresponds with dates in mid May and mid October. This means that we have five long months without much activity in the gallery.

[In 2019 we opened a second gallery in Pinetop, AZ, which is busy during the summer and slow during the winter. This helps us keep busy year-round, but each of the galleries still has its own off season.]

There are a number of implications of a slow season. First, we really have to make hay while the sun shines during our busy season. We have to make enough sales to cover our overhead and save up a reserve to carry us through the slow summer months.

Second, it means our Scottsdale gallery staff has a lot of time on their hands during the summer. During the season we have a constant flurry of activity. We have days where we will have hundreds of people through the gallery, each one of them requiring attention and follow-up. During the summer we have days where we may only have one or two people through the gallery. The difference in activity can be somewhat shocking.

Many of you also experience slower times in your business as the art market in your local area enters a slower time of year. Allow me to share some of the activities we engage in during the slow times – activities that you might find helpful as you are planning for your slow times.

1. We follow up with customers. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. As I mentioned before, during our busy season the volume of traffic can be overwhelming. We do our best to follow up with every customer right after we interact with them, but our off season is a great time to follow up with the ones who didn’t respond, or who told us they weren’t quite ready to buy. I’ve mentioned before that I feel that most artists and gallerists aren’t following up enough with their customers. Off season can be a great time to improve your follow up. Don’t feel awkward if it’s been a while since you last  reached out to a customer – dash off an email or pick up the phone. Even though it’s already hot here, June usually ends up being a very good month because of all of the sales we close using follow-up techniques.
2. We plan for the season. We use the off season to schedule shows, review portfolios, and schedule our gallery display for the upcoming season. As an artist you can use off season time to prepare for shows and art festivals you might be participating in. We use the summer to build up our inventory by having artists ship us work. You can build up your inventory by focusing your off season on production.
3. We take a vacation. Let’s face it, to be successful in this business, you have to work very, very hard. I take advantage of the off season to spend time with my family and to see the world. This last summer we spent time in the mountains at a cabin, and Carrie and I got away together to Georgia and South Carolina. Xanadu director Elaine went to Europe. I find that down time recharges my batteries and gets me excited to get back to work when the time comes.
4. We focus on internet sales. Fortunately, the internet has no off season, and over the last several years we’ve seen an ever-increasing growth in our internet sales. During the off season we put even more emphasis on our efforts to generate online activity and sales. Our Catalogue has helped us increase sales activity year-round, including during our off-season.
5. We tackle big projects. The summer is also a time for us to get to those projects that we keep putting off during the busy season. The abundance of uninterrupted time available during the summer is a great time to update inventory records, organize storage, catch up on bookkeeping, and a host of other unappetizing but necessary tasks.

I think perhaps the greatest challenge of the off season is that it’s very tempting to let momentum slip away. I try to work just as hard during the summer as I do the rest of the year. Those long, slow months can either be a liability or an asset. I work very hard to make them pay off.

What Do You Do To Take Advantage of Your Off Season?

What activities have you found to be most useful during your off season? How do you prepare for your busy season during your slow time? How do you keep your slow time from slowing down your business growth? Share your thoughts and insights in the comments below.

Here is a concept I struggle with all the time. I bet many of you do too.

The value of our art has very little direct correlation to the amount of time spent creating it.

Stop and read that again please. Do you believe it? Intellectually I do. But my heart says it’s not right. In a just world, the art I spend more time creating should absolutely be worth more than the art that takes me little effort.

I didn’t write this article to discuss pricing strategies. This is more about resisting the urge to assign lower values to less labor intensive works. I’ve continued to do so, and it has not served me well. It’s something I am going to be more vigilant about.

Consider this. I can paint WAY faster now than I could in 1980. Yet my art sells for much more.

If you create things in series like I do, it takes much longer to give birth to the first pieces in the series. As you experiment and learn more efficient ways to breathe life into your ideas, you find you can accomplish them quicker. So does that mean the later pieces are worth less? For me, they are usually noticeably better than the first ones, but they took half the time.

These things make your mind spin when you think too hard on them.

Even when aware of this, the majority of artists I know, myself included, prioritize time spent in our pricing rubric. After all, time is a currency – in the end some would say our MOST valuable resource.

“Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy” often translates in my head to “If it didn’t take a long time to manifest, it’s not really worth much.” Can you relate to this?

But how well is this working for us?

And, with AI tools entering the art scene, some may feel that AI generated or assisted art reduces the time the artist has to spend creating, making the outcome less valuable. Some of us remember that we had the same discussions when we stopped using 35mm slides as references and entered the world of digital photography.

It’s so hard to talk about how collectors value the time it takes for us to make art, because often they do not. Many famous artworks took the artist very little time to produce. Yet they have sold for tens of thousands and even millions. Do a google search on “sale of blank canvas makes history” and you’ll see this happens all the time. How can we reconcile this?

We can’t.

We can’t control perceived value of our artwork. The value of an artwork is subjective and dependent on the tastes and preferences of individual collectors. Some may place a high value on works that are technically impressive and demonstrate a high level of skill and craftsmanship, while others may be more interested in works that are experimental, innovative, or provocative, regardless of the time spent creating them.

So, as all things do for artists, it circles back to what do we, the creators, assign value to? Do we price an amazing painting we made in two hours lower than a piece we have struggled for days with and it still isn’t coming together right? Or do we charge by the square inch? Or do we have a formula based on the cost of our shipping and framing and supplies? These are all viable options. In reality, our art is worth what someone will pay for it, no matter how many hours we put into it.

I’ve come to a place where I price my works of similar size comparable to the last piece I sold. Every few years, I raise those price points by 10 percent. I compare my prices to peers who I feel are at the same place in their art journey as I am, just to be sure I am not pricing too high or too low.

If you have not sold work, or are trying a new category, I find it’s best to compare your art to the prices of sold pieces by your peers. Sometimes we are too close to our own work to be objective. I will often ask friends or gallery owners what they think my work is worth, before I decide to set a price.

Whatever you decide to do, please think before you discount that artwork that feels like it created itself. I’ve heard from many artists that pieces we put the least effort into are the ones that often sell first, and at full price.

It’s something to think about.

Until next time,

‘Murun’, a Wiradjuri word meaning breath or life, and the English word ‘murmur’, meaning a low recurring sound or soft voices, are terms born far from each other — one long of this land, and one newly spoken here — but converge in untitled (giran) 2018. This major installation by artist Jonathan Jones is the most recent in a series of collaborations with esteemed Elder and Wiradjuri language expert Dr Uncle Stan Grant Snr AM and takes shape as a murmuration of winged sculptures evoking birds in collective flight. View this spectacular installation at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane during the exhibition ‘Air’.

Air | Timed tickets on sale
GOMA, until 23 April 2023

Giran (wind) is a term that describes fear, or apprehension, and the work is accompanied by sounds of wind, bird calls and the breathing and whispering of Wiradjuri speakers. ‘Understanding wind is an important part of understanding Country’, says Jones. ‘Winds bring change, knowledge and new ideas to those prepared to listen.’¹ In his work, language is woven together with air over the land; the breath in and out of the body; wings in flight; and the wind through the river oaks, reeds and cumbungi (bulrush).

Details of ‘untitled (giran)’

untitled (giran) includes approximately 2000 separate sculptures of six types of tool, each made from a different material: bagay (an emu eggshell spoon); galigal (a stone knife); bingal (an animal bone awl); bindu-gaany (a freshwater mussel scraper); dhala-ny (a hardwood spear point); and waybarra (a rush ‘start’, the beginning of a woven item, such as a basket). Such tools allowed our ancestors to hunt, prepare food, eat, sustain and protect themselves, living lightly and flexibly. Each tool embodies the knowledge passed down through generations and represents the potential for change. ‘Each idea, each tool, is limitless in its potential’, says Jones.

Watch: Jonathan Jones introduces ‘untitled (giran)’

Jonathan Jones discusses untitled (giran) when first installed in ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9) in 2018

A small bundle of feathers, gathered from birds from a wide range of locations, is bound to each tool with handmade string. People from all over Australia sent Jones packages of feathers to include in the work, many with handwritten notes.² To guide their participation, Jones asked his feather-collecting collaborators to ‘Slow down, look around, listen to the birds’, and offered a quote from the late Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Michael Riley: ‘I see the feather, myself, as sort of a messenger, sending messages onto people and community and places’.³

untitled (giran) shares traditional knowledge and seeks to foster change and the exchange of ideas and skills. Uncle Stan Grant Snr speaks of this work as continuing the development of Wiradjuri gulbanha (philosophy), working with language and Country via the artwork for the ongoing enrichment of the community.

Jonathan Jones ‘(untitled) giran’ 2018

Endnotes
¹ Quotes from Jonathan Jones are from a conversation with the author, 28 May 2018.
² Many sent feathers in response to a call out from Kaldor Public Art Projects, which hosted Jones’s previous major work, barrangal dyara (skin and bones) 2016, a vast sculptural installation stretching across 20 000 square metres of Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden.
³ Michael Riley, <michaelriley.com.au/cloud-2000>, viewed July 2018

Edited extract from the accompanying exhibition publication Air available at the QAGOMA Store and online. 

Artwork acknowledgments

The artist acknowledges Aunty Betty Grant and Dr Uncle Stan Grant Snr AM; the Bathurst Wiradyuri and Aboriginal Community Elders Group, including Uncle Bill Allen Jnr Dinawan Dyirribang and Uncle Brian Grant Maliyan; the late Aunty June Barker and Uncle Roy Barker; the late Uncle Albert Mullett; Uncle Geoff Anderson; Uncle Charles ‘Chicka’ Madden; Aunty Yvonne Koolmatrie; Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin; Aunty Julie Freeman; Uncle Badger Bates; Aunty Lorraine Connelly-Northey; Uncle Allan Murray; and Aunty Maroochy Barambah.

Thank you to Lille Madden; Lachlan McDaniel; Luke Mynott, Wes Chew, Julian Wessels & Candace Wise of Sonar Sound; the Hands On Weavers from Wagga Wagga, in particular Aunty Lorraine Tye and Aunty Joyce Hampton; John Kaldor AO and the Kaldor Public Art Projects team, in particular Monique Watkins; and Genevieve O’Callaghan. Thank you to the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research, University of Technology Sydney, and Professor Larissa Behrendt, Matthew Walsh and Cassie Willis.

Thank you to Carol Cooper; Leanne & Darryl Cowie; Nici Cumpston; Judy & Tony Gyss; Sonya Holowell; Liam Keenan; Sara Khan; Chris Koolmatrie; Isaac Lindsay; Enoch Mailangi; Emily McDaniel; Neil Meyrick; Georgia Mokak; Kent Morris & Tiffany Kommedal; Bernice Mumbulla; Simon Penrose; Thea Perkins; Rachel Piercy; Gabriella Roy; Taree Sansbury; Elin Thomas; James Tylor; and Kassidy Waters.

For answering the callout for feathers, thank you to Jan Allen; Deborah Anderson; Kay Andonopoulos; K. Atkens; Lara Bamundo & Annie Dennis Children’s Centre; Timo Barabas; Jacqui Bennett; Vanessa Berry; Kathryn Bird & Ross Gibson; Madeleine Bromley; Heather Bullard; Barbara Campbell; Seth Carr; J Christian; Natalie Cleary; Vikki Clingan; Alison Clouston; Catherine Clover; Nicky Court & Middle Harbour Public School & Northern Nursery School; Alexandra Cowie; K & A Crawford; James Culkin; Leissa & Peter Dane; Heather Davidson; Dallin Day, Sienna Griffiths, Anne O’Neill, Jamiee Woodbridge & Belconnen High School; Fiorella & Phillip de Boos-Smith; Max Delany; Sandra Dodds; Adrienne Doig; Katie Edgerley & Terry Conway; S. Edwards; Linda Elliott; Aaron Ellis, Grace Ellis & Isaac Ellis; L Ellmoos; Mark England; Arlette Exton; Tobhiyah Feller; Megan Fizell; Ellen Forsyth; Toni Grant; Simon Grimes; Sarah Gurich;  Haas; Terhi Hakola; Gill Hazleton; Jan & Wal Heinrich; Kate, Stella & Violet Hofman; Maree Hunt; Gordon Jamieson; Jarjum Preschool Group, Gumnut Gardens; Wendy Jones; Joan Kennedy; Roland King; Susie Lachal; Grace Lancken; Martin Awa Clarke Langdon; Anne Lazberger; Michelle Maartensz; Karen Maber; Fiona MacDonald; Vanessa Macris & Harmonie Henderson-Brown; Leigh MacRitchie; Myra Maloney; Bridie Marks; Gillian Marsden & Axel Meiss; Stella Maynard; Alice & Mike McAuley; Tim Melville; Helen Milgate; Romlie Mokak; Victoria Monk; Maryrose Morgan; Laura Murray Cree; Kylie Neagle; Sarina Noordhuis, Saskia Hirschausen & Nikolaas Hirschausen; Linda Notley; Louis O’Connor; Poppy O’Connor; Kerry Ann O’Reilly; Sharron Okines; Kate Isobel Partner; Amanda Peacock; April Phillips; Cara Pinchbeck, Amirah Sergas & Callyn Sergas; Sarah Pinferi, Peter Whatmough, Oscar Whatmough & Sofia Whatmough; Mary Preece; Hannah Presley; Raushan Reehal; Kate Riley; Cameron Robbins; J Robinson; Kelly Robson & Jane Maxfield; Elise Routledge; Stephanie Scroope & Sierra Jurd; Carmen Seaby, Maya Cashworth-Seaby & Athena Cashworth-Seaby; Wesley Shaw; Wilfred Shawcross & Tove Shawcross; Eileen Slarke; Paula, Adrienne & Nadia Slattery; Hannah Snow; Madeleine K. Snow; Carolyn Sullivan; Jennifer Sutton; Nicki Taws; Tim Throsby; K Tok; Emily Valentine; Ilaria Vanni; Robyn Walden; Shae Leslie Watkins; Eleanor Whitworth & Arlen Briggs; Dot Wilkin; Natasha Wills; Suzette Worden; and Susan Wyndham.

This project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; the NSW Government through Create NSW; the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund; and by Carriageworks through the Solid Ground program.

‘Air’ / Gallery of Modern Art, Gallery 1.1 (The Fairfax Gallery), Gallery 1.2 & Gallery 1.3 (Eric and Marion Taylor Gallery) / 26 November 2022 to 23 April 2023

#QAGOMA #AirGOMA

What it genuinely seems to be like on “the established” when filming is taking spot

This is what “the studio established-up” appears to be like like alternatively a great deal of the time. Judges chatting to artist and cameraman, audio individual and assorted others standing and sitting close to. Other artists attempting to concentrate and complete their portray. Location the sitter!

Even so the way it really is heading to function will be Distinct this calendar year. See down below for extra data which consists of:

• Location: Battersea Arts Centre – and how to get there
• Dates: PAOTY Heats Series 10 x 6
• Be in the Audience: how to ebook to be there when the filming requires place

An empty Grand Hall, Battersea Arts centre – right before the established-up and folks get there

Portrait Artist of the 12 months:
Sequence 10 – Filming of the Heats

Location: Battersea Arts Centre

Battersea Arts Centre – on Lavender Hill

The handle for Battersea Arts Centre is Lavender Hill London SW11 5TN. I know! No clue as to where by.

However 

Invite to go to

The web page for Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the 12 months has provision for men and women to indicator up for notifications about the collection – which include when and exactly where filming will take place.

That’s the ideal way of maintaining in contact with what is actually happening – and there are can be final moment modifications on situation.

The Public are invited to go to – particularly people who are enthusiasts and/or have beforehand entered but not acquired in. 

This yr, Stuart Prebble (who runs Storyvault Films who make the sequence) has mentioned that 

We have revised our arrangements for admitting the general public to the recordings of Portraits. We have decided to supply 2 periods a working day for customers of the general public to occur along to enjoy the filming of PAOTY Collection 10 at Battersea Arts Centre.

We will be welcoming audience on to the set both in the early morning (arrival of 8:45am) and the afternoon (arrival of 1:10pm). Be sure to can you register which session you would like to attend by email to portrait@artistoftheyear.co.uk

Please notice, if you would like to show up at the overall working day, use for equally the early morning and afternoon classes and we will check out our greatest to accommodate your ask for.

Dates of the Heats

This calendar year the dates for the filming at Battersea Arts Centre are detailed down below.

By the way, the buy of the Heats – as filmed – is NOT the order of the heats as revealed in the episodes.

There are 8 heats – which usually means one particular of them will be for Celebrity PAOTY – but they will not say which one!

Week 1

• Tuesday 18th April (loved ones helpful) AM or PM Household friendly suggests little small children are welcome. Which I get to imply, by implication, not so significantly on other dates! You should not forget about it truly is a movie established so wailing infants or really noisy youngsters may perhaps nicely will need to be eliminated from the Hall for the reason that of the sound.
• Wednesday 19th April AM or PM
• Thursday 20th April AM or PM
• Friday 21st April AM or PM

7 days 2

• Monday 24th April AM or PM
• Tuesday 25th April AM or PM
• Wednesday 26th April AM or PM
• Thursday 27th April AM or PM 

Week 3

The semi Ultimate is appealing – but more complicated to see what is taking place because they’re all searching at just one sitter – and they are at a reasonable aged distance! Plus cameras require space to get in front of / at the facet of and guiding every single artist!

The problem is to attempt and get the job done out which three will go by to the Ultimate – centered on the warmth portraits at the again of the hall and the portraits of the movie star sitter currently being produced in entrance of you. I picked all 3 correctly when I attended this semi-final!

Appear at the length among easels and sitter

• Wednesday 3rd Could (semi last) AM or PM

Examining the semi ultimate portraits of Elaine Webpage in April 2019 for PAOTY 2020

7 days 4

The Final has usually been filmed at the Nationwide Portrait Gallery – but it would not reopen for one more two months so the Closing is at Battersea.

• Thursday 18th May well (remaining) AM or PM

There are facilities on website for getting refreshments – but there can be prolonged queues so you might believe it superior to provide your possess.  

It really is also a Quite prolonged working day. It starts off early and finishes late. You require to variable that in if being for the afternoon session

The best artist websites feel effortless.  They put art front and center and give voice to the artist.  The sales rep who never sleeps, a great artist website sells your art, communicates with your customers, promotes your exhibits and showcases your best work. 

Every month, 500,000 people search for art online.  Even if you make your money at art fairs or from a gallery or home studio, you need a way to share and sell your art online.  

A stunning portfolio website could jumpstart your art career.  

But you’re not a web developer, and frankly who has the time to learn?  Hire a web designer?  Sounds pricey.  

Plus, an artist’s website is unlike any other.  You need a visually-oriented homepage, gallery pages, and an artist statement. A one-size-fits-all website builder isn’t for artists. 

The good news is you don’t have to train as a web designer, spend a fortune or settle for a lackluster website.  

Over two decades, Artweb has helped more than 66,000 artists build professional art websites without the hassle or expense.  With their feedback, we’ve discovered the 10 secret ingredients found in all the very best artist websites. 

Read on to learn how you can build a professional art website that gives you visibility, showcases your portfolio and sells your art. 

#1: A Website Builder Designed for Artists

Choosing the right platform for your website is one of the first and most critical decisions you’ll make in your art business.  Choose wisely and you’ll enjoy an easy-to-build, affordable website that provides you a professional online presence.  Or, choose poorly and you could find yourself with an expensive, time-consuming and clumsy patchwork that was never built with your needs in mind.

In truth, there are a lot of good options on the market.  And one artist’s ideal website platform is another’s biggest headache.  So, your first step should be to home in on your priorities.  Ask yourself:

Artweb vs WordPress: What’s Best for Your Art Website?

In websites, as in life, every choice comes with a trade off.  For example, WordPress is a terrific option for a tech-savvy artist who wants to customize every pixel on their website.  The open-source website creation platform offers multiple “themes” that artists can customize to their style, or augment with plug-ins for e-commerce, email marketing and more.  But with flexibility comes time, money, and regular upkeep.

In contrast, Artweb opts for an easy-to-use, low-maintenance and affordable solution.  Our philosophy is that the best artist websites are about the art, not the bells and whistles.   You’re an artist, not a web developer.  So why anguish over font choices, layouts, or photo positioning? Instead, Artweb curates website templates specifically for artists.  That means your website comes ready-made with gallery pages, an artist statement and the most trustworthy e-commerce tools. 

Ultimately, to create your very best artist website, you’ll need to understand your priorities, budget and interests.  Do you want to focus on your art? Or your website?  To learn more about the pros and cons of your options, check out our guide to artist website builders.

#2: An Artist Brand that Tells Your Story

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then an artist’s brand is like a book of illustrated short stories.  And you cannot create a beautiful portfolio website without a powerful visual narrative. 

Yes, branding feels like a dirty word, but bear with us.  Like any small business owner, you need to ask yourself: “What is my Unique Selling Point?”  But unlike your run-of-the-mill Main Street shop, your unique selling point shouldn’t be manufactured for a target audience, or dictated by the latest trend.  It should be an authentic, genuine mission that comes from the art you make, rather than the other way around. 

Let’s consider the three elements of an artist brand that the best artists websites use so effectively:

Color

With your color scheme, you wordlessly convey your values and style as an artist. Primary colors feel dynamic, while neutral tones feel soothing. On your homepage, where visitors rarely linger for more than a minute, the efficiency of color is paramount. 

Font

Your primary font should be simple, and make text easy to read.  Avoid serif fonts – their curlicues are less mobile-friendly and present challenges for visually-impaired readers. 

But that’s not to say your font shouldn’t have personality.  Whimsical or somber, modern or traditional, your font makes a subtle statement about you as an artist. 

Logo

Your logo is the symbol that tells visitors: you’re in the right place.

When it comes to the best artist websites, a logo provides consistency and reassurance between pages and across marketing channels.

It telegraphs the artist’s personality, medium and color scheme. Moreover, it may be the first thing art lovers notice when they arrive at your site.

Fortunately, you don’t need a marketing budget to create a timeless, eye-catching logo.  Nike famously paid a student $35 for one of the most recognizable emblems on the planet. 

Today, graphic design websites offer free templates awaiting your inspiration. 

#3: A Memorable Domain Name

What’s in a name?  More than the Internet equivalent of a street address, your domain name serves as another extension of your artist brand. 

Indeed, the best artist websites boast a domain name that introduces the artist, explains the medium and boosts visibility in search engines.  

With nearly 2 billion websites in the world, it’s not always easy to claim your preferred domain name. While a combination of first and last name remains the gold standard for artist websites, few people have a name so unique that this option remains open.  

Instead, you can get creative and incorporate other keywords into your url.  But remember that a domain will dictate how Google and other search engines find your website.  A descriptive, but straightforward name that incorporates some version of your name, the words art or artist, your medium, or your location will increase your online visibility.  

Great Domain Names from Artweb Artists

When your trusted “First Name Last Name” combination isn’t available, get inspired by these resourceful artists:

#4: A Stunning Homepage

An artist homepage is your shop window. Just like an eye-catching display that turns window shoppers into buyers, your homepage should make the casual browser stop and think “WOW!”

On average, a visitor leaves a website after less than a minute.  But the most successful art websites treat their homepage as a welcome mat, enticing visitors to browse their collection and guiding them to gallery pages, the about the artist page, and ultimately to the online store or contact page.  

So what are the ingredients of a great homepage?

• Stunning images of your art
• A captivating (but brief) headline
• A homepage menu with clear directions through the site
• A Call to Action button that attracts visitors to make a purchase or get in touch
• Testimonials

#5: Professional Photographs of Your Art

Did you know that nearly 20% of art sales now happen online?  What that means is without high-quality photos of your art, you may be left behind.  

Bad photos means fewer sales.  Limited opportunities for licensing deals and reproductions.  Unhappy customers and costly returns.  

That’s why beautiful photos take center stage in all the best artist websites.  Fortunately, it’s easy to DIY your way to stunning professional-grade photos of your art.   

Take photos or scan your art

First, check our guide to photograph your artwork.  It’s the collective wisdom of 66,000 (and counting) artists on a budget, who’ve shared their tips for taking million dollar photos on a penny-pinching budget.  We also have specific guides for taking photos of sculpture, or photographing jewelry. 

Did you know you may not even need a photoshoot?  For some types of work, such as printmaking or collage, detail and texture are everything.  In those cases, you’ll want to scan your images instead.  Here’s our tips for scanning your work (even if it’s bigger than your scanner)! 

Optimize images for the web

Once you’ve taken your photos, you’ll need to save them in the right format, adjust lighting and crop them to remove any unnecessary props (like your hand!).   Our guide to optimizing your images for the web will help you produce pixel-perfect photos every time. 

Upload to your artist website and build a gallery

At last, the easy part!  With Artweb, you simply upload your photos and your gallery templates do the rest. 

#6: Gallery Pages that Organize Your Art

Presentation is everything.  While high-quality images of your art are a must, you also need to showcase your work as if you were building an exhibit. 

Create separate pages for each genre or medium.  Or, build a page for past exhibits.  If you’re hoping to secure commissions, grouping your catalog into distinct pages of no more than a dozen artworks will make it easy for visitors to find art that interests them. 

#7: A Compelling About the Artist Page

Art fans aren’t just buying your work.  They’re interested in your story, your process and your inspiration.  Treat your About the Artist page as an afterthought and you risk losing views or sales.  

Fortunately, you don’t have to be a great writer to craft a winning biography or artist statement.  

Check out our comprehensive guide to writing an artist statement and our tips for a standout About the Artist page.  Learn how to: 

• Describe your art with language that makes a great first impression.
   
• Welcome them inside your studio with a candid photo that charms your buyers.
   
• Showcase your achievements with a bio and resume that sells you AND your work.
   

Still need inspiration?  Grab some tricks from these successful Artweb members. 

#8: An Online Store to Sell Your Art

Wouldn’t it be nice if every day was a peak art sales day?  But your time is scarce.  You’re limited by geography.  There are only so many exhibits, fairs and art nights you can realistically join. 

But an online store is the secret e-commerce weapon that gives you an edge over other artists.  

Many website builders offer some form of online payment system.  But the best artist websites sell more art precisely because they use a solution built specifically for artists.   For example, Artweb offers an easy-to-use online store that serves the needs of both art buyers and sellers: 

#9: SEO that Gets Your Art Found on Search Engines

Every month, 500,000 people search for art online.  

So how can you grab a share of that traffic?  Better yet, how can you do it without spending a fortune on ads?

The answer is search engine optimization.  Or, put simply, how to get found on Google or other search engines. 

Marketing pros will promise to rocket you straight to the top of search results with a brew of web hacks that will cost you thousands of dollars per month.  And maybe, a year from now you’ll see the first hints of progress.

The truth is that a fancy traffic-boosting campaign might work.  But it requires an unbelievable investment of time, money and expertise.  And at the end of the journey?  There’s still no guarantee of being found.

Instead, the smartest artists spend time on their art, and leave the technical details of search engines to their website builder. 

That’s why we designed our website platform with built-in search engine optimization functions.  The goal is a website experience that is easy, fast and affordable but still gets you the viewership you deserve.  

Make sure your website builder offers you the worry-free formatting to ensure each page of your website is visible to search engines:

The result? Your artist site gets displayed in web searches to the right audience at the right time.

Looking for more tips?  Read our guide for easy search engine optimization.  Or, check out more tips for driving traffic to your website.

#10: A Contact the Artist Page

Did you know that 90 percent of visitors to your website will leave, never to return? That’s a lot of missed opportunities to sell your art. Enter the artist contact page.

An often neglected backwater, the best artist websites transform this humble workhorse into an essential part of their online marketing machine.

Checklist for your Artist Contact Page

Creating a Beautiful Artist Website Doesn’t Have to Be Hard

If you follow these simple steps, you can DIY your way to a portfolio website that captures your artistic vision and helps you sell your art. 

And, if you’re wondering how to build your very own artist’s website without the stress or expense, consider building a free website with Artweb.

Artist Catherine Kirkland presents a otherworldly collection of colorful paintings in her distinctive pointillist style. See more by visiting her website.

“Space #4″ acrylic on canvas, 48″ x 48”

Following a fine arts education and a long career as an award-winning art director, illustrator, graphic designer and production artist, I went back to college to study Interior Design. Ironically, a color theory assignment inspired me to pick up a brush again. Soon, I was painting small landscapes in acrylic on canvas, while rediscovering the joy of working with brushes and paint.

“Space Frontier” acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 48″

As my skill grew, I began to survey the art community in the metro. By visiting galleries and exhibits, I educated myself on local art offerings, realizing quickly that I needed to up my game. There were so many outstanding landscape artists; it was obvious that I needed to pursue a different subject matter. I had to find my unique visual voice.

“Interstitium” acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 48″

It was on a trip to the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art in Denver, that I had my “aha” moment. The museum features the artwork of the late Denver-based artist, Vance Kirkland (no relation). His amazing abstract paintings and techniques influenced me to divert from my representational painting style.

“Comets II” acrylic on canvas, 24″ x 30″

Like Vance Kirkland, the concept of space fascinates me. Space, both outer and inner, lends itself beautifully to abstraction. There is a synergy in rendering stars through pointillism. It was at this intersection of space and dots that I found my voice as an artist, and gained both customers and fans. My decision was affirmed after posting a new painting on social media. A follower remarked, “I knew this was your painting before I even saw who posted it!”

“Odyssey” acrylic on canvas, 48″ x 48″

Pointillism is labor intensive, requiring not only patience but keen fine motor skills. During my career as a production artist in pre-computer days, I created “mechanical” art. Using technical pens, T-squares, triangles, X-acto knives and Rubylith®, I developed my fine motor skills creating “mechanicals”. The precision required in production art prepared me well for pointillism. I also find that applying dots of color on a painting is comparable to other forms of precise, repetitive handcraft such as needlepoint and cross-stitch.

“Out of This World” acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 48″

When I began my space series, I focused on outer space themes such as nebulae. In more recent paintings, I have explored inner spaces, i.e., microscopic inter-cellular spaces of the human body. Expanding the space concept further, my latest work in the series depicts an open space…a vast, abstract mountain landscape.

“The Force” acrylic on canvas, 60′ x 48″

My paintings begin with a loose design sketch on the prepared canvas. Next, using brushes, I paint large areas of color. Layered upon this under-painting are individual dots of paint, applied with unconventional tools such as dowels, skewers, chopsticks, forks and spoons. Tens of thousands of applied dots create the details of movement, depth and form.

“The Force” inspiration and painting

It is through vibrant color and intricate dotted patterns that I strive to bring a sense of wonder to viewers of my pointillist abstracts. My greatest delight is watching exhibit guests take in a painting from afar, then draw closer and react with amazement at the thousands of dots that embellish it.

Catherine Kirkland invites you to follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

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