Sketchbook

I just decided the other day that I was not going to worry about selling my art any more.  I’m just going to paint. I want to paint as much as I possibly can.  If I concentrate too much on selling then the pressure eats away at me. I also feel that I’m just not ready to sell. I think I need to be better.

I’m not saying I don’t have talent or that some people wouldn’t buy my art now. What I am saying is that I want to grow and I can’t concentrate on that growth if I am too worried about making money.

I’m also not saying I wouldn’t sell a piece if someone offered to buy it.

I want to fall back in love with painting and wrap myself up in it.

Then I came across this awesome blog post. The list is going on my wall of inspiration. I need to tell myself this every day.

When a person creates something, by law, it is automatically protected under the copyright law. While it is always better to copyright images, even if an artist does not the work is still protected. The artist can then sue the “borrower” for any profit made on the image.

Artists work very hard on their work. We have spent considerable time, resources, energy, and emotions in developing our style and “language.” It is ours and it is personal.

In order to be up to date we need to be online. We have to market ourselves and have a web page. If we want to reach out and expand our community we need blogs and Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages and more.  It’s bad enough when sites like Facebook claim the rights to our images if we post them, but at least we have a choice there.

Many artists do not like to watermark their work because it obscures the image and makes selling online difficult. Watermarks can also look unprofessional.

If you find that you took someone’s work and they contact you, usually removal of said work and a sincere apology is enough.  If the artist took the time to contact you before going to their lawyer then you should be very happy as well as humbled.  Do not behave like this guy http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/rethinking-healthcare/big-mother-gets-her-shot-at-cutting-health-costs/1023/#comments and respond with arrogance and condescension, trying to rewrite the law. Also don’t then write an eye roll worthy article acting as though the guy you stole from is an out of touch jerk like this…http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/how-to-protect-your-copyrighted-images-on-the-web/3684/.

I don’t know how to get it through to this guy that an illustrator makes money by creating illustrations for articles just like his and ethical professionals pay for those illustrations. As others in those comments said, it devalues the artist’s work because the clients that paid for the work then wonder why they bothered.

Just because something is easy to do does not mean it’s okay. Although now it is very easy to just click and grab a piece of artwork does not mean that artists should not get paid for someone to use it. It means that artists need to be even more vigilant. It means that it is even more important to get permission before using the work of someone else.

If you would like to see more about this particular situation you can find the artist’s reply here…http://drawger.com/buzelli/?section=articles&article_id=10164

Please don’t steal from people and for artists, copyright your work. Better safe than sorry.

P.S By law all my images are copyright. If you want to use my work, ask me.  I’m nice…unless you steal from me. Then I’m mean, very very mean. And while I may be poor (and would love the opportunity to take your money) I do have a lawyer in the family who would love to help me take your money.  Have a nice day.

I was featured on Empty Easel this week! I am very excited about this opportunity to share my work with a broader audience. Lisa seems lovely and I was happy to chat over email with her. You can check out the article here.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Business blogs:

What is the one thing you do every week to get more clients?   Check out what other people said here.

ArtBizBlog’s Alyson B. Stanfield is interviewed here.

Loads of interesting articles here.

Ever miss a great opportunity?

Improve your art sales w/ these seven selling points

Tomorrow I will announce the winner of the give away. You have until midnight tonight to post a comment for entry!

The Unconventional Guide To Internet Marketing

Clark R. Covington

Full disclosure time: I tweeted a request for recommendations for books on selling. Covington tweeted an invite to check out his books on Amazon. I scurried over, but he was out of stock. He very kindly sent me a copy.  I read the introduction right away before I headed to work. However, I put off reading the rest for a few weeks. There’s a lot of pressure. What if I don’t like it? What if it has nothing to do with my line of business, but I still “have” to review it (that is purely my own pressure as I was never asked to review it/he probably doesn’t even know I review books on my blog/has never seen my blog)? I also have about 8 other various books I am reading at any given time.  Some for the business side, some for the art side and some just because I love to read.  So with out any further ado…..

I have to say I like Clark R. Covington. Not just because he sent me a book (although that is a huge plus) and not solely because he has an easy chair called the Sumo, although I too have a gigantic Lay-Z-Boy that takes the place of my office most days once in a very long while.  I like Covington because he doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously and because he celebrates people owning their uniqueness. And I quote:

“Embrace the information in this book, and then immediately challenge yourself to be different, to stand out, to do things your own way, and there is a good chance the rewards of your risk-taking will come sooner than you’ve ever thought possible.”

When people say things like that I know they get it. They get that being yourself and bringing that thing that no one else can bring is what makes the world go round.

Another paragraph that I need to share with you is this:

“Think back to your happiest time, the time that you daydream with your fingers crossed will come again. think about that time: Did you have to overcome something to get there? Did you have to fall a few times and get back up before that happiness overcame you as you tasted sweet success?…If you are going to succed, you must fail first.“

I also love it when people tell me it’s okay to fail. After all, my personal motto is, “If you are going to fail, fail hard.” I have failed enough at enough things to know failing is a pretty good thing, even if it hurts at the moment.

I could share a few more with you, but perhaps you should get your own copy.

Covington writes like he is talking directly to you. I find that very easy to read especially when the topic at hand is not something I am familiar with.

It’s not all butterflies and rainbows though, he knows how to get down to business. Clearly. After all, he did write a book about it.

It could be argued that a lot of this book is an ad for his services as well. Why shouldn’t it be? If you trust a guy enough to take his advice about internet marketing, wouldn’t you want to know about all his other products as well?

This book may not be for everyone, but I definitely think there are a lot of great ideas in here. I know on several occasions it has had my mind racing with new ideas.

Being a fine artist and therefore being the only person who can create my particular artwork, implementing some of the ideas Covington introduces may seem a bit of a stretch at first, but I know with some creative thinking (it is what I do) I could use most of them to my advantage.

*Like all the other books I mention there is now a link on the side bar.

I am excited to announce my very first give away. While I dream of giving away goodie bags loaded with awesomeness, you are just going to have to bear with me and we will start small together.

For my very first give-away your prize will be my oversized wall calendar. This way you get many lovely images (if I do say so myself, and you know I do) and you get something for the new year.

Now for the rules.

First answer this question (in the comments, not just in your head):   If you could own any painting which one would it be and why? If you would post a link that would be even better. Although it won’t help your chances of winning it will make it much more enjoyable for us all .

How this works: I will put the number of comments into a random number generator, whichever number that baby spits out will be the winner (if I can’t figure out how those work then I will have The Man pick a number between 1 and the yet to be seen number of comments, not fancy but it works).  I will then ship the calendar to you.

I will most likely do a top 5 comments as well. You won’t win anything, but it’s an extra way for me to thank you all for participating.

I will start, I would love to be able to look at this Pasini every single day.  It has that quality that just makes me sigh. Everything is in place and it all seems to hum together. Don’t even get me started on the gorgeous spot of teal. In real life it is lovely.

The winner will be announced next Wednesday! Good luck!

(p.s. I’m so excited.)

(p.p.s. Sept. and Nov. will have full size images by next Wednesday)

These are the three newest paintings in my Etsy shop.  I will mainly be posting new paintings on Fridays, I just couldn’t wait this week. The format for these posts will include a small “teaser” thumbnail and a link to the store instead of all the paintings I add.  Also Etsy has their site set up so that for every item a store sells the store must pay a small fee. This allows the item to be active for 4 months, then Etsy takes down the item and charges another small fee to put it back up. Because of this I will only be offering my paintings on here for 1 cycle.  If they don’t sell then I will be moving them over to Ebay or at the very least keeping them on my Flickr account under Originals For Sale.  Any postcards or prints will most likely be up for multiple cycles, but I won’t necessarily renew them right away.

I am now painting abstract.  While this is not a permanent change, painting abstract images allows me to challenge myself and experiment with out a lot of pressure. It also allows me to offer paintings at a greatly lower price because they are smaller, faster to create, and not my typical style.

In other news I opened an Etsy shop! I am very excited about this and I have been working all day and most of last night on it.  With this shop it will be easier to buy on-line so stop by and say hi!

My friend Kristen asked me for links to blogs I read, so of course, I thought I would post them here for everyone to enjoy. (This is not all inclusive and don’t forget the links that have earned permanent status on the side bar.)

With out further ado and in no particular order:

Ginny Stiles has some pretty good tips and I like to look at her sketchbook pages.

• http://ginnystiles.blogspot.com/

Myrna Wacknov is always trying something new and I love her ideas. It’s fun to watch her process.

• http://myrnawacknov.blogspot.com/

I like the look of Donna Zagotta’s blog and she has interesting things to say.

• http://donnazagotta.com/blog/

I love looking at Errezart’s work. I found this blog on Illustration Friday.

• http://errezart.blogspot.com/

Another blog from Illustration Friday. I really love the illustrations here. They are so simple, yet perfect.

• http://gellatinouslaser.blogspot.com/

A fellow AAART Allumus

• http://www.jasonseilerillustration.blogspot.com/

One more IF discovery.

• http://joebluhm.blogspot.com/

Finally two business blogs:

A recommendation from Sharon of ArtBySAW

• http://www.bootstrappingblog.com/

I don’t remember how I found this one…

• http://ittybiz.com/

Look at me….all fancy. Thanks to Sharon I have a logo! I’m very excited to share this with everyone. Sharon took my handwriting, made it legible and turned out a lovely image. And she did it all with a very quick turn around time.  As soon as I make a bit of money I am going to have her do my blog and twitter background!..So get your  original art work for the holidays now! LOL

By: Joel Comm

In the name of full disclosure I must say I knew virtually nothing about Twitter before I read this book. I knew that it was similar to the Facebook status and that everyone seemed to be on Twitter. I definitely did not see what the big deal was, and honestly, I still don’t. However, that is most likely my own inability to adapt to yet another social network.  I do think it’s cool that I can follow Barack Obama and that an amazing author can follow me (did I mention I geeked out over Alyson B. Stanfield following me on Twitter?! No? Well she is and I am geeking out.)

Now for the book review:

I did receive a few very good ideas from this book. I do feel that I know much more about the purpose of Twitter now, even if I am not amazed by it yet. According to Comm, and I am sure many other people, Twitter is one giant conversation. You can have a conversation with anyone and with millions of people. It’s 24 hours and the party never stops. Twitter is a way to market yourself and to communicate with businesses that are marketing to you. Most importantly Twitter is for experts. Lots of experts twittering about what they do. People asking experts questions and experts linking to things. If you have enough experts following you then you too can be an expert. Or at least play one on Twitter.

Comm told me how to tweet, when to tweet, and what kind of tweets I should be tweeting.  One of the most helpful topics in Twitter Power is the Twitter applications.  These applications help you use Twitter to it’s fullest potential as a marketing and communications tool.

This book will tell you whether or not it’s important to have a custom background (it is), how to find out who your biggest followers are, and how to find out if you are being talked about.

I like that this book has a 30 day plan, but I wish it was at the front of the book. I could have been implementing the plan while reading the rest of the book and I think that would have kept my interest up.  I say check that out first and get to work.

I skimmed at least one full chapter of the book because some of it wasn’t as useful to a one person business, but I was still able to glean a bit from those parts and apply it to my situation.

I found Twitter Power to be a bit dry and very repetitive. Even with all the technical speak, which probably isn’t as much as I thought, it was still a pretty fast read and like I said in the beginning I learned some good tips. Plus a little repetition never hurt anyone, I hear it takes a person hearing something three times before they know it. I’m pretty sure I will be referring back to this book and the notes I took in the future.

Comm donates 10 percent of his proceeds of the “book to WaterIsLive.com, a nonprofit organization working to provide clean drinking water to a portion of the one-half billlion of the world’s population who are deprived of our most basic need.” (Comm, dedication page)

I am still confused about Twitter and all that goes with it, but I think that will only subside with practice. I do recommend this book for anyone who is interested in using Twitter to get in touch with their clients and/or discuss their field of business with other people who are interested. Twitter is the networking tool and that is pretty exciting.

If you have read the book or read the book, let me know what you think. I’d love to hear some of the ideas that this book inspired.

Note: There will now be a link to the right for all the books on the book review list. (Just one of the many ideas I learned about from Twitter Power) If you are interested in the book and use the link on the left I earn 4%. I do not get paid to review the books. I solely review books that I read for my business. My reviews are exactly what I think of the book and what I would tell any one asking my personal opinion about said books. I am just trying to pass on any useful information and get a discussion going about that information.

Note II: Originally posted 9/29/09 at blog.limitedpalette.com