Art Business Course - Everything You Need to Know to Start, Build and Grow your Art Into a Successful, Full-time Business

Introduction: Using this Course to Start, Grow and Build your Art Career

Hi, I am James Corwin and I want to first welcome you this empowering course. Thank you for signing up, but you should thanking yourself most for taking a huge step towards starting, growing and building a successful full-time art career.

This course is an investment and it is my hope that you will devote time to learning and applying the principles and steps laid forth in this program. If followed entirely as I have instructed, you will achieve great amounts of success. Let’s take this journey together.

This course is for any artist whether you are a painter, drawer, sculptor, photographer, digital artist or installation artist, etc. This program is designed to help any artist succeed, regardless of the medium you use.

I have set up an incredible team to help you every step of the way. Reach out to them at any time for help and questions. Also engage yourself in the Facebook group. You will be among many other artists and your combined support and encouragement will be powerful in launching your career.

Starting

Starting your art career is building the foundation for your success so it is important to watch the first videos and not skip ahead. Your art career is a full-time job and it takes time to grow and build your business. However, the speed of your success is entirely dependent on you. You are responsible for your success and what you put into this business is what you get out. If you want to make an incredible living off your art then you have to put in an incredible amount of effort. It is possible to achieve success beyond your wildest dreams, but success doesn’t happen over night. It happens through persistence, hustle and strategic planning.

Do you have what it takes to achieve your dreams? How far are you willing to go to achieve them? I work my ass off every day to achieve my dreams because I know they are possible and once I attain them, I set new goals. I never settle for just-enough. I want to break through and see what is on the other side. I once had a well-known artist tell me, you will never get rich being an artist. I said, watch me! And it has been my motivation ever since to prove all the naysayers that an artist don’t need to starve, that you can actually make an amazing income. And at 26 years old, I am do that just. And you can to! But you have to be willing to grind and put in long hours every day, seven days a week. Its not going to be easy and there will be so many times that you want to give up. I have been so ready to throw in the towel so many times. I would wonder why in the hell should I suffer through all this pain and disappointment? But deep down I knew I had no other choice, because I was obsessed with the idea of waking up every day on my own schedule and doing something creative that I loved. And getting to travel all over the world whenever I desired. And share my vision and work with the world and make a difference in wildlife conservation. These are most important to me, so the struggle and the stress to get there is all worth while because eventually I will reap the benefits.

Now I own a game reserve in South Africa where I breed african game and I travel all over the world collecting ideas for new work. I make an incredible income and I get to choose where I want to live, which is in the beautiful state of Montana. I get to meet and work with amazing people and make their homes more beautiful with my art.

Growing and Building

There are many videos in this course to give you the tools to grow your business. These means taking your art and multiplying it in many ways to bring in more income and customers, while broadening your brand and recognition.

In the beginning you will want to reinvest all your profits back into building the business. I am still largely doing this 7 years into my business, because I know I am the best investment I can make. By reinvesting my profits I am growing my business and ensuring its longevity. It is also a commitment to my success. My business is my baby and I am going to provide it everything it needs. I keep just enough to live, the rest my baby takes and it needs a lot of feeding.

I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t think outside box. I am responsible for my success therefore I don’t rely on outside influence. I take the bull by the horns and create the success. I am going out and finding the buyers for my art. I am creating new products to match with customers. So many artists stay trapped in their studio waiting for a sale to find them. It won’t happen this way. You must be proactive and go out and find the sale. Be unreasonable! This is thinking outside the box. If a buyer is interested in my painting but can’t commit to buying, then I am driving to their house and marching that painting it to show them how good it looks on their wall. This is completely unreasonable, but hey, it’s not if it produces a sale… and I bet you it will! Try it out! Be willing to take unreasonable actions and approaches to growing your business.

Expect rejection. I hear no more than I ever hear yes. Hearing yes is like hearing the Gods speaking through the heavens. It is just so rare. But I don’t care about rejection anymore. It used to eat me up. But I found that no doesn't really mean no. They just don’t know how to say yes. This is where becoming a top sales person which help you move them from a no answer to a yes decision.

While investing in your business, invest in yourself to become more powerful in the marketplace. If success is you duty, then you need to be a powerhouse seller. You need to know how to convince a buyer to buy your art. I would argue this is more important than being a good artist. A bad artist who is a phenomenal salesperson can sell their terrible art to anyone. Hopefully you are a phenomenal artist, so selling will be easier for you. But you still must devote you time to become a phenomenal seller. There are many training courses available. I suggest Cardone University. There is a video to help you get started.

Not only do you need to invest in sales training, you need to invest in training to be a better artist. I talk about this in several videos. You need to be always improving your craft. It is your most important asset. Inevitably you will improve with time, but jumpstart it by taking workshops and studying artists.

Let’s Begin

I am so excited for you to start! I believe in your success and my team along with myself are hear to help you succeed. I encourage you to get your spouse, family and friends on board with you. They will be a huge resource and support team as well.

The videos in this course are so powerful and they will show you how to start pulling in money right away. So I want you to start now so you can begin to reap the benefits. Let’s dive in… headfirst!

Building an Artist Website

An artist website is your personal gallery space to feature and show your art to the world. It is most likely where you will be directing anyone who is interested in your art. So you want it to be as elegant and efficient as possible.

A good website needs to be clean and simple. A visitor should be able to navigate easily within the website and find what they are searching for. Also images need to be small enough so that pages don’t take forever to load. Use simple and clean colors like white or black, or a soft neutral color like tan. Do not use bright distracting colors. You want your art to be featured against the color. Use readable fonts, color and sizes. Make the font size readable for any age and eye correction. Create a section for collecting email addresses to add to your newsletter. This can be in the form of a popup or a section on your website.

The Homepage

When entering your website, we should first see your logo, which is often your signature. You can create a logo in Photoshop for hire a freelancer on sites like Fiverr. Show a couple images of your best work. Create a large featured image. Your homepage is the first page visitors see so it must be welcoming and inviting. It may be a good idea to share your story here. Make it personal. Remember that many of the visitors entering your website are customers, so you want to start converting them to buyers, so sell them on your story and your art.

The menu will navigate the visitor through the rest of your website so make sure all the pages are visible and accessible

Pages that you should include in your menu are:

About the Artist

This is where you share your biography and artist statement. You can also include your CV.

Contact the Artist

Create a form page for anyone wishing to contact you. The filled out form will be sent to your email address for correspondence. Do not list your phone number, you will get spam calls.

The Artwork

This is where you will list all your best paintings for people to view. You can categorize them by subject matter, or by year, or if they are sold vs still available.

Shop

This section is for listing all your products available for purchasing. Again you can categorize this by Prints, and posters, and pillows for example.

Events

Here is where you will post any upcoming events and exhibitions that you may have. I post all the events for the upcoming year so people interested in attending have plenty of time to plan.

Workshops

If you are teaching workshops, which I highly recommend, you will want to post them here and collect sign ups.

These are the standard pages of an artists website. Every page should be in the same theme as your home page and remain sophisticated and elegant. Your website is an extension of your brand and art and must communicate your vision. A sloppy website will not only discourage buyers but it will not create any trust with your visitors. You want your visitors to trust you and your story and then make a purchase. What can you do to create a beautiful, trustworthy site? Ask for feedback from family and friends when designing your website. It will take multiple edits over time to make it the best it can be.

Writing your Artist Statement

The artist statement is a very integral part of your business. It will serve you time and time again and is often requested by galleries, museums and applications. It will always be changing as you grow as an artist, so it is important to continually update it. The artist statement is not your CV or Resume but rather the ‘mission statement’ or vision behind your art. I also pair mine with my biography because I am an extension of my artwork, I am the creator, and it is important for people to know the background of the artist as well.

There are important questions that need to be included in your artist statement. I have broken the questions down into paragraphs.

Paragraph 1: This is an introduction to your art. Welcome the viewer in to your world and vision. Create this vision and share it with us. What is the source of inspiration for your work? What motivates you to create the work that you do? What are you vocalizing visually through your work? How is your work different and serving a purpose?

Paragraph 2: Back up your vision with details on how your art is created. Are you realistic or abstract? What mediums do you use? What is your method and process? How many hours a day do you work and at what times?

Paragraph 3: Tell us about you as an artist. How long have you been creating art? What motivated you to do art? What is your lifestyle like? Where do you live? What are some of your favorite things to do? This section is meant to personalize the artwork and give the viewer a better idea of the artist behind the work. Sell your story and you’ve already sold the art! What is your story?

These paragraphs can be broken up into multiple paragraphs and rearranged. But the content should be more or less organized in this order.

Also avoid fancy words and ‘art-speak’. Art speak is a real thing and artists tend to embellish their statements with sophisticated words and phrases that are difficult to understand. You must realize the person reading this must be able to learn about you and work and not be confused or discouraged by your writing. 

Your can list some achievements in your statement, but save most of these for the resume.

Here is an example of my artist statement:

About James

James Corwin designs distinct oil paintings through a unique balance of gestural paint techniques and precise detail. Primarily focused on wildlife Corwin aims to engage the viewer through his dynamic compositions that stir emotion.

With an appreciation for both fine detail and contemporary art, Corwin exquisitely marries the two in each painting with detailed subjects and loosely constructed backgrounds often exposing the underpainting and raw canvas.

Corwin gathers inspiration and references from his frequent travels to exotic destinations around the world. A trip to South Africa opened his eyes to threats of poaching on wildlife. Frequent trips back to Africa have allowed James to work directly with conservation efforts.

James Corwin now owns a game breeding farm in South Africa on 5000 acres and a large safari company, Morena Safaris, with private concessions covering 500,000 acres.

Corwin has established himself as a widely collected artist at a very young age. His artwork is collected nationally and internationally as he participates in prestigious exhibitions and auctions throughout the year. He is the youngest artist to ever participate in both Dallas Safari Club and Safari Club International in Las Vegas.

Typically he paints 10-12 hours per day, 7 days a week. He also has two studios overlooking the white sandy beaches of Long Island, NY and located in Lakeside, MT overlooking Flathead Lake and the Swan Mountain Range.

By providing utmost quality and innovation in his painting, Corwin creates a sustaining legacy of integrity and loyalty in his art and conservation.

Corwin was born June 24, 1991 in Honolulu, HI. He is 26 years old.

Building a Social Media Presence

As artists we have a unique advantage to building a strong social media presence. This is because we create images and sharing images is the driving force behind social media performance and engagement.

Building an Instagram Following

Instagram may be one of the easiest platforms to use, but it can be one of the most time consuming for building a following. There is certainly way more I could be doing.

To build a following you must first be consistent in your post schedule. To start you should be posting at least 3 photos per day, one in the morning, afternoon and evening. My trouble is having enough content to post every day 3 times a day. But you can get creative showing all aspects of your artistic creation, including your painting process, what inspires you, and a day in the life of being an artist. There are apps to help you schedule your posts and they are on a timed release. If you devote an hour once a week you can schedule all your posts for that entire week including the captions and hashtags. This is a great resource. The app I use is Latergram. And I can do it from my computer or phone.

After a photo has been added, write a caption that stimulates engagement. Ask questions from your audience and ask for shares. For example if I painted a tiger, I might say “Tag someone you know who LOVES tigers!” Or “Would you have a tiger for a pet?” Questions like these engage an audience which promotes the image in Instagram for more views and as a result more followers.

Also add hashtags. You can add up to 30 hashtags. You can add these hashtags in your caption or comment section or both. These hashtags categorize your image. So use hashtags that are most relevant to your image. For tigers I might use #tiger #bigcat #cat #tigereyes #ilovecats. These are popular relevant hashtags. When you add the hashtags it will tell you its popularity, the amount of times the hashtag has been used. More popular hashtags will gain you more views but also push your image down faster as new images using that same hashtag get piled on top. This is why it is good to have engagement as it brings your photo back to the top.

The best way to gain more followers is to engage with other users. You should be liking other photos and commenting and following accounts. This undoubtedly will increase your following significantly. I find this to be the most difficult part of Instagram as I don’t always have the time to browse Instagram and engage in content. If you have some time and enjoy it, do it, maybe for a few minutes every day before bed or you can hire a social media expert who does this for you all day long every day!

You can increase followers quickly by leveraging influencers. Influencers are accounts with a large following. There are many art sharing accounts with a considerable following. Most of them provide instructions how to get your art posted on their account. Do this. Often it is free, but sometimes you have to pay. The payoff is great though. You can easily grow your following by thousands when your art is posted on these accounts.

Creating a Facebook Fan Page

Facebook is the only social media platform you MUST do. You MUST create a Facebook Page for your art business because this is where you will be sharing your art and generating ads to sell it. If you already have a Facebook account, it will be easy for you to create a new page. Within this page you will want to consistently post all your new art as you create it, but also share your process. Post events and news and updates. You can invite your friends to follow your page to start, but then don’t expect the followers to find you like they do on Instagram. You need to advertise and buy more followers, or have your content posted for free on other accounts with a large following. You can certainly grow your following for free through word of mouth and sharing and garnering recognition in the art world. Inevitably people will look for your fan page to follow to be up to date with your work. As you advertise your art, there is always a link to follow your Facebook Page you will increase your following here. These followers are interested in your art and will often purchase your work so post deals and specials. You can also set up a shop and sell products within Facebook!

Tweeting

I don’t use twitter very much. I am most interested in posting images and once you post an image the letter count for how much you are allowed to write drops considerably so I can barely get out a sentence and few hashtags. However, Twitter is a very powerful platform for reaching out to influencers. Influencers are accounts with a large following who can be game changers when they engage with your content. If you reach out to an influencer and they engage with you, all their other followers can see this and as a result follow you!

Pinterest

Pinterest is another great site for sharing images. A repost can gain you followers but also drive traffic to your website. I receive a lot of traffic every day to my website from Pinterest. I have also connected my Shopify store to Pinterest to list my products for purchase on Pinterest. Then my products gets repined and shared.

There are many other social media sharing sites that can be just as powerful for gaining popularity and a following, such as Linkedin, Google+, Snapchat, Tumblr, Youtube, Reddit, etc. You should be using all of these. I would love to cover them in length but I think I would be telling you everything you already know because most of us use these apps every day. I can only recommend using them more diligently and strategically by engaging with other people to increase a following quickly.

Creating an Efficient Studio and Workspace

Your studio is your sanctuary. It is the space where all the ideas flow and creativity happens. Therefore it must aid your inspiration and creativity. A cluttered space inhibits your ability to think freely and creatively. Furthermore a studio needs proper lighting and areas to hold your art in its stages of completion.

Separate your workspace from personal life

When setting up your studio, pick a place that is quiet and will promote your creativity. This can be in your home or a separate space from where you live. If you choose a space within your home, it is best to be completely removed from any distractions. Distractions can include the obvious living room with television, or even the kitchen where food is and chores, such as dishes and cleaning. As you create, you should not feel the lingering call to complete chores and maintenance on your house.

Your studio needs to be properly lit. Refer to the video on lighting your art for a more information. You can use natural lighting from windows, but if you want consistent lighting that isn't dependent on the sun, you should cover your windows and use artificial lighting.

Set up your work station. Allow everything you need to create easily accessible. Keep it organized and clean. For efficiency a clean workspace will aid in workflow and creativity. Also create stations for your art in its various stages of creation. If you are painting have a wall where you can hang your work to dry, but also to step back and critique your work and identify changes that need to be made. If you have the space, some artists have several work spaces that they cycle between. This is creates efficiency if you have multiple paintings being created at once. I prefer to work on one painting at a time and put all my focus and attention into its completion.

Make your space comfortable. Sit in a comfortable chair or stand on a comfortable pad. You will be working for long hours and you don’t want to feel pain when you are being creative. Also include things that will keep you motivated. This can be posted goals you have made for yourself, motivational quotes, and even artistic styles and ideas that you aim to create.

Invest a good sound system. Artists love to listen to music when they create so it is important to have a good system for blasting your favorite tunes! Most importantly have fun in your space! Your studio space should be inviting you to play and create.

Time Management: Delegating Time to Art and Business

It is important to set time aside for your creation of art and time for the business side. Both are equally important and neither should be neglected. Fortunately you can hire people to assist you with the business side, but most likely as you start your art career you will be managing both.

You can structure your time several ways. Create a daily schedule that perhaps delegates time in the morning to your business, like 3 hours and then remaining 5 hours you work that day to creating your art. Or you can have certain days of the week dedicated solely to art business and the other days to art creation. It is then important to stick to the schedule you have designed for yourself. You may find different schedules work better for you and make changes with an overflow of work. For example, I prefer to do my business emailing in the morning and then paint all day and then spend my evenings optimizing my business. Throughout the day I am posting progress pictures of my art to Instagram and Facebook. When business gets overloaded, as it often does, I set aside time to complete the work. The same goes for my art if I am crunched on time to complete paintings. But then I return to my schedule and balance.

As a full-time artist this is your job! You must treat it as such. If you were a boss and employed yourself in the workplace would you promote yourself or be disappointed in your performance and lack of focus? Give yourself normal work hours and lunch breaks. Set an alarm in the morning to wake up. Just because you are self-employed doesn’t mean you get to sleep in every day. It is wonderful to have the freedom, but do not abuse it. Soon you will be looking for another job to make money if you do.

I spend every waking hour of my day devoted to my art and business. I am obsessed with it and my success. I know that if I don’t work I don’t get paid. If I don’t create and get it seen, I don't get paid! I am accountable for myself as I am self-employed. You are responsible for your time. It is a blessing and a curse. I love the freedom to choose my schedule and when I can take time off, but the curse is that anytime I am not working I feel guilty that I should be working. To avoid this guilt I have found to structure my time wisely so that every aspect of my business and art is being met and then I have allowed myself time to relax and refresh. Most of the time I really enjoy the work I do, so I would much rather work and make money in the evening than watch Netflix.

The business side of art is full time job and there is an endless amount of tasks you could do to promote your art and brand and sell. Your intention should be to set up enough streams of income from your art that you can pass this on to someone else to manage which allows you return to your studio. No one can create your art for you. But you can teach anyone to run your business.

In the beginning focus on the most important aspects of your business such as developing a website, posting your artwork, creating products and most importantly, getting your work seen! It is tough these days to break through all the noise and competition to get noticed in social media. But just a little bit every day can make a huge difference and increase your following and online presence. It takes time, but there will always be a buyer somewhere for your art. You must believe this, because it is true! You just need to get your art in front of their face!

Equally you should be focusing on your art as another full time job. You should be studying your technique and improving, generating new ideas, taking workshops, studying other artists. Your success as an artist will carry over to your success in business and make that job much easier. If your art is good it will appeal to a wider audience and attract more attention and buyers. However, it is said that marketing is everything. You can be a terrible artist with incredible marketing skills and outsell everyone, or you can be a fantastic artist with terrible marketing skills and never make a sale because you're not being seen!

After you create a work of art, the work doesn’t end there. You must then work to sell it. This can be putting it in a gallery or a show or selling it directly through your website. Are you going to create a print line? What other products can you create from this piece of art? How will I market this art and produce sales? Time spent in this process can sometimes take more time than creating the art itself.

I hope you can see how important it is to delegate time to both parts of your art, the creating and the selling. And the best way to manage this is through a schedule that you follow every day. You may schedule in your time off. It will be much more enjoyed this way.

When you schedule time for art and business create a detailed list of what you intend to complete in that amount of time. Don’t give yourself too much work, but enough to be completed in the set amount of time. For example, during your art time you may decided to complete a certain section of the painting, when it is finished you will then tend to the list of tasks for the business. It may look like this: Post 1 product to Etsy, update website with new paintings, post new paintings to Facebook and Instagram. Spend 10 minutes engaging with other posts on Instagram. Email potential clients for commission orders. Send out 2 portfolios to galleries. Once you have completed these tasks perhaps you have given yourself a break or return to more painting, whatever you put in your schedule to do next.

Delegating time to art and business shouldn’t be stressful if it is properly managed because you have already laid out the tasks that need to be completed and the amount of time you intend to spend finishing them. If you need more time, you are self-employed, so do so! Don’t neglect one or the other, keep them balanced. As you learn you be a better artist, learn to be better at business and sales. It is equally important to your career.

Breaking through Limiting Beliefs and Achieving your Goals

It can be easy to feel discouraged especially when we see other artists performing well and achieving a lot of success or when we feel our art isn’t good enough. We must break through the limiting beliefs we hold about ourselves and our work so that we can be successful. This was a tough one for me early on. Frequently I had limiting beliefs that I wasn’t good enough, my art isn’t good enough, the art world is too competitive, there aren’t enough buyers for my art, I can’t make a good living selling my art. These are all fears that I am sure many of us face from time to time. But it is important to know that they are only fears and not facts. They can be conquered.

Beliefs are just perceptions and how we have interpreted and emotionalized our experiences. They allow us to create a foundation for expectations and emotions that we experience every day. They help us understand and navigate the world more safely. While you may believe something to be true, most beliefs are assumptions and mistaken, and these beliefs can be broken and changed into truth.

There are exercises to help break through these limiting beliefs. First disconnect yourself from the negative information that you are exposed to, feeding you these fears. For example, I turned off all the notifications on my Facebook showing me the beautiful art I wish I could create and the friends who were rampantly selling art. Every time I would see these posts I would feel discouraged.

To achieve our goals and reach our full potential we must break through these limiting beliefs. You must identify your beliefs. These can manifest in many ways, but are often subconscious and we are unaware we have these beliefs in the first place. Some signs to look for is when you may have a negative feeling towards an aspect of your business, beyond just not enjoying to do it. No one enjoys doing taxes. You will make excuses and complain, or worry about making mistakes and failing. I know sometimes I am reluctant so start a giant painting because I am afraid of failing and making mistakes. I may have a limiting belief that I am not good enough to complete this painting, which is untrue. But I will try to make myself feel better by making excuses that I should only do small paintings because they sell better, or complain that no one buys large paintings anyway. I will then begin to procrastinate (another sign) and avoid painting a large painting.

It is important to check in within yourself when creating a goal if you are feeling any resistance. No goal is unachievable. Certainly you can create a goal that may be too difficult for you to achieve right now. But I say aim for the stars. If you want to make $100,000 this year, set the goal to $1 million dollars and back it up with conviction. Break through the limiting beliefs that you are incapable of achieving this and read about all the people just like you who achieved such a goal. You will find it is not impossible and you are just as capable. Even if you fail, wouldn’t you rather fail reaching for $1 million and only make $200,000 than reaching for $100,000 and only making $20,000? It takes the same amount of energy to make $100k as it does $1m, you just lack the strategy to get there. Breaking through your limiting beliefs will open you up to a whole new world of opportunities and strategies. When you realize you can achieve any goal and back it with conviction, anything is possible.

Create goals for yourself and choose your desired outcome. Begin to replace your limiting beliefs with empowering beliefs to help you attain your goal. Start asking questions to your limiting beliefs, asking yourself questions like, where did this belief come from? Is this belief accurate? Is there evidence to disprove this belief? Will this belief help me attain my goals? Also identify the consequences that may occur if you don’t break through this limiting belief. This will associate more pain to the belief which can motivate you to change. Consequences can be how this may affect you financially and your family’s stability. How will it affect me emotionally? How about my health, and relationships? How will it affect me short-term and long-term?

Breaking apart your belief is an important step to replacing it with truth and an empowering belief. Support your empowering beliefs with facts. If you choose to be an artist that sells $1 million dollars worth of art every year, get to know the artists that do. Study them and learn from them. What did they do that you aren’t doing? Obviously it is possible because many have achieved it, so you can too. Fill your new belief with conviction and success. Most likely there is someone out there who has achieved what you desire. There is no reason why you can’t too and you must strengthen this belief with constant inspiration and facts. Let these people be your mentors and guides.

You must strengthen this new belief. Look at your goal every day and study your mentors/guides. Commit yourself to change and lay out a plan to achieve your goal. Follow this plan. This plan can be tasks that you complete every day to move you towards achieving your goal. If you want to make $1 million dollars a year selling your art, perhaps start by coming up with new ways to bring in an additional $1000 per month. This could be teaching an art class, but then scale it. What happens if you train people to teach art classes and you teach them in multiple locations, or what if you taught art classes online and you have 1,000 students/followers that pay you $10 for each lesson?! A plan can also be for smaller goals such as painting a large painting. Maybe the first day is just getting the canvas on the easel and sketching out the idea. The next day add a little paint. Then the next day do a little more, until it is finished. Often times goals seem unachievable when we think of them in full, but when we break them down into manageable tasks every day, eventually we will reach the destination. Most importantly don’t ever give up!

A wonderful article takes you more in depth on limiting beliefs. You can read further here:

http://blog.iqmatrix.com/limiting-beliefs

Forming a Company

As soon as you can you will want to legally structure your business. There are several structures to choose from each with own benefits and I will explain them here. The most common business entities are sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, S corporations and a limited liability company.

Most likely right now you are a sole proprietorship. You have started your art business and claiming all the profits as your own and running the business as an extension of yourself. This is the easiest business structure to form. However, you are entirely liable for any lawsuits against you and any debts your company may occur. This can be hazardous and I always recommend forming a separate structure for your business, so that you are personally not liable.

A partnership also provides no liability protection. One of the partners must be liable for the debts and taxes can be complicated. Most likely you will not need to form a partnership for your art business.

A corporation does provide protection against any lawsuits. Which means if you are sued, you are only liable for the assets of the company and not your personal assets. Your house will not be taken away for example or your personal finances.

A corporation can have shareholders and requires a board of directors. A company that issues stock is a corporation. An S corporation can only have up to 99 shareholders, whereas a C corporation can have an infinite amount. For this benefit they pay corporate tax (a double taxation on profits) whereas and S corporation does not. You can choose to be a corporation but it requires much more filing and paperwork to report profit and loss annually. It may be a structure you move into later, especially if you want to take your company public (issue stock) or receive large funding. I don’t know of any artists who have gone public.

An LLC is most likely the structure you will use for your art business. It protects you personally from any lawsuits against your business. It separates the business assets from your personal assets. If your business goes bankrupt, you don’t personally need to file for bankruptcy. You will file separate tax forms for your business and for yourself. You can also easily transfer the business on to another owner

It is very easy to form an LLC online through your state’s government website and you can receive your certification very quickly.

Your Financial Income Plan

Do you want to make $100,000 this year? How about $10,000 next month? It is possible and I can show you how.

Your financial goals are very achievable once you do the math to break them down. Often, we feel discouraged to even attempt at achieving them because they seem so far fetched and impossible to attain. But when we simplify the numbers, they become more realistic and therefore more attainable. It is then your responsibility to take these numbers and create opportunities and strategies for reaching them.

Let’s break down $100,000 a year.

We can break this down many ways.

$100,000/ 12 months = $8333.33 per month

$100,000/ 52 weeks = $1923.07 per week

$100,000 / 365 days = $273.97 per day

We need to bring in $298 every day or $1923 per week. Now let’s break these numbers down.

$298/ 10 working hours = $29.80 per hour. You can charge yourself $29.80 per hour to work.

But let’s be creative and look at it another way.

Can you find 1 person to sell a $300 product to? What about 5 people a $60 product? Or 50 people for a $6 product.

What about selling 50 $2000 art pieces?

Create a product that costs $50 and sell it 2000 times, you only need to sell 5-6 per day!

Are you beginning to see how breaking down the big number into smaller numbers makes it more manageable. By being creative, you can think of a whole bunch of ways to bring in $300 per day. I easily know 3 people I could sell a $100 painting to right now, do you?

Do this math for any financial goal you have and begin to break it down into smaller numbers. The best way to attain your goal is to have several ways to achieve it and do them all.

For example, I might create a quick $300 painting to sell each day. But I will also teach a class in the evenings to 10 people at $30 per person. Meanwhile I have a $50 limited edition print that I am advertising on Facebook and I am selling 5-6 per day. If all is achieved, I am making $900 per day, and on track to make $328,500 for my annual salary.

Create a plan and stick to it. Look at it every day and create ways to attain your goals. It one idea isn’t working, rework it or try a new plan. This is why achieving all ideas at once may be a good idea in the case that you can’t find a buyer for your $300 painting that day, you still have a backup $300 coming in. Creativity is key and we are creative people. There are so many ways we can produce an income from our art, just be willing to think outside the box!

Setting up Bank Accounts

As your business begins making a profit you will want to create separate banking accounts. One for your personal income and another for the business. It is important to separate yourself from the business even if you are still a sole proprietor (you should be switching over to an LLC). The reason this is important is that any time you spend money on your business you aren’t taking this money from your personal livelihood. Your business has its own expenses (rent, supplies, framing, etc) and you have your own expenses (living, savings, food, etc). Do not combine the two.

After you separate your personal income from your business income decide how much you want to pay yourself from your art sales. This can be a salaried amount or a percentage of every sale. I have 5 bank accounts that I divide my sales between. A business account, my personal savings account, my investment account, a long-term savings/retirement account and an account to pay off loans. Every sale is divided equally among these accounts. If you only have a business account and a personal account to start, you can divide your sales 50/50. As your accounts grow you will find that you have money saved for your self and money saved for the business anytime that it needs to expand.

Remember you can make tax deductible purchases from your business account that affect your personal life, such as travel or even building a studio in your house. It will be much easier for you to manage your expenses and create budgets if your accounts are separated. Most banks allow you to do online banking where you can move money around in your accounts.

Photographing your Art

Learning to photograph your art well is an essential part of the art business. You will be using photographs of your art invariably, so it is important to have high quality photographs. This is something you can do in your studio or pay a professional to do.

If you choose to do it yourself, which I recommend, invest in a digital slr camera. You will want a camera that cannot only produce high resolution photos, but also be able to manipulate the exposure and focus. You can pay someone to photograph for you, but over time you will rack up a nice bill every time you want your art photographed and you will spend a lot of time color correcting the image. It may be easier to learn to do it yourself and I will show you how.

Set up your art in a well lit area. Make sure the light is diffused and does not cause any glare. You can take some test shots of your art to zoom in and see if there are any glare being picked up. Move your art around until there is no glare. Outside can be good for this because of evenly diffused light! In the studio it is easy to pick up glare from spotlights. If you are photographing sculpture or ceramics create a nice neutral background like black, white or grey. Then set up a focused light on the piece. You will also want to photograph all sides of the piece for documentation. If you are photographing a painting it doesn't matter what’s in the background too much. Focus on the painting and change the color balance to meet the light temperature outside or inside your studio. The changes should be reflected in your camera screen and choose which is most natural to the colors of your painting. Center your art into the frame and take a picture.

If it is a large painting you can take multiple photographs of sections of the painting and stitch them together in photoshop. If you are savvy with photoshop do this as it will generate a higher resolution image of your art for reproduction, or get someone to help you.

Upload the image into the computer and make edits in photoshop or any photo editing software.

Save the images in several sizes. You will want a large image for reproducing (i.e. prints) and smaller image sizes for uploading to email and websites. Keep these images safe. These images are the records of your art and will be used time and time again when sharing your art to the world.

Using Photoshop for your Art

Photoshop can be an incredible resource for creating and editing your art. I use Photoshop to edit all my images for color corrections before sending it off to be reproduced. I also use Photoshop to create my ideas and references for painting. Instead of sketching I find it easier to sketch in photoshop so that I can make changes more easily, such as adding and erasing, moving objects around and changing color. It allows me to visualize my final painting more easily.

Learn the tools of photoshop or any photo editing software. You will need to use it after you photograph your art to crop the image and adjust colors. Have your art beside your screen so that you can compare the colors in the computer to the actual art. It would be wise to invest in a good computer screen that shows detail and colors accurately. A 4k screen is best these days. You will probably use it to display your art reference images as well if you paint in a studio. You can correct colors under color balance and saturation/vibrancy. You will also be adjusting the exposure values and contrast. Your goal is to create the digital image to be as close to the real art as possible. Do not lie and create art in the computer that is more beautiful or better than the original.

Photoshop has a plethora of tools to enhance your art business and images. Take time to learn the tools. You may discover it is easier to make changes in your reference photos like I do, such as adding a sunset to the landscape when your picture is taken during the day.

Copyrighting your Art

If you are reproducing your images you will want to copyright your artwork. After completing a work of art you automatically hold the copyright to reproduce it. Artists believe that by labeling the art as copyrighted it is enough that no one will steal and use the image. True, it may deter people from using the image, but it is not enough to stand up in any legal action. You must actually copyright your image with the government.

Visit copyright.gov to register your images. It is a simple application that costs $35 per image. This now ensures your image has legal structure if someone were to steal your image and use it for profit. If this were to occur you are entitled to large sums of money and a settlement. The copyright owner is entitled to recover the actual damages suffered by him or her as a result of the infringement, and any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages. Statutory damages are up to $150,000 and then any profits the infringer made from your image.

If you have found your image has been stolen but you did not copyright your image with the government, you are not entitled to any compensation. A lawyer will help you in both cases.

Putting a copyright symbol on your artwork is not enough to claim a full copyright on the image. You must register it.

If you would like to use other people’s images for your art, you can ask them permission or pay them for the image. I often ask photographers to use their images as references for my painting.

How to Price your Art

One of the biggest questions in the art business is how to price your art. Accurately pricing your art takes a lot of consideration and analysis which I will break down for you.

There are various methods used by artists when pricing their art. You may be familiar with pricing based on the amount of hours put into the artwork, or based on square area of the surface, or pricing based on similar artist’s work and reputation, or even pricing cherry-picked from the sky without validation. All of which have their benefits, however the method that will secure longevity and fairness in your pricing structure and build rapport with your collectors is to carefully create a tiered pricing structure based on the surface area of your artwork.

Raise your prices over time

Slowly raise your prices over time. There are many factors that contribute to your increased prices. Auction records can raise your prices especially if the piece consistently sells for over the asking price. This is an indicator that the market values your art more than you do. Consistent and frequent gallery sales can indicate a demand for your work. You can raise your prices slightly without affecting the demand. Artists on average raise their prices 10% per year. You will also be raising your prices with name recognition and to be competitive within your market as you improve. Also the economy plays an important role in your numbers. In a good economy it is easier to raise your prices higher and faster than in a down-turned economy. Also inflation over time will increase the pricing of your art.

Where to start

Do the math to start and determine what you need to make on every painting. Then research your market and other artists who create art similar to yours. How well are they selling? What galleries are they in? What are their prices? By analyzing the market you can compare your pricing and determine how competitive you want your art to be. Don’t be too quick to overprice, however. This is easy for most artists and they target way higher than their market and discover their art doesn’t sell. It is very bad to lower your prices especially if you have already sold a few. You will want to start low and raise your prices with time. You will soon discover if your pieces sell quickly you may want to raise them a little more. If they don’t sell at all, perhaps you are too high.

Selling your Art through Sales Channels

Get your art listed on as many sales channels as you can! In this busy online world today it is so difficult to break through all the noise and images and be seen, let alone get a sale! Offering your artwork on numerous sales channels increases your brand awareness and opportunities for sales.

What are Sales Channels?

Sales channels are websites where you can create a profile account and list your products for sale. The website brings in the traffic to your page through their advertising and credibility. You pay a small fee for this service. Examples of sales channels are Etsy, Ebay, Amazon, Fineartamerica, etc. All these sites allow you to upload a product and sell directly to their customers.

Sales channels such as Amazon and Ebay can be very broad and sell every type of product. Your artwork would be categorized. Other websites are niche based such as Etsy for handmade goods or Wayfair for furniture. Become aware of all the sales channels as you will want to upload your products to them. Not only does it increase your potential for sales, it broadens your brand.

Other sites such as Facebook or even Pinterest allow you to sell products with a buy button that directs you to either your checkout page on your website or their integrated system. If you build a website with Shopify you can easily connect all your products to these top sales channels and it will set it up for checkout. Instantly after you upload a product it gets listed on the sales channels. This takes a lot of time out of manually listing them to each site.

When creating your profile use a similar style and voice to your personal website. You want to keep your brand universal and recognizable. Some sales channels offer more customizable features than others, but almost all allow you share your background story. This is a good place to upload your artist statement.

It will take time to create accounts and upload images to these channels. Keep a record of them so you can continually keep them updated. It is easy to forget which ones your on, believe me. Obviously you will find which ones perform better than others and you will want to devote more of your attention to these. Cultivate the sales where it is working. Use as many as you can. These also create back links for your website which builds SEO! You want your art seen. Devoting the time to this will put you well beyond other artists who are only focused on being seen through Facebook and Instagram.

Once a sale comes through you will receive an exciting notification from the site. They have already processed all the payments for you and you receive a deposit in your bank account a few days later. It is your responsibility to fulfill the order. It sure relieves a lot of stress of going out and finding the buyer yourself or paying lots of dollars in advertising!

Creating Passive Income with your Art

As an artist and creator you have a powerful opportunity to create passive flows of income with your art. When you create art you hold a copyright to that image and idea. You can use this image and idea in very many ways to produce products and produce an income. If you are a sculptor you can reproduce the sculpture hundreds of times.

There are companies set up to take your images and print them on various products such as t-shirts, pillows, blankets, bags, pants, towels, cups, hats, shower curtains, etc. And this barely scratches the surface of the possibilities. The best part is that these companies can receive your order, produce the product and ship it directly to your customer without you ever having to touch it. It’s amazing and you should be utilizing this service as soon as you have an image generated. Then list these products on all your sales channels for ultimate exposure and selling opportunity.

The idea of passive income is to put your art and ideas to work for you so that they are generating money while you sleep, providing you consistent flows of income long into your career.

Another passive flow of income are prints. Once your art and idea has been created you have the copyright to reproduce this image as many times as you wish and continue to make a profit from it. Your earning potential here is virtually uncapped. If you create open edition print series you can sell an infinite amount of the image. The work has already been done which is creating the original art and the product, your job now is to promote the product and find a manufacturer who will produce and distribute the product for you every time an order is placed. You pay for these services, but your profit margins should be high enough to earn you a decent profit. My profit margins for my prints is 87%! Meaning I make 87% of my sale price and 13% goes to the manufacturer and distributor.

Be creative and consider all the possibilities you have to generate income with your art. Perhaps you offer online art workshops that are prerecorded and you sell the videos for $25. You put in the work initially to create the video but now you have you the potential to sell thousands of these videos.

Be careful not to cheapen your brand by adding too many cheap products such as coffee mugs and puzzles and towels. There is a fine line between being cheap and commercial and maintaining a brand that sells high end fine art. You can explore the potential avenues of various products but keep them consistent with your brand and market. Perhaps your art would do very well on puzzles and cheaper products because you have decided to appeal to a wider audience with more affordable artwork. It is best that you decide on the focus and direction of your brand and stick to that.

Thomas Kinkade is great example of an artist that commercialized his work and reproduced it on thousands of various “cheap” products. He made millions of dollars but at the sacrifice of being stereotyped as a kitsch/“chocolate-box” artist. Many artists want to avoid this stereotype like a plague and don’t create any products other than their original art. I can understand this, but they are missing a valuable opportunity to increase their market and revenue. I personally believe it is very important to have additional passive flows of income because an artist’s sales are never consistent. Truthfully you never know when your next original art piece will sell, so you need a backup plan to cover the bills. What will your backup plan be?

Creating Art at all Price Points

You will want to create art that covers all price points to increase your selling potential. Create both high end expensive artwork that costs thousands of dollars all the way down to products that cost $10 or less. Doing this ensures that there is a buyer for your product at all income levels.

Time and time again you will hear from customers, “I just love that, but I can’t afford!” It is your duty and obligation to create something they can afford. Perhaps it is a limited edition print of the art that you can sell them for a fraction of the price, or even a poster of your art that costs $25!

Be creative and begin designing various products around your art so that you can target every buyer within your niche. For example I am in the wildlife niche. I am going to target everyone who loves animals and fine art. I have my very expensive original paintings that I sell to wealthy collectors, but I also have my prints and even pillows with the same art on it but only cost $35. I sell hundreds of these pillows. The buyer still gets a piece of my art without spending $10k for it.

What can you do now to meet every price point? You don’t necessarily need to create new artwork. Use artwork you have already created and turn it into new products. This ensures you have consistent income coming to you every month and not relying on, and waiting for the expensive original paintings to sell.

Creating a Print Line

An artist should always consider creating prints of their artwork. Adding prints to your collection not only opens up a whole new market of buyers, it creates a passive flow of income while increasing the value of your original arts and brand.

Prints can easily be sold online and through shops that are not galleries, such as tourist shops or furniture shops. They are a fraction of the cost of original art so they appeal to more buyers who maybe can’t afford your original art. Also it gets your art into more homes and seen by more people.

You can structure your prints any number of ways. Many artists create a limited edition print series where only a determined amount of that print will be sold. You may also create an open edition print series where the print is sold without a limit on its number. These can be signed or unsigned. Typically the sale price of the open edition prints are much less than the limited edition.

A good sale of the series can increase the value of the original art for the one who owns it. Some collectors don’t like to know there are other people who own the same art and request their arts to have no prints made from it. But I encourage them to consider the potential value increase of their original art. If the prints sell out and it’s a home run then everyone will be wanting the one original.

Once you have photographed your artwork decide whether you are creating an open line or a limited and if so, the number in the edition size. Then you will want to find a quality and reputable printer who can regenerate your image on canvas. Almost always you will be sending in a high resolution photograph of your art. In some cases the printer will have a large format scanner to scan in your art. This can be the most accurate color capture. You may run through several printings to adjust color for accuracy to the original art. Once you are satisfied, the canvas is wrapped around a wooden framed and ready for signing and/or shipping.

If you can invest the money upfront and predict the sales of your print line you can request to have all the prints made at once for a reduced cost, but this also allows you to sign and number all the arts at once. Shipping will be a breeze as a new order comes in, the print is ready to go out. This is great passive income! I print on demand as an order comes in because I have an embellishment option, so unfortunately each print needs to be handled individually which takes up more of my time and money.

Choosing which art to reproduce can be hit or miss. Typically I wait to gage the level of interest in the original art. How much attention is it getting on social media, what about in the galleries? How fast did the original art sell or has it never sold? Answering some of these question can help give you indicators on how well the prints might sell. Once you have a winning art, reproduce it! Often the sales of prints well surpass the original sale price of the art it is copied from. Some artists such as Bev Doolittle created limited edition series of 65,000 sign and numbered prints. They all sold out. That’s a home run!

Signing and Numbering Limited Edition Prints

Deciding the size of your print edition can be a difficult decision. You must predict how many you can sell without truly knowing the level of interest in the actual print. The more you put into production, the more you have to sell if it is a popular piece. But this limits the scarcity and appeal of owning a limited edition print. On the flip side you could create a very limited number of prints to be produced and realize you should have made the number much larger as they quickly sell. I have experienced both.

I prefer to create a very low production number. All my prints are in limited editions of 95. I will only sign and number 95 prints. Once they sell out, the print is discontinued. Because of this scarcity I can charge a higher price for its value. However, if the print is very popular, I will be kicking myself for not making 500 of them. But I won’t know this until the print is launched and starts selling. If you create a large number of prints in the edition you may be stuck with a dead print that never sells and pressure to sell the rest. You will want an edition to sell because this greatly increases the value of your limited edition prints and your reputation as an artist.

Once you have decided on your edition size keep track of your number count as you sell prints. You will want to start with 1 and work your way up to final number. You may keep the first 5 or 10 for yourself as artist proofs and sell them later at a much higher price. Once the prints in the edition sells out, the value goes up and you can sell the remaining 5 you own for a large profit.

Write the edition number alongside your signature and it will look like this: 27/95. This means it is print #27 out of 95. Again, keep good record of your numbers. You don’t want two #27s floating around, nor do you want to skip a number that could have been money in your pocket!

Sign your print with your signature. It can be in either paint or Sharpie pen. I personally prefer paint because I think it is more authentic.

Advertising your Art Online

Once you have products to sell, it is very important to begin advertising them online. Online advertising is a great resource and presents your art to potential buyers. Any sales that you generate online will most likely be a result of advertising. You need to have a budget for spending on advertising, but most often your sales will far exceed your budget. Your goal with online advertising is to attract more customers and sales and receive an ROI, return on investment. These customers will be your arsenal for any future sales, so hold on to them tight.

Advertise on your sales channels

You can advertise your art through all your sales channels. Etsy and Amazon, even Pinterest for example, allow you to promote your products on a daily budget. Do this for all your products as it will get them seen in search results. These promoted listings will rise to the top in search results and product more traffic. More traffic means more sales. So it is important to do this. You can set your budget for just $1 per day!

Advertising on Social Media

You can also promote your posts on social media like Instagram and Facebook. If you desire increased engagement in your posts to attract more followers, comments and likes, this is a great idea! Facebook is the most powerful tool for advertising your art for sales and I will dive into it here.

Advertising on Facebook

 You will be using Facebook to advertise all your products. Create an advertising account, this is called the Ads Manager, and attach it to your fan page. Any posts you create on your Facebook fan page will be used to create ads.

Creating a Campaign

To create an ad you will want to first create a new campaign/create ad. You will see a variety of options for your marketing objective. Choose conversions as we will be wanting to convert our visitors to buyers.

For your conversion you want to optimize the website for Add to Cart or Purchase. You will need to install the pixel into your Shopify account or code it into your website so that Facebook can create data around your ad and track the visitors.

Under your Ads Manager, visit All tools and Pixels, under Assets. Follow the instruction for installing the pixel into Shopify.

Creating your Audience

Create an audience you will be targeting for your ads. Facebook has many options for finding your audience, so you must be strategic in selecting the right audience and narrowing down your niche.

Start by advertising in United States. In Detailed Targeting, begin listing all the attributes of your audience. These are your interest groups. So you want to create relevant interests around your art. Ask questions like:

What is your targeting buyer into?

What about your art may interest them?

Where would they go to buy your art?

What is relevant in your art that may be relevant to them?

Who is your buyer? Are they a hunter or a gardener or a dentist?

Facebook will show you the size of each interest group and build your audience size around it. Include as many that are relevant. You will want Narrow Further to break down your large audience into an audience size of 50k-750k.

For example if I was selling a bison painting I would target people who are interested in Bison and buffalo. Then I would narrow further to target people interested in Yellowstone National Park. This is where you can see bison. I will then narrow my audience further to target people who like fine art and paintings.

Save this audience as you will want to use it later for creating more ads and testing ads against each other.

Edit your placements to only be on Facebook Newsfeed. This will significantly reduce your audience size so go back and adjust your interest groups to get it between 50k-750k.

Set your daily Budget to start at $5.00 per day. This is a perfect number to being gathering data and sales.

Creating the Ad

You will have many options available to you to create your ad. You can do a single image, or a carousel of images, even video ads. I recommend trying them all and seeing which converts the best for you.

You can create a new ad or select from an existing post on your Facebook page. I would suggest using an existing post as this is designed to bring in the most amount of engagement. It will also increase the following of your Facebook Page.

Writing out the text is crucial. It is where you want to be specific in your product and offer and create a sense of urgency. When scrolling through your Facebook feed, will your ad stop you and make you read, and then make you buy? Write a very compelling statement about your art that convinces people to buy. Use click bait and words to entice them to follow your Call to Action, which is sending them to your product on your website.

Here is an example I created for a top selling ad:

It's unlike anything you've seen...

There's ONLY 50 of them... And I WANT you to have one before they are gone!

If you love bison, the heritage of the West, then you will LOVE this limited edition print in your home.

It is hand signed and numbered by me, James Corwin, on canvas, ready to hang. And I'll ship it to you free.

Get it now, before it is too late, you don't want to miss out because they are already going so fast and after the 50 are sold, that's it!

Get yours here:

https://www.jamescorwin.com/products/giants-in-the-mist

Do you see how I have created a sense of urgency in my limited edition print? I also told them why they should by it and what makes it special! I created an offer for free shipping as well. I ended it with a link to the product page.

Add any relevant pictures and create a Call to Auction. Input your product page URL to send your buyers to. The ad will direct them from Facebook to your website. Facebook will track the actions from the visitor and let you know how many people have added it to their cart, how many have initiated checkout and how many have purchased. Submit your ad for review.

Let your ad run for at least a week. You can gage the level of interest in your product by how much engagement it is getting (likes, comments, shares) and how many add to carts or purchases are made. If you aren’t getting many of either of these, then try a different audience and set of interest groups. It is difficult to get it right the first time. It doesn’t mean your art isn’t sellable, it just means you haven’t targeted people who are interested in it yet.

Scaling Ads

Once you have a performing ad, you will want to scale it. You can scale it by increasing the daily budget to a higher amount. Make sure you are getting a return on your ad spend. You can track your ad spend and conversions in your Ads Manager Account Overview. You can also scale by creating lookalike audiences from your data. Facebook will create a lookalike audience based on those who have already purchased. This is the power of the pixel as Facebook will create an even more targeted audience for you of people who are highly likely to buy as they are similar to you previous buyers.

You can create a lookalike audience by follow the steps in the Custom Audience section using your pixel or your products URL. Create a new ad using this audience. You can continue to create lookalike audiences based on your buyers.

Facebook is powerful for generating sales. I encourage you to get familiar with the Ads Manager and begin creating ads for your best products. It is super awarding to wake up every day to sales!

Advertising your Art in Magazines

Advertising your art in magazines is a great way to reach affluent art collectors and galleries. The distribution for art magazines lands in the hands of other artists, art collectors and galleries. If your art is unknown it will be seen by the most important audience. However, this comes with a heavy price tag.

I would suggest considering placing an ad in a magazine when you can afford the ad and don’t mind NOT receiving a return on your investment. Many artists hope that advertising their art in magazines will produce a sale. Unfortunately this is not often the case. The ad will probably be looked at for 10 seconds and then passed over and you just paid over $3000 for that 10 seconds. Every once in a while a collector sees your art and falls in love with it and picks up the phone to call you and place an order. But don’t count on it the one time you place an ad. You can place an ad in each monthly edition for a reduced cost. They say it takes up seven times for someone to see an ad before they buy. So if you have the budget to do so, I recommend placing the ad 7 or more times in each consecutive edition.

What do ads cost?

Ads vary in cost between magazines and ad size. A full page ad can run anywhere from $1500-$4000 and a back cover or premium placement (such as inside cover) can cost $5000 or more. Smaller ads such as quarter page or eight page run much cheaper (i.e. $400-$600) but they are hardly worth it as it is impossible to get your art big enough to be noticed. Your goal of advertising is to be seen! Buying a 1/8 page ad wont get you seen. You will be crowded by the other 7 ads on the same page. You can reduce these prices by agreeing to place an ad in multiple editions, but you are then contracted to paying for each edition (i.e. $2000 for 8 editions will cost you $16,000). Do you have the budget for this? The magazines run on advertising dollars, so unfortunately it costs quite a bit.

Often the return on your investment may not be a sale, but being picked up by a prestigious gallery. Galleries carry several art magazines each month for their visitors to read but also show off their artists that are featured that month and written up in articles. The galleries will look through the magazines and if they see your art, they may think it is a good fit for their gallery.

Some magazines offer an incentive for advertising in their magazines. If you place a full page ad, for example, they will give you a free editorial. An editorial is an article written about you and or art. These incentives are great because not only is your art being shown but subscribers and read and learn more about you. This is increase your chances of a sale or being picked up by a gallery.

Advertising in magazines is an important way to be seen by your most important audience, but it comes at a great cost. Only invest in advertising here when you can afford to lose the costs without a return on investment. The return on investment is being seen, which is great, but if your business is losing $4000 per month without additional income coming in, forget about being seen, you won’t be in business anymore!

The Power of SEO

Search Engine Optimization, commonly known as SEO, is a very important part of running your online business. Its sole purpose is to drive traffic to your website and increase your ranking in search results. If you are selling anything online, you want people to find you and find you quickly above the other competition when they search for your product.

SEO takes a lot of work and knowledge but you can hire experts to do this for you. They will be able to comb through your website and optimize it for ranking in search engines and drive more traffic to your site. More traffic to your website means more conversions and opportunities for sales. Also when someone searches ‘wildlife art’, for example, you will want to be on that first page of listings, where you will be seen. A very small percentage of people look on to the 2nd page in search results and even a tinier number of people look at the 3rd page. Forget about the 4th. Where do you want to be? If you are on the 16th page, who will ever find you and buy your products?

Here are some things you can do right now. While the algorithms that search engines use to categorize your website are constantly changing, there are a few practices that do help considerably. You will want to optimize your website for relevant keywords. Use Google’s keyword planner to research keywords for search count and competition. Wildlife art may be very competitive but elephant art may not be. You will then want to fill out your website targeting this relevant keywords by including them in your written content and titles. Google’s bots comb through your website every so often and will pick up these keywords and then categorize you under that keyword. You will rise up in rankings with relevancy and back links supporting your matching keywords. Backlinks are links directing traffic to your website from an outside source. Anytime your website and business is mentioned on another website, that creates a backlink. The more backlinks you have, the more the search engine will increase your ranking due to popularity and relevancy. If everyone is talking about your elephant art, then the search engine will identify you as a credible source on elephant art and push you to the top. This is why a less competitive niche can be easier to break through, rather than targeting something like ‘contemporary art’.

SEO is an on going process and never a one time job. This is why I recommend an expert to handle your SEO and create back links for you. If you can afford to do so, hire someone to help. Most likely it will provide you with a return on your investment by producing more sales. Don’t expect overnight success though, it is a long process to slowly build your daily traffic count and relevancy in search listings. But it is absolutely necessary. If you decide to do this job yourself, which I have done, I recommend learning to do so and dedicating an hour a day to it. There are many more resources on the Internet and in books that go into depth on the practice. Consider it an investment and integral part of your business. If you intend to sell your art online, then you must drive organic traffic to your website and the only way to achieve this is through SEO.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful way to stay in touch with your customers and provide them with additional opportunities to purchase your products, while keeping them updated with anything new in your art world.

Your email list should always be growing and it should include the addresses of previous customers and potential customers.

Every visitor to your website is a potential customer so you must create a popup or section on your website to collect their email address, the same goes for social media accounts. Whenever someone shows interest in your art and products, collect their email address. By collecting their email address, you will be delivering them news, updates and deals on your art. Most likely they will buy from you at some point, so it is important to keep them close.

Also place out a guest book to collect email addresses at your art shows. These are also potential clients that you may be able to sell to later.

Every month create an email campaign that features news about you, and any new art you have created. Also let you subscribers know about any deals you have to buy your products. I call this email a newsletter and most business provide newsletters. You will want to send one out at least once a month.

I use Mailchimp to create my newsletters. I build the email on the website and then it is sent out all at once to all my contacts. I can then track who opens it and if they made any purchases.

Sites like Shopify and Facebook allow you to integrate Mailchimp so that every time you collect an email address, it automatically gets saved into the your Mailchimp lists.

I recommend you begin collecting email addresses now and start designing your monthly newsletter. Email marketing is a gold mine and where you will find the greatest potential for sales! Nurture it and grow it!

Go Where the Money Is

Unfortunately when you create art buyers don’t magically appear and buy, you have to go to them! This can be in the form of galleries and shows but I like to think outside the box and go where no other artists are going. This takes confidence and some original thinking, but the rewards are great.

Research where the money is around you. Do the wealthy live in a certain area of town? Where do they hang out and shop and eat? Visit these places. If you see a new mansion being built, meet the owners and offer your art to decorate their home. Most likely they will need to decorate their new home and they will like the idea of buying from local artists. You can also make partnerships with interior design companies and pay them a commission every time they sell one of your paintings to a home owner. I am partnered with one of the top interior design companies in Colorado. They service many wealthy homes every month.

Where do the wealthy shop? Put your art there! Post flyers in this area advertising your art. Get your art seen. Also eat where they eat! Become a regular in their area. This may cost you money but I see it as advertising. You are looking to make a connection and network with these individuals. As you become a regular open up conversation with them and establish a relationship. Most likely they will buy from you and share about you to their friends.

Where do the wealthy stay? One of my favorites ways to establish a relationship with the wealthy is to vacation at the luxury resorts they do. We are both staying for extended period of time in one location. It is so easy to network and create lasting relationships. Almost every time I stay at these resorts or teach a workshop at one, I leave with a great network and nearly $30,000 in art sales. It is an investment in money and time to stay at these resorts, but they are attracting the perfect clientele for your art. When they are on vacation they are enjoying themselves and already spending plenty of money. This is a perfect opportunity to upsell them with your art.

Make it fun! It is not difficult to get on the inside and hang out with the rich and famous, you just need to go where they go and establish a relationship.

Customer Service

Customer service is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of your art business that you must learn to do affectively. Customer service is working with your clients and customers to provide them a service above and beyond your call of duty and treating them with loyalty, integrity and respect.

Customer service is not easy, but offering great customer service will place you far beyond other artists. Great customer service establishes a relationship with your clients that will serve them and you over the entirety of your career. Treat them well and they will be with you for life and will rave about you to all their friends!

How to provide great customer service:

Customer service is your responsibility, obligation and duty and therefore you must go above and beyond to provide your customers with a world-class service. Why? Because no one else is doing it and you will attract buyers because your reputation for providing the best service.

Through my early years I learned the hard way when my customer service sucked. People told me so and this was a huge wake up call. I am going to lose customers unless I learn to be prompt and meet their needs quickly. I would slack in responding to messages and delivering products. I was too absorbed into my art. This unfortunately is what happens to many artists and why they don’t provide great customer service. I began to change my actions and develop an attitude of wold-class service. I want to treat my customers like royalty. They are buying my art and for that I am so grateful, I can’t do enough to service them. They are supporting me and therefore they deserve the best that I can provide.

Today, I am always in touch with my customers, asking if there is anything I can do to further enhance their purchase and relationship with me. You see when someone buys my art, they buy me as well and luxurious service that will provided well beyond their initial purchase. Most likely they will be repeat buyers, so I want to keep them engaged.

Too many artists neglect their previous customers and focus on acquiring new customers. These previous customers are a gold mine. They already bought from your once, they will buy again. So nurture your relationship with them and provide value far beyond the value of your art. If someone pays $500 for my small painting, I am going to still give them a million dollar service.

When problems arise, I see them as opportunities to provide a better service and product. I don’t mind taking product returns because it means I can provide a better service and product to the customer. There is a reason they are returning it and it is your duty to fix that problem.

When a customer reaches out to you via email or phone, respond right away. Good customer service is being prompt to answer their questions and meet their needs. Communicate in a professional manner, addressing them by their name and a message. 

Ask if there is anything you can do to further enhance their product or experience with you. Also ask about their experience with the product. This will provide good information on how to increase the quality of your buyer’s art acquisition experience.

When working with customers in person, have an attitude of gratitude. Being grateful for the opportunity to provide great service to your customer will radiate from you and motivate you to go above and beyond in meeting their needs. This will create a welcoming environment sure to move your customer to a buyer. You must WOW your customer and treat them like royalty, no matter the situation. They will remember this and it will positively affect their relationship with you.

What to do with angry customers

Every so often you will deal with angry customers. It is important to identify why they are angry in the first place. Most likely it is because you have failed to deliver on a promise or an expectation they had towards your product or service. Angry customers can easily be turned into satisfied customers when you address this need. Ask them questions to understand the source of their angry, like what is it about this product isn’t working for you? What can I do to provide a better product? Would you like to exchange this product with a different product? What can I do better to service you in the future? Following up with meeting their needs.

Providing customer service is not a choice, it is a demand from your business and an opportunity to give more than you think necessary. Never settle for just right, or just enough. This is what everyone else is doing and to be successful you don’t want to do what everyone else is doing, you want to break out on top and be the best, right? So show that you are the best by providing the best service in the art world!

Check out and Accepting Payments for Sales

 There are various methods of accepting payment for your sales. When selling online the platform that you use, whether it be Shopify, Paypal, Etsy, Amazon, etc., all have their own integrated method of accepting payments and many of these carry over. For example you will see at checkout the option to pay via credit card, or Paypal or Amazon Payments. You will want to create an account for all of these. It nice for your customer to have multiple options for paying for your product. However, do not accept checks or bank deposit. These can lead to fraudulent transactions.

On your website incorporate these payment systems into your checkout or have a someone code them in. You will pay a small fee for every transaction but usually no more than 3%. Everyone pays these fees, every time you checkout anywhere (i.e. grocery store, Wal-Mart, gas station) they are paying a fee for you to use your credit card. But hardly anyone uses cash these days, just accept the fact that you will lose a little bit off your sale price.

After a payment goes through you will be asked for your bank information. Provide this and the companies will payout on schedule into your bank account. It’s so easy!

Make the checkout as simple as possible. No one wants to input information over several pages. Ask for their name, email and shipping address. Then ask for their credit card information and that’s it! So many sites ask you to create an account and then run you through so many pages before completing your purchase. This is discouraging and wastes time. Amazon identified this and created the 1-Click Purchase.

You can also send invoices to customers through sites like Paypal. Within your account you can request payment or send an invoice to your customer. Create the invoice with detailed information of the product and its price and send it to their email. The customer can then open it and checkout without having a Paypal account. The money then gets deposited into your account and you can request it to be transferred to your bank.

When accepting payment in person request cash or check (trust the check will go through) or use the apps on your phone to handle a transaction. While you may not carry the Swipe or Square with you at all times, you can manually input a transaction into the app with their credit card information.

If you are exhibiting at a show or gallery usually the venue/host will process the payments for you.

Bookkeeping your Art Sales

Bookkeeping is the one the downsides of running a business. It takes time and nobody wants to do it. That is why businesses often hire a book keeper to record all the sales and financials so it is nicely organized for taxes.

I choose to do my own bookkeeping because I like to know my sales numbers, but may turn this job over to someone real soon. There are many softwares that provide a bookkeeping service, such as Quickbooks. I have used some of these softwares and find them to be complicated. I prefer to use Numbers and Excel spreadsheets.

Whichever method you choose, remain diligent and organized. It is easy to slack on imputing the numbers yourself and then you begin to forget what the sale price was or how much it cost to ship. So it is important to input the numbers right away so they are accurate.

I set up my spreadsheet in columns with my purchase price, followed by cost of goods sold, my commission if there is one (this includes commissions to galleries, but also the 2.9% you pay the credit card processing company), shipping costs and then after all that has been from the purchase price, my net profit. I also record the order number and if I have any receivables which is money owed me for product that hasn’t been paid in full.

It is easier for me to track the totals with this method and add up all the categories for my estimated sales and net profits. This spreadsheet then get’s exported during tax time with all my required information.

If you hire someone else to do this process it can give you more time to create art and remove the headache. Obviously I like the business side of my art, but I can understand most artists do not want to deal with the tedious task of bookkeeping. If you can afford to hire help, always do it, in my opinion. A bookkeeper can even be a virtual assistant online for a couple hundreds dollars a month. Or someone local who does bookkeeping for a number of clients. Hire someone reliable because accuracy is most important to avoid problems with the IRS later on. This includes yourself, are you reliable and responsible enough to record accurate numbers? Sometimes we are not, and make some small unconscious corrections to make the numbers seem more appealing or leave numbers out. It probably won't get noticed by the IRS, but it is good practice to start now before you are working with millions of dollars in profit and tiny change is noticeable!

Shipping your Artwork

Eventually you will encounter the mundane process of shipping your artwork. Whether it be shipping prints to customers or artwork to galleries, I never enjoy visiting the shipping store. It takes time out of my busy day. I suppose I am grateful that visiting the shipping store means I am generating sales and delivering product to happy customers.

It is important to find a good carrier for a competitive price. I use UPS because they have been the most reliable and cheapest carrier for me. I am sure there are independent companies that are cheaper, but I choose a widely accepted shipper. USPS used to be my shipper until they started damaging my products, losing my shipment, shipping to wrong addresses, and late deliveries. UPS has always been on-time and only have I filed a claim for a damaged print. They refunded me with the $100 insurance and the cost of shipping. I put a little money into my pocket from this claim.

Proper packaging is important to avoid damages to your precious artwork. I avoid paying the exorbitant fees that UPS charges for packaging products. So learn to do it yourself and buy your own boxes and packaging material. The shipping stores usually sell boxes or there are many websites that sell artwork shipping boxes. I am fortunate that my printing company ships my prints to me in these boxes. After I sign the print, I close the print back up in the box and ship it back out. Your local office store will sell bubble wrap and other packing materials.

Pack your artwork securely. Make sure all sides are padded. Packages are jostled and thrown around during shipment. If you are worried about damages to your artwork you can request shipping insurance to cover the full value of your art. Usually it is $1 per $100 value. If you have a $2000 painting, then you will be paying $20 in insurance. It is cheaper for you to just package it very well. But it is not a bad idea to purchase the insurance anyways… I never do because I have insurance from a private company that covers my damages or lost artwork. Tape up the box well! Nowadays you don’t need to handwrite the address on the box. You can show the shipper the address it needs to go and they will print it on a sticker.

Prices for shipping can be expensive. Either charge your customer shipping or factor the cost into your product price and charge free shipping. Many of the sales channels and Shopify allow you to create estimated shipping charges if you know the measurements and weight of your packaged product. It will calculate these based on the customers address and charge them accordingly. I always found this too take too much time to put together and never fully accurate… mostly because I never knew how much my box would weigh or its size before I shipped it. So I always charge free shipping. My profit margins are high enough that it doesn’t affect my profits too much and it is more appealing for customers when checking out. For example I always hate when I am paying $300 for a product and at checkout they charge $60 for shipping. I don’t want to pay $360, I want to pay $300. The buyer for your art will feel the same way and probably abandon their shopping cart.

When shipping large framed paintings you will most likely need to crate it. This is the safest option. When a painting weighs more (i.e. 40lbs) and can’t fit into a cardboard box, it should be crated. A special wooden crate is built to fit the painting. A shipper can build a crate for you. The cost will be very high. Or you can request your custom framer or even a woodworking shop to build you a crate. The cost of building a crate will cost $100+ however the shipping charges will be slightly reduced as you are going freight. The cost per lbs is greatly reduced and you won’t be too shocked when quoted a price. It costs about the same to ship an 8lb box to the United Kingdom as it does to ship an 80lb crate to across the United States. Eventually you will be crating and shipping paintings to customers, galleries and shows. Find a reliable business or friend to help you build the crates. The shipper will come to your residence or business and pick it up.

You can charge the customer for these additional shipping charges. When selling a high priced piece of art, they customer usually doesn’t mind paying the additional few hundred dollars to get it home. Galleries will pay for shipping of any artwork sold within their store also some good galleries will pay to have your artwork shipped from your studio to them! Though you should most likely accept that you will be paying these fees or driving to wherever they are and delivering a load of artwork.

Using your art to raise money for charity

You can use your art to raise money for charity. You will be asked countless times through your art career to submit your art for a charity/nonprofit fundraiser. At these events your art will either be available for sale, placed into a silent auction or a live auction. If it is an auction-type event, be sure there is an audience that can afford your art.

You will not be able to donate art to every cause but perhaps you may choose to donate prints over original paintings. Prints are a great way to meet people’s spending budgets. The people attending the even want to spend money to support their charity, but maybe don’t have several thousand dollars to spend on an original painting.

I have found donating art to a charity event to be extremely successful and rewarding. Not only does my art almost always sell over asking price in auction, I am donating to help a special cause.

I typically ask for a percentage of the sale price and you can too. Often the fundraiser will ask for 100% donation, but you can request a percentage back to help cover your costs such as framing or printing costs, and then a little in your pocket. I always request 50% because I know my painting will sell for a high price and the charity will make decent profit on my art, as will I. We both need to stay in business!

Art always seems to perform best in charities and people are always willing to spend their money more at this time than probably any other time. So it is a perfect opportunity to get your precious art in front of them, while supporting a great cause. Begin researching fundraiser and nonprofit auctions around you. They are happening every month! And they are almost always looking for submissions.

Handeling Commissions and Contracts

Getting your first commission for a work of art is exciting! A commission is when a customer sees your work and request a personal piece or a specific idea not yet created. This can be a personal view of the landscape at their home, or simply an idea they have created of something they would like in their home. Perhaps someone likes ducks and they like your style of painting and requests a duck painting in your style.

When a client requests a commission engage them in conversation to understand exactly what their ideas are. It has been my experience that they vaguely know what they want. So it is your job to get the answer so that you can deliver exactly what they desire. Ask them questions on the subject matter, what is happening in the scene? Time of day? What style? How big should the painting be? Write these down so that you can begin composing an idea. Collect any references and pictures to help you with the process. You will want to share your preliminary sketches and ideas with the client. Nothing is worse that putting time into a painting only to find it wasn’t what they wanted and starting over.

A commission can mean money up front! Negotiate pricing with your client. Typically you will want to charge what you do for your other paintings at that size. Some artists mark up their price from commissions 10-25% because it requires more work. I don’t do this. Collect a 50% deposit before you start. Write up a simple contract along with requested payment. This contract promises you will deliver artwork specified by the client and they client will deliver his/her promise of payment. The remaining 50% will be given after completion of the painting.

What does a contract look like?

A contract doesn’t need to be lengthy or stressful. It is simply an agreement signed by you and the client. You can find samples of contracts online and edit yours to fit your needs. The contract will need to explain what is to happen if one or the other party does not complete their end of the agreement and the legal actions you can take. You agree to create a work of art meeting the specifications laid forth by a certain date and the client agrees to pay you 50% up front and the remaining 50% after completion. You both sign on this agreement and you get to work!

During the commission process you will want to update your client with progress pictures. Email them with progress pictures and request feedback and ask any questions you may have. It is important you meet their desires and expectations. Keeping them updated with your progress with insure that you will deliver exactly what they wanted when you finish. It is easier to make changes along the way than start over from the beginning.

Once the painting is complete request the final payment before delivering the artwork. In the unlikely event that the client no longer wants the painting or is unhappy with the product, contractually they must deliver on their promise as you delivered on yours. You can either push them for final payment or keep their deposit and try sell the painting elsewhere. Once final payment has been received ask if the client would like you to frame the painting or if they would like to do it themselves. Either way they will be paying for framing. If they would like you to frame it ask for the additional money for the framing cost. Additionally charge them the shipping cost to deliver the artwork. I usually negotiate all this into the initial cost that goes under contract. For example I will budget for a $500 frame and $300 credit towards shipping.

Commissions can be stressful. I don’t accept them unless the payment is high or the painting seems fun to do. I prefer to paint my own ideas, but sometimes it is fun to match someone else’s vision. The benefit of a commission is the guaranteed sale and working directly with your clients.

Choosing a frame for your art

Choosing the right frame is one of the most critical aspects of the painting process. It can make or break your paintings, regardless of how good it is. A painting married to the perfect frame will enhance your painting beyond its original state to a masterpiece sure to move a viewer to a purchase.

Subconsciously a buyer can recognize the quality of a good frame or a mis-matched frame whether or not they are educated on framing. A frame must be of quality and bring out important aspects of the painting to increase the quality of the painting itself. A well matched frame can certainly bring a poorly executed painting to a that of interest and appeal, the same as a bad frame can bring a stellar painting to an unacceptable painting, without a sale.

What does a well matched frame look like?

A well known artist told me that the day he invested in quality frames for his work was the day his paintings began to sell, and sell well! I took his advice and experienced the same amazing results. Not only did my paintings sell frequently, I could raise my prices considerably because a quality frame commands a higher price just by its look and appeal.

I believe quality frames to be those made of quality materials such as wood, and metals, even precious metals like gold, silver and bronze. They are often handmade by master craftsman and a product of their own design and ingenuity. This means the frame is custom made and moldings can not be found elsewhere. They are made in-house. Staining and inlays are all hand-carved. It is a work of art in-itself.

A custom frame can be made to match a painting. The artisan can manipulate the colors and design to meet the requirements of the painting. This is truly one-of-kind and compliments a painting so well it deserves a high price tag and it will sell! Make sure to explain to the customer that the frame is custom made to the painting and one-of-a-kind.

If you decide to outfit your paintings with custom made frames, which I highly recommend, it will cost more than the traditional framing store and mass-produced moldings, but not much more. I believe the prices to be very competitive and typically they give a 50% discount (wholesale price) to the artists. Later you can mark up your painting 100% to receive the cost of the frame back twice its amount (the true value of the frame).

If you choose mass-produced moldings via a frame shop often the framer can help you choose a frame design to match your painting. If they are competent they will identify the colors and subject that need to be enhanced in the painting and pair a frame accurately. However, I have found most to be incompetent and I get frustrated choosing a frame that hardly meets my paintings needs. I end up paying extra for fillets as accents to bring out colors. At this point the price is sometimes more than a custom made painting. I would much rather sit down with my master craftsman and tell him my needs before hand and let him design the frame around my painting. It takes longer (3-4 weeks), but not as long as that painting will sit on the wall before it sells with a bad frame on it!

Ready made frames are the worse. I know their cheap price tag is appealing, but you will not be able to sell your paintings for more money. It is like putting a brand new engine in a rusty old cheap car, you just can’t ask for a higher price. Sure it will run and drive, but the a buyer can still recognize the quality of the rusted old vehicle, and will not pay more, probably even if it had a luxury sports car engine in it. A cheap frame hides the true value of your beautiful art. Let your painting breathe! Even if you think the quality of the frame is nice, how well does it actually match your painting?

Here is what to look for in the frame to enhance your painting.

Choose a frame made of solid wood, not plastic (yes, they make plastic frames made to look like wood). Wood is traditional and fits most paintings well. The profile should not distract from the painting and lead the viewer into the painting, not pull them out. Frames with too much frill and carvings can be distracting and pull the viewer out, same as a frame that is flat can fail to pull the viewer in. Often, the carving and profile should mimic patterns within the painting. If shapes are soft and rounded, so should the frame be. If shapes are jagged and sharp, so should the frame be.

Colors within the frame should subtly bring out colors within the painting. But choose your colors wisely. Dark dominant colors will be pronounced with a dark frame, but also make your brights brighter. If you want less contrast, choose a more neutral frame. You can also choose frames with a inner bead or lining of color. This can be gold or silver, or even a color found within the painting. This is a popular choice and can really enhance important aspects within the painting. For example a matte black frame with a gold lining is often a nice compliment to landscape paintings as the black enhances the saturation of the colors within the painting and the contrast in the value scale. The gold enhances the light painted within the landscape.

Metal frames are typically paired with more modern/contemporary and abstract art and designed to be floater frames. This can be good pairings, but make sure the colors enhance the painting. A shiny metallic frame could distract from the painting.

Frame size is also important. The width of your frame should be balanced with the painting size. Though, a very small painting should be paired with a wide frame as it will create the appearance of a much larger painting and the buyer will receive more value in their purchase of a small painting. Very large paintings can be slimmed down with a thin floater/box frame. It depends on your statement as well. If your painting is grand in subject matter, perhaps it requires a grand, elaborate frame that is wide and heavy.

Don’t expect to nail your pairing on the first pick. Like a good marriage, it takes time to find the perfect partner. Place several different styles of frames on your art. You will know when the chemistry is made. It will just look right.

Purchasing high-quality frames at first can be intimidating especially if you have several paintings to frame all at once and a tight budget. Get some help from family and friends or the bank to invest in your frames. It is one of the most important investments you can make in your art business. The frames WILL sell your paintings!! They will sell them better than simply the painting itself and the best sales person. A bad frame just creates bad art.

Too often I see artists slap a cheap frame on their beautiful artwork and attach a high price tag to it with high hopes for its sale. It sits for months without any action. I am sad to see this because their beautiful artwork deserves a beautiful showcase. The frame is the house for your painting and the higher quality it is, the more enticing your painting becomes because people want the best and are willing to pay for the best! Let your art be the best it can be!

How to Light your Art

 Lighting your art correctly is a very important step in bringing your art to life. You may have noticed walking around stores vs restaurants vs homes, all the lighting is a different spectrum of either cool light or warm light. Typically stores for shopping cast cool fluorescent light, whereas a restaurant is often very warm and subdued to create a cozy climate. The light within a home is usually incandescent warm light.

Each spectrum of light drastically changes the effect of the painting and the colors within it. Art is best displayed under a natural daylight spectrum. Naturally this is the light the painting should have been painted under. However, many artists use a variety of lighting within their studio if they don’t have access to natural daylight. I used to use artificial incandescent lighting before I could invest in a natural daylight spectrum, which I will explain how to create.

The art you create under a certain light should then remain exhibited under that same light. The colors you created were conceived under that certain spectrum, be it warm or cool, and will look quite different presented under the opposite. When you sell a painting or it goes into a gallery or exhibition it is obviously difficult to know what lighting it will be shown under. Galleries and Exhibitions will typically use a daylight spectrum, but homes still use warm incandescent bulbs or warm halogen bulbs, unless the collector individually lights each painting with proper lighting.

Lighting to avoid

In your studio avoid using warm incandescent lighting such as lamps, recessed lighting and spotlights. These lights tend to be dark anyway in lighting your art. If you cast a spotlight on your art, then you are working under a very warm light which will affect the colors in your painting. What will appear accurate to you now, will later look very different in a gallery that uses daylight halogen bulbs. Furthermore, you want to avoid very cool lighting. If you use natural daylight in your studio, a cloudy rainy day can cast very cool light and affect your colors. The next day could be sunny and bring forth a warm spectrum, confusing your palette.

Creating your Light

I suggest artificially creating a daylight spectrum incorporating both warm and cool light. Halogen bulbs are the best for casting light because of their wide spread and brightness. They are also very energy efficient and last for many hours. On a lighting strip, depending on its length, you can attach 4+ lights to it and arrange them in various directions.

You will buy 2 types of bulbs. One is a cold spectrum. On the box, it will say whether it is cool or warm. I like to use an LED halogen bulb for my cool light. The other bulb will be a warm halogen. Alternate these bulbs along the strip. Cool, warm, cool, warm, etc. Use as many needed to light your space. I use 8 bulbs. 4 light my easel, 3 light my palette, 1 lights my chair. The mix of the cool and warm produce a perfect daylight spectrum similar natural light. Then when my art is placed into a gallery with fluorescent lighting or a home with warm lighting, my colors hardly change because it was initially painted under a blend of both spectrums of light.

Lighting your art in galleries, shows and homes

Lighting your art correctly is very important and will make a difference your sales. Wherever it is presented, it should have a direct light that covers the entirety of the art without leaving a ring of shadow, and preferable a blend of cool and warm light. Also, the light mustn’t create any glare on your canvas. If you used a glossy finish, this can produce glare. Manipulating the direction of casted light can reduce the glare. Lighting is best set from an angle at the side rather than directing focused from above. Also the lighting should be some distance from the painting to allow the casted light to spread more evenly. This will reduce the ring of shadow on the wall and artwork.

In a gallery, make sure your artwork is properly lit. Most galleries don’t have enough lighting for the amount of art they carry and I have often walked in to see my work inadequately lighted. This affects sales. Get your art into a spot that is lit so it can be seen. It is worth it.

In exhibition and shows, very often you have direction over the lighting, even installing it yourself. Make sure you have at least one light per piece of art. Track lighting is the best for lighting multiple pieces of art within your exhibit. Create a structure that supports the track lighting and just like your studio, alternate the bulbs with warm and cool light. Turn the bulbs to cast light at an angle that blends to the two spectrums across the artwork. You want to create a wash of light along the artwork and avoid spotlights. If you want to bring attention to a particular piece, then a spotlight can achieve this. Bust most often you want to create a museum/gallery like setting with even lighting.

When lighting your artwork within a home for yourself or a client, use the same lighting it was created under, if possible. Paintings in a home are often a statement and are best placed under a spotlight that brings attention to it. Use a cool and warm bulb to cast this directional light.

There are lamps you can buy that sit above the painting on the end of the frame and cast a light down. These are affective but in my opinion a bit tacky and don’t properly light the painting fully. Usually shadows are also created.

Take the time to properly light your art and studio. It will greatly enhance your artwork and make it more appealing to customers. It will also relieve the frustration of seeing your painting change color under different lighting. Good galleries and museums understand how to light paintings effectively so be smart and match your studio and exhibits to their lighting, your art will universally look as it was created wherever it is shown. 

Applying to Exhibitions and Competitions

One of the most important jobs as an artist is to get your art seen. You can be the world’s best artist, but if your art isn’t being seen, it isn’t going sell and you aren’t going to gain recognition. Fortunately there are many opportunities for artists to have their work seen. Among these are exhibitions and competitions.

Exhibitions can either be group or solo. They are held in a venue open to the public and invite people in to browse and purchase art. Exhibitions happen every month all over the country and world. It is important that you become aware of them and apply.

Competitions also occur frequently and are designed to award prizes to winners. A lot of competitions are held online and targeting a certain theme. For example Plein Air Magazine has monthly competitions for best plein air painting in numerous categories. If you win you are awarded money but then entered into the annual grand prize of $25,000 and a feature on the cover of the magazine! Competitions are a great way to receive cash awards and recognition. Often exhibitions offer Best in Show financial awards as well.

Both awards and exhibitions can be recorded in your resume/CV. A gallery and museum will take great consideration in your activity as well the exhibitions and competitions you apply to. When applying to exhibitions and competitions you will be asked to provide your CV, artist statement and images of your best work. It is often a juried process. Expect to pay a fee around $35 to submit these materials. They don’t review them for free. Obviously the fees can add up quickly every time you want to submit material, but sometimes being entered is prestigious enough, whether you win or not. Many exhibitions and competitions are extremely competitive and tough to get into, but if you do it’s a huge win!

Begin researching and making a list of exhibitions and competitions you want to apply to. Make a note of their deadlines. Many deadlines are months apart from the event date, even up to a year. Also consider if you are willing to travel to the exhibitions, or sending the host the art. Some exhibitions require you to set up an exhibit and be present, while others request you to send art to their group show. Some shows even travel between venues over a period of time.

Ask other experienced artists for show and competitions they think are best to apply to. Some shows can be a complete waste of your time if they don’t bring in good traffic and sales. This is more often the case so investigate the exhibition before you apply to see if it would be a good fit for you and worth your time and money. This goes for competitions as well. How well does your art fit the theme they are promoting? Does your art fit into a category? Who is judging and do they appreciate the type of work you do? How do you compare to the other artists, will it be an easy win, or is everyone else way more advanced artistically? Asking yourself questions like these will help you weed through all the exhibitions and competitions and save you time and money.

Exhibiting at Art Fairs and Festivals

I first began selling my art at local fairs and festivals. My summer job in high school and even after my first couple years in college was setting up a booth at the weekly farmers markets and summer art fairs. This gave me great exposure and trained me in selling. Although I was selling cheaper products, I still managed to bring in as much summer income as my friends were who spent their summer away laboring at some stressful job.

I attribute my start and a lot of what I know now to these fairs. It taught me to recognize what people are interested in and what they buy, not only with my products, but also at the other booths around me. I began to have a good sense of what worked and didn't work. Here are some of the things I discovered.

Applying to Fairs and Markets

Most of the fairs and even farmers markets require an application and to be juried in. First, get these in as soon as possible. I often missed out of fairs because I didn’t follow the deadlines and I was too late. But I also would call after the deadline and negotiate a space. It seems they can always make additional room.

To be considered over other applicants, be different. There is a lot of repeatable art and products within these fairs. I sold miniature 3”x3” oil paintings on easels. No one else had these products and so I had all the customers. For example, there is a lot of crocheted and knitted products, therefore your competition for buyers not only decreases, but your likelihood of getting accepted into a fair increases.

Often fairs charge an application fee. Pricing for booth space can vary. At large fairs and festival, you pay for your 10x10 booth space which can cost anywhere from $200-$800. This covers the length of the festival (i.e. 4 days). Others charge by the day. For example $25 per day to exhibit. And others collect a percentage of your final sales. I must prefer the flat booth rate fee.

Setting up a Booth

Most often you will be allotted a 10’x10’ booth space. This is standard, though you can buy larger spaces, or request smaller space or a reduced rate. If asked, put your first choice at a corner booth or in a prime spot. This makes a huge difference. These spaces will cost more, but they will drive more traffic and sales to your booth. I certainly saw the difference.

A corner booth allows you to open more sides of your booth creating more exposure. Whereas an inline booth only has one entrance and can be seen in from one side. A prime location brings more traffic to your booth and drives sales. A prime location can be at the entrance or major junction in walking paths, or in front of food and entertainment. Being in these spots always makes for a more enjoyable experience as well.

In your space, erect a tent. These exhibit tents protect you against the weather, rain, sun and wind. The last thing you want is to be at the mercy of the weather. I have been in it all. I have had my booth flood with rain and pool under my booth. I have been scorched by the hot summer sun because I had no shade, and I have had my tent airlifted from the ground and fly across parking lots. Which leads me to my next point. Anchor your tent. Get cinder blocks or any heavy weight to anchor down all four corners. A flying tent is not only dangerous but a huge liability. Luckily my flying tent didn’t cause any damage.

Displaying Products

Inside you space create it in a way that not only exhibits your product well but creates flow. Too often I see spaces where I can’t reach the product to see or feel it. It is important for the customer to experience the product before buying it. If displaying artwork, allow them to see it up close and do not block them off with a table. Furthermore, position yourself so that you aren’t blocking the flow within your booth. I know the space is small. But people won’t want to get close to you if you are in their way and they will leave most likely without purchasing. You should be present to answer questions and complete a sale, otherwise allow space for them to browse. The same goes for products on tables. Perhaps create a U shape that brings the customer inside the booth to observe all the products. This will also maximize the surface space you have to display your work.

If you are hanging artwork, have panels or walls that look professional. The wire fence-like walls are tacky and look terrible. Don’t invest in these. I also see pegboard walls, these are a little better but still don’t give a very professional look. Your walls need to be clean, like walls in a house. The buyer needs to imagine the art hanging on their walls. People don’t have pegboard walls. I suggest Propanels for exhibit walls. These will serve you time and time again. Invest in them now.

If possible request power to be brought to your booth. You will want to light your art. If not possible, which is more often the case, you must rely on daylight. Opening up the sides of your tent will allow more light in.

When display work on a table present it professionally with a nice table cloth than extends to the ground. We don’t like to see the table legs and your legs underneath. Covering the table will allow you to hide some storage underneath, which you will most likely need. Use neutral colored cloth that show off your product. You can use blocks underneath the cloth as risers to vary the heights of your products. This is appealing and can separate special products from other ones. Don’t clutter your table with too many products. Allow each one to breathe. Make sure you have enough product in inventory. In the likely case one sells, you can quickly replenish its space with a new one.

Use stickers to price out your work and stick them to the back of the product. Have business cards available at multiple spots within your booth.

Accepting Payments

The best option or excepting payments is through the card readers attached to mobile devices or tablets. Several companies offer these such as the PayPal Swipe or Square. After you sign up for the app they send you one for free. You pay a 3% fee to use this service, but nowadays it is the faster most secure way of accepting payment and you want to be efficient. Besides most people are paying with cards. When I first started exhibiting, these were just starting to enter the market. Before I accepted cash and checks.

If you accept cash only then price your price your products accordingly. Do not price it at $19.95, unless you want to carry a lot of nickels in your pocket. Charge $20. There is a $20 bill everyone carries and it will be easy to hand over. Same with $5s and $10s. Do not price something at $13. Most likely they will hand you a $10 and a $5 dollar bill and you then need to waste time collecting $2 dollars to hand back from your money pouch.

If you accept checks there is always an element of risk that the check will bounce or be fraudulent when you go to the bank later to deposit it. I never had an issue with this. I certainly wouldn’t accept checks for products priced in the thousands. However my products were only $20 and people run out of $20s fast, and then resort to writing a check.

Keep money in a safe box. Keep it hidden and close and take it home every night. I would hear about money boxes being stolen.

After the purchase has been made, present the product in a nice package with a receipt. I used small clear bags with my business card to hold the miniature paintings. The last thing I wanted to see was my little painting dropped into someone’s purse or handbag or even another seller’s bag. If they don’t ask for a bag, then most likely that’s where it's going.

Installing an Exhibition

Setting up and exhibition is everything exciting, creative, stressful and exhausting. I go on tour every winter with a large trailer filled with art. I haul the trailer all over southwest setting up shows and tearing them down. So I have experience and an understanding on what looks and works the best. Every year it get’s a little better.

First, you will need help. Get friends or family to help or hire help. I do both, but mostly pay family and friends because it is never a fun job. At the location of your exhibit, most likely you will be setting up your own exhibit, unless the exhibit is already installed for you, like a gallery or museum, in which case your job is probably to look good and talk to potential customers. But more often than not in your early years of art business you will be setting up all your exhibitions.

You begin by unloading your exhibit walls. Set them up in methodical way that invites a customer in, maximizes your wall space, but also creates flow and doesn’t overcrowd when many people enter your room all at once. Your walls must also be stable and not collapse when heavy paintings are hung on them. A long line of panels will not be stable, but a wall that is has wings not only creates more support but wall space. See below.

Install the lighting. You will adjust the bulbs and direction of light once your artwork is hung. Begin hanging your artwork, again in a methodical way. Which piece do you want your customers to see first when entering your space? What other art pieces do you want to feature and do you have a special way dedicated to their feature? Will you group smaller paintings together or spread out among larger paintings? There are many ways to hang your art, but most effectively is to show only your best pieces and give them room to breathe. Too often I see artists cramming all their art into the exhibit and it looks cluttered and distracting. I don’t know which paintings to look at and admire. I suggest you choose your best work only and hang them in a way so that they are each featured and attract the attention they deserve. Adjust the lighting so that every piece of art is covered in a wash of light and no spotlights are created. You can achieve this by throwing light at an angle across the wall, rather than directly pointing down on the art.

Print up labels to place next to your art. The labels should include the title of your art, the size, the medium and the price. Perhaps even the year it was created. If you have the space you can even create a writeup about each piece describing your process in creating it and what inspired the idea. It is always nice to sell the customer on the story, because that is typically what they buy. Choose a nice, readable font and nice paper. Do not use plain white paper, it is boring and doesn’t offer the elegance or sophistication your exhibit should exude. If you are selling high end art, you want to create a high end space that appeals to your customers and creates an emotion to buy. Do you feel encouraged to spend money when you walk into a beautifully designed and elegant space, even if you can’t afford the products? You would like to own the product though wouldn't you? That is the emotion you must create in your exhibit. The price on your card can be printed several ways. I prefer to leave the dollar sign off as this creates the illusion of another number and there for psychologically makes the buyer believe it is a larger number. I also pair a high number with a low number. For example $8300, the buyer will see the 8 and the 3 and be drawn to the three because it so much lower to the 8. In their mind they will rationalize that the painting is affordable because of the 3. Compare this number to $8900. The buyer will see and 8 followed by 9 and immediately think that is too much money.

You should also hang your artist statement in frame for people to learn about you.

Fill out the rest of the space with a carpet or area rug for comfort and comfortable chairs. I have a couple lightweight leather cigar chairs that I take with me to all my shows. You will most definitely need a place to sit because standing on your feet for 10 hours a day can be too painful. It is also nice to provide a place for your customers to sit and relax in your space. They too are on their feet all day. Also the chairs provide an appealing luxurious space that is reminiscent of their living room, where their art purchase will hang. I often bring in sculptures to display to not only create a more beautiful exhibit but the sculptors share in my exhibit cost.

Hang and assembling any advertising outside your exhibit space. Often you are exhibit among many other artists and you want to advertise and attract visitors to your space. This can be a sign that hangs above your exhibit or a vertical standing floor banner, which is what I use. Advertise an image of your art and your name, maybe even the location if you are given a booth number.

On the days of the exhibit, dress professionally. Greet your customers as they walk in and engage them in conversation. Offer them some wine to create of sense of luxury in your space. Artists tend to be shy and don’t talk to their customers. Mostly they will say, “let me know if you have any questions!” Everyone hears this and won’t ask you questions unless you prompt them first with conversation. Very rarely will a customer walk into your booth a buy art from your who hasn’t talked to you first. Remember you are selling yourself, not your art. The buyer will buy your art because they want to buy you and your story. So talk to everyone that enters your exhibit. Have a conversation, but also redirect back to your art. Don’t not get them talking about their life, talk about yours, then ask them questions about which painting is there favorite and what they like about the painting. You are attempting to establish an emotional connection to the painting which will result in a sale. Once the connection has been made on a piece, close them on it.

Exhibition days are one of the most exhausting things I can think of. Standing on your feet, talking to customers all day requires a great amount of energy, especially to look alive and enthusiastic every time a new customers enters the space. You must be alert and ready to sell! It is also hugely rewarding when sales are made and makes it all worth while.

After the show ends, recruit your team again to help you tear down the exhibit. Package your precious art well. You do not want it damaged during transportation. Use lots of blankets and bubble wrap. Tear down seems to be the worst part, but hopefully you have sold enough art that there is little to repack!

Creating your CV

Creating your artist CV is an easy process. The CV is your resume and should contain several sections.

The first section should list the galleries that currently represent you.

The next section should include all the exhibitions and museum shows you have participated in, where they were located and the year.

The following section should list all the awards you have acquired by year and who issued the award.

The last section will include any publications you have been mentioned in. This can be magazine and newspaper articles, website articles and prestigious blogs and any other media such as television/film.

With time you will add to your CV. You want to keep your CV to one page so you will want to only include the most important and recognizable events and awards and press.

Choosing a Gallery

Choosing a gallery can be an exciting but also discouraging process. I certainly don’t enjoy it. However, it is important to find representation with a good gallery in a good location. Here is what to look for in a good gallery.

Begin to browse online for galleries near you. You may already be aware of the galleries in your location. Go visit them if you haven't already. Observe how the art is displayed. Is it cluttered or is each piece spaced well apart? How are you greeted when you enter? Is the staff helpful? Inquire about work and artists and listen for how the staff sells the work and the artist. Are they enthusiastic about the artists they carry? Do they know a lot of information about the artist? This is important to listen to because you want to be represented in a gallery that not only communicates the artists vision well but actually knows details about the artists life. Buyers are interested in this information. Remember they buy you, not the art. Make sure the representative sells you!

Also in the gallery look at how it is lighted and the over all feel of the space. Is the gallery is a good location? How is foot traffic? Is there ample parking? Does this gallery have gallery nights and exhibitions frequently? Try to identify how well they are promoting their artists. Often galleries will have a calendar of events posted. How well is the gallery invested in their artists?

Finally look at the other art. Do you feel like your art would fit well in this space along with the other art? This is very important. Don’t just assume that because it is a good gallery your work will sell there. It must also meet the vision of the gallery. For example my realistic wildlife artwork would not fit well in a very contemporary modern art gallery. If you do think your work would fit well, then look to see if there is work very similar to yours. If there is too much work just like yours then you will be diluted in competition. You must be unique and stand out. Galleries also understand this and will not accept new artists who are too much like their other artists already represented.

You should start by requesting representation in your nearest town. Being close to your gallery will make your life much easier as you learn the process of dealing with a gallery. You can easily take work back and forth, present new work, and be present during events to meet customers. Also galleries like to have local artists that they promote.

You can walk in and request an application or to submit a portfolio for consideration. Don’t be offended when a gallery says they aren’t looking for new artists, they are full. You must understand they get hundreds to thousands of these requests every year. You are no different. Ask if you can leave it anyway in case they have an opening. Don’t leave with your portfolio still in your hands. Be persistent. Attend events at this gallery. Get to know the staff and most importantly make yourself known. Soon enough you will be asked for representation.

When submitting a portfolio, whether in person or online, probably 80% of the time it will get rejected. Even if the work is good. The gallery is interested in your sales records and reputation. They want to know they can sell you. If you are unknown it is a risk to them. Their wall space costs money. If a painting hangs there that isn’t selling, it is taking the place a painting that could. You must convince them otherwise. In your portfolio include 10 images of your best work. This can be printed or on a cd/flashdrive. It should be packaged with your cover letter - a letter of intent for representation with the gallery. Explain why you should be included and how your work stands out among other artists. Convince them of your work and you as an artist here, briefly. They won’t look inside if they aren’t impressed. Next include your artist statement. Tell them about the work you do and who you are. Follow it up with your CV/Resume and finally the images. Before the gallery even gets to the images they need to be sold on you. If they like you, they will like your work!

Search for galleries in other states

As an artist you begin to hear of the top galleries and the top cities to be represented in. Some of these places are Jackson Hole, WY, Scottsdale, AZ, Park City, UT, resort towns and the obvious New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, etc. Competition for representation in these places is fierce. But apply anyway and apply often. There is always turnover of artists in these galleries. Get under their radar, even though these galleries often request for their artists.

As you browse galleries online or in person, again, look at art that is currently being sold and whether or not you would be a good fit. This can be found on the galleries website. They will post the artists they represent and the art. If you think it will be a good fit, submit your portfolio digitally. The gallery is will often have a section in their website with instructions found in the Contact Us section. Follow their instructions. If you are emailing them, your email introduction is the cover letter. Then attach your artist statement and resume along with 7-10 images of your best work. These images should be less than 2MB in size so that they are quick to download and be seen. The owner has limited time to view your work. Also make sure the documents are in a format excepted by all computers.

Unfortunately, I am sad to say, do not expect an answer, at least not right away. It can take months before they even look at your proposal. And when they do, they don’t take the time to write you back and tell you they are not interested. They have 500 other artists to write and say the same thing. They are only going to write to the artist they accept.

It can be very discouraging. I am always sending out portfolios to galleries and waiting for an answer. But I don’t give up. Ideally you want to build up a reputation where the galleries come asking for you. So don’t put all your energy and faith in securing representation but rather put your energy into creating the best art you can and garnering a reputation. Soon enough you will be getting the emails and phone calls from the top galleries.

Working with Galleries and What to Expect

Working with galleries can be very rewarding. Being represented by an important, established gallery can launch your artist career. It has many upsides but also some downsides which I will layout here.

When a good gallery takes on a new artist their first job is to begin promoting this artist. They will typically send out a newsletter to their previous clients and email list showing their work. Great sales can be generated here because there is a hype and everyone likes to get their hands on new work and emerging artists! Also the gallery usually creates a magazine ad featuring this artist. The promotion phase is important as it establishes you with the gallery, however this can fade out with time as you the focus on other new artists and top selling artists. This is a downside of gallery representation, unless you are a top selling artist, you can easily be pushed to the “back” and not reap the benefits of continued promotion and coveted wall space. There are ways around this. You can request an exhibition with gallery. Galleries typically have exhibitions featuring their artists throughout the year. Request to have a showing and you will be back magazines and newsletters!

One of my big fears that is often a reality for many artists is having their work stored away. Too many times I have walked into a gallery I am represented in and asked where the artwork I gave them is showing. I disappointingly find out it has been stored away to make room for other artists. Galleries don’t seem to alert you about this and your work could be getting dusty when you think it is on display. This is not good and you should quickly take the piece back and sell it elsewhere.

Wall space in galleries is obviously limited. Galleries tend to take on more artists than they have room to show. This is why many times the art gets stored away. The upside to leaving a painting in storage if you can’t show it elsewhere is when a customer visits the gallery and is interested in your work and requests to see additional work (that which is stored away). It is pulled out and sales are made here. Or a customer will request a certain type of painting that isn’t on display.

When possible request coveted wall space. Get at least one piece in a noticeable area, such as a window, at the entrance or behind the checkout counter. Having your work seen will bring more people to inquire about your other work within the gallery. Galleries tend to group their artists together rather than spread them out. I prefer to have a spread, otherwise you may have to work your way up to be grouped near the entrance.

Representation on consignment

Most galleries consign work on a commission split. This can vary, but expect to split 50% of your sales with the gallery. Other commission splits I have seen are 60/40 (60 being to the artist) and even 70/30. When your reputation and demand increases you can negotiate a better commission with your gallery. It is in their best interest to keep you because they know you can leave and take your work to another gallery that will offer a better deal.

I have even been requested to consign work at a 60/40 split, but 60% going to the gallery. I turned down this offer even though it was a very well established gallery with numerous galleries around the country in top cities. My logic behind it was if I sold a painting for $6000. I would make $2400. After my payment of $400 for the frame and $500 to ship the painting to the gallery, I am left with $1500. This is hardly enough to create a living, unless they sold 5 of them a month, but I can’t paint that many that fast!

Other options are to pay monthly fees to rent wall space. Usually these are lower-end galleries, but it is an option for you to retain 100% of your sale profits. But if your work isn’t selling you are stuck with paying a monthly fee and these can add up. It is easier to let your work hang for free. Also most of these galleries don’t promote you!

Contracts

When you consign artwork you enter a contract with the gallery. Carefully read over these contracts. There are many different versions and some are detrimental to your career. For example some galleries will require a 1 year consignment agreement that allows them the rights to sell the painting for 1 year, which means you can’t sell it elsewhere. Other request exclusivity which means they are the only contracted dealer or your work. If they promote you well and sell a lot of your work, no problem. But if it doesn’t go well you must wait out your contract. Also galleries will ask that you pay them 50% of your profits for sales made outside the gallery. Or ask that you send all your customer directly to them. All of these can take a large bite out of your bottom line. Again, if you are successful and the gallery is successful some of these arrangements are in the best interest of your career. But as you start your career choose galleries with safer, more negotiable contracts.

Personally I prefer to work with only a couple galleries because mostly I make my sales directly through my business. But the galleries I do work with are very lenient about me removing work for a show or for an outside sale. I am in no long-term contracts. These are stress free and I feel like there aren’t heavy restrictions keeping me from building my art career. I choose not to rely on the success and promotion from a gallery. They have many artists they work with. I choose to be responsible for my success. A gallery is a place for my work to be seen by the public when it is not in shows.

As your reputation builds you will receive requests from other galleries. Like I said, a good gallery can catapult your career to new heights especially when it is in the right location with the right clientele. Like artists, galleries have reputations and attract the serious buyers. You should aim to be represented by top galleries, just avoid overextending yourself for their service and as a result having your work ‘misrepresented’ and undersold.

Insuring your Art

When you start traveling with your art and shipping it frequently you will want to buy insurance. The insurance will cover all damages and lost artwork.

In my experience insurance for art is not very expensive. A $1000 premium can provide you will the benefits of $100,000 Art coverage, $50k in transit, and $50k in unnamed locations, worldwide. It also offers general liability coverage up to $2 million.

In the even that your entire art collection is damaged or lost during transit to an exhibition. The insurance coverage will reimburse the damages up to the full selling price. It is very disappointing to have all your artwork lost or damaged, but if you are reimbursed, it will be like getting paid for a sold out show! Not so bad right?

The insurance will cover you for a year. You may also request shipping on packages shipped via a national carrier, but these fees are extremely expensive. To insure $100,000 worth of art, it would cost you $1000 as well, but only for that one transit, and not annually

Creating Consistency in your Art

Creating consistency in your art is extremely important to your brand. Most artists strive to have a specific look and style to their art that is recognizable and appeals to customers. You want someone to walk into a gallery and immediately be able to identify your work on the wall because it is consistent in style with your other work. While you may vary your subjects, naturally your technique and style will emerge and remain consistent.

I am a wildlife artist so I paint animals around the world, sometimes though I paint a landscape. My characteristic style is a very detailed subject with a loose, contemporary background. The colors are very bright/vibrant but realistic. Also, typically, the subject matter is peaceful portrait style paintings.

If you are just beginning your artistic journey don’t be too quick to pick a style and subject as this can easily change with time. Follow your passion to start and the more you paint the more your style will emerge. This is what you will become recognized for. Be unique and original. Too many artists follow the market and what is hot that people are buying, always jumping around. I used to be one of these people, chasing the market for sales. It worked to some extent but at the sacrifice of my happiness. I wasn’t happy or proud of the paintings I was creating. I consulted an artist about this and they said to paint whatever I wanted regardless of what people will say, they don’t have to see it, and don't be concerned whether it will sell! I took this advice and decided to paint a rhino that I admired deeply in Africa. It turned out to be one of my best paintings of all time and I sold it the day I finished it for way more than I had ever asked before. My career soared from there.

Follow your heart and passion and create what inspires you. This will invariably produce the best results and people will be attracted to this. Subconsciously I believe they can tell when passion is backed behind a painting versus a painting that was just created for an easy sale. Furthermore you will be passionate when you share the painting with a potential customer.

Once you have discovered your style and subject matter, stick with it! See it through and don’t be quick to jump to something else. I saw that I could paint wildlife better than I could paint landscapes and western art, so I chose to pursue wildlife and I am glad I did! I put all my focus into improving this style and subject matter while creating a name for myself in the wildlife art niche. You consistency will be your brand and name. People will collect you throughout time for the unique art you created therefore give them something that produces the same quality and style every time!

Finding Inspiration for your Art

Almost inevitably every artist will run out of ideas and look for a source of inspiration. I experience this frequently. I do believe the source of inspiration is found within and only needs to be accessed through deliberate exercises and thinking. An artist should never fully rely on bursts of inspiration to produce work. This is inconsistent and unpredictable. As an artist we must develop the habit of diligently working wether we are inspired or not, sad or happy, depressed or angry, sick or feeling great! If you only worked when we felt great and happy and inspired, then I hope you have a way to sustain these emotions. You may receive a commission you aren’t inspired to create, but the money is good and you create it anyways. I see too many artists create an inconstant work schedule that is based on their emotion and inspiration. I am in the studio 10 hours a day/ 7 days a week whether I am inspired or not. I find the energy and inspiration within me to be productive, not outside influences.

You can be inspired and motivated by the work you are creating and the knowledge that with each piece of work you are improving. Or the motivation to finish a piece to receive a paycheck. As you work more you will realize what sells best and you can easily create art to fit this niche. For example I know my small bear paintings sell very well and quickly. Whether or not I am inspired, I can think up an idea and create it and feel motivated to paint it because not only am I improving my skills, a fat paycheck is waiting for me on the other side.

Anytime I am feeling lost on ideas I look within for my inspiration. This may be in the form of a meditation. I sit with my eyes closed and think of the subject I want to create. Let’s say it is a bear I want to paint, I think upon my experiences with bears and what have I seen them doing. Maybe this bear is eating salmon in Alaska. What would make this painting interesting? Do I want an action piece? What emotion do I want to draw from the viewer, sadness, excitement, laughter? These are questions I begin to ask myself. I choose something exciting and begin to visualize birds like eagles and seagulls fighting over salmon and the bear running after them to take back the salmon. This would be an exciting painting and an original idea. I then get to work sketching it out and creating a reference photo in Photoshop. I would suggest you use the same method for thinking up ideas. Ask yourself questions and mentally ask your audience what they would like to see. Images will begin to emerge and you can form an idea. Now I feel inspired to create this new painting!

It helps to have an arsenal of experience to pull forth at any time. This is why I travel frequently around the world. Because I am a wildlife artist I enjoy witnessing animals behave in their natural habitat. Or I watch nature shows. Seeing how these animals interact with each other and the world provides me with infinite amounts of ideas that I can recreate, such as the bear and salmon painting. While I may have not witnessed it exactly that way, I do know from my experiences that eagles, seagulls and bears fight over salmon carcasses in Alaska.

No doubt a trip will inspire you to create when you return to your studio. But I want you to be able to create and feel inspired at any time. Allow yourself to be open to new ideas and quieting your mind will allow the ideas to flow forth, I promise.

You can also find inspiration by visiting museums and galleries and seeing what other artists are doing. I am always inspired to try new techniques and subject matter when viewing other artists’ work. I encourage you to explore often and always be mentally recording experiences and information. You never know when you may pull it up again for your next great art piece!

Your Business’ Exit Strategy

Here is a question to ask yourself: How will I exit my business? Throughout your art career you will have the opportunity to build your business and set it up for your exit strategy. Will you want to retire? Sell your business? Pass it on to family? Or let it dissolve when you pass away?

If you want to retire, then you have the option of selling your business. But how do you sell an art business? People can’t create your art! True, but you can sell all the assets and licenses. Many artists have continued to produce their artwork for the world long after their death and this is due to the copyrights on all the work. The work can continue to be reproduced under these copyrights for many years and if the work is popular, many people will offer considerable sums of money to buy these copyrights. For example, Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse and copyrighted the little guy. Long after Walt’s personal death Mickey Mouse has continued to be recreated and generating a nice profit for his company. Thomas Kinkade continues to produce products incorporating his art since his death in year 2012. If you have a best selling print series and product, you can sell this license along with all images to another company to continue producing it. The sale of your company could provide a nice retirement savings.

Also for your retirement, you could save a couple original pieces of art every year during your career so that by the time you do retire you have a sizable collection of your original art. You can sell a few pieces a year to supplement your retirement income. These pieces will be selling at the height of your career and be worth the most in value. You can also pass this collection of art on to your family as a legacy to provide income for generations.

Unfortunately without proper planning throughout your career, your business could dissolve when you pass away without benefitting your family and the world with your beautiful art. I believe every artist desires for their art to live and be admired long after their death. Your exit strategy can ensure this is happens.

Investing in Art: A Retirement Fund

 It is always a good idea to invest in art. You are creating art for others to invest in, why not invest in it yourself? When you can afford to purchase original art or limited edition prints, do so, or trade with other artists. Art increases in value with time and the fame of the artist. So if you acquire now it may be worth much more later when you choose to sell it.

Art unlike the stock market does not go down in value. It can only hold its value or increase over time. Limited edition prints are a scarcity product so when the edition sells out the value of your print has increased as there are only a few in existence.

Did you know that art has consistently beat the S&P 500 every year for the past 50 years! Art can be one of the safest ways to invest your money, that is why so many wealthy people do it. Not only do you get to see your purchase increase in value, you are able to enjoy it as well! No one enjoys looking at their stock portfolio every day.

Also invest your own art. Your art is increasing in value. Every time you raise your prices you increased the arts value. Every year you should keep a couple paintings set aside as your personal savings account. If you want to retire from painting some day you could have accumulated a collection of hundreds of your own paintings now worth a small fortune because they increased in value over your entire career and if you're selling your work at $30,000 a piece, then you could have a $3,000,000 retirement fund with your 100 saved paintings. All you need to do is sell a couple of these paintings every year to live off of. You can also pass them on to family. The joke is always that you get famous after you die. This is partly true and if your work sells for $30,000 before you die, you can bet it sells around $100,000 after you die.

The same principle in investing holds true for other artist’s work. So began your collection early and add a couple new paintings every year from both established and emerging artists.

Applying for Art Grants

Art grants are a wonderful resource that many artists don’t utilize. I certainly don’t take advantage of grants as often as I should. Many foundations, nonprofits and even the government offer free grants to artists to support their artistic endeavors. They can be difficult to find, but it can be worth your time researching. It is free money to help you create!

Thousands of dollars are unclaimed every year because not enough artists put in the time and effort to apply for these grants. Either they don’t want to put in the work or they don’t apply because they don’t think they have a chance of winning. Apply anyways. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Grants are often specific in their criteria and funds allocation. Not every grant will be applicable to you. You need not waste your time or theirs and only apply for those that are tailored to you specifically.

Once you are awarded the money, you may need to provide proof of purchases and how the money was spent. Sometimes, only half of the money is given first and the final half released upon completion of the project.

There are some artists that live solely off grants, you can too, especially if the work you do is large public installation. There are many opportunities to be funded to create art in public spaces!

Applying to Artist Residencies

Occasionally you may come across opportunities to apply for an artist residency. These are programs created for artists allowing them to stay in a space over a certain length of time to create work of art. Artists recognize the value of finding a quiet secluded space to create. Residencies are utilized by all artist types such as musicians to write new music or authors to write books.

A residency is like a retreat. It’s designed to get you out of the studio into an inspiring setting to spark ideas and creativity, while giving you the space and zero distractions to work long hours. You can create your own retreat and residency somewhere and travel to their for free and write it off your taxes.

Research residency programs over the internet or you may hear about them through other artists. Some programs charge you a fee to stay and receive their services, other are free and request that you leave them a work of art upon leaving. Often a show follows the residency. I personally enjoy the free residencies as you get a place to stay and work and fed in exchange for art, which is easy for me to give.

When applying to residencies you will be asked to provide your portfolio and artist information. Remember you may be competing against other artists and may not always be awarded the residency. But the same residencies can occurs monthly or annually so keep applying. There are residencies all over the world you can apply to!

Attending Artist Workshops

Attending artist’s workshops is a wonderful way to learn from another artist and improve your skills. We all admire other artists work and desire to emulate their techniques, for our benefit sometimes these artists host workshops where they teach these techniques. You have the opportunity to observe them demonstrate and then they help you through the process as you work. Take advantage of these opportunities. I guarantee if they are a good teacher, you will learn much more from a 4 day workshop with an artist you admire than 4 years spent in art school. As artists we are visual people and watching an artist demonstrate their craft is like reading a textbook for us. We can extract so much information from this and utilize it in our own work.

Artists charge a tuition to attend their workshops, so save up. These expenses are tax deductible but it can be expensive as you need to travel to the class wherever it is being conducted. Often artists will come to an area near you or set up a destination workshop is a beautiful area. The workshops are an investment in your education and growth. You can save a lot of money buy foregoing a college degree and investing in artist workshops if you knew you wanted to be an artist. Grants and scholarships can fund workshops.

Often you will be in a mix of all skill levels and ages. You will be learning amongst the elderly who want to pick up art as a hobby to young experienced artists. Not only do you learn from the teacher but you also learn from the other artists around you. It can be very collaborative and fun. I like the workshops that last several days for this reason. You critique each other’s work and help one another improve!

Follow your favorite artists and see if they are teaching any workshops. They will often post them to their website, or you can email them and request they set one up! Some artists school like the Scottsdale Art School will bring in top artists. Stay updated on who they bring in each month and be quick to sign up and spaces fill quickly since they are so limited!

Teaching Workshops

As you become more confident in your abilities as an artist you may desire to pass on your knowledge and skills to budding artists. Teaching workshops is not only a great way to pass on your legacy and knowledge of art but make decent income.

It is easy to attract students if you are well recognized and have a large following. But you can start anytime. I started by reaching out to customers who purchased my art in the past and friends. Later I began teaching classes at a local brewery every week. I realized I could do this around the country and began contacting all the most luxurious resorts around. Before I knew it I was traveling and staying in the top 10 best resorts, being treated like royalty for free while getting paid tens of thousands of dollars for teaching their guests how to paint. It was good fun! Now I teach private workshops anywhere in the world that I desire because I have a following and people who want to learn my techniques.

You can start teaching workshops right away. Set up a table and invite your friends and their friends. Offer all the supplies and some food and wine and teach them how to paint for a couple hours. It is always super fun and most likely they will want to do it again. Charge them $25 or so and if you get 10 of your friends signed up that’s $250 for a couple hours of fun! Now teach a class every week and you will bring in an extra $1000 per month.

For private workshops that last 2 days or more, students usually bring their own supplies. These are students who have already begun learning to paint and want to further their learning. Reach out to colleges and schools for students. Put an ad in the paper. Charge $100 per student for a 3 day class. Get 10 students and you will make $1000 over 3 days.

I hope you can see there is great and pretty easy money to be made teaching workshops. They do require a lot of work providing attention and help to the students. Usually you start by completing a demo painting and talking through your process. Then turn it over to the students to start working you help them individually.

Teaching workshops gets me out of the studio and engaging with people. It has also helped improve my painting abilities. As I vocalize my process, I understand my methods and techniques more deeply.

Hiring Employees

 When you can afford to do so, hiring an employees can be a great resource and time saver. As your art career grows you will find more and more aspects of your business needing attention and less of you able to tend to every need. The demand for your art increases and you are called to create more art to meet this demand. However, all the important aspects to running your business have been neglected. This is when you hire employees, to take on the tasks that you no longer have time to do, such as social media and marketing, bookkeeping, and shipping orders.

An assistant can easily be trained to perform many of these tasks. Their daily duties may be to post to social media and answer emails, then do some bookkeeping, categorizing sales. Next they can take a shipment of orders to the UPS store. Many top artists have studio assistants to carry out the jobs that easily get neglected but most anyone can do. But some top artists and myself choose to hire employees who are professionals at one aspect of the business such as digital media marketing. By hiring professionals you meet each aspect of your business with consistent attention and optimized strategy. These professionals understand the needs of your business and how to grow and expand it beyond your capabilities and knowledge.

Hiring employees can be a difficult and stressful process and there are various ways to go about hiring. You can hire employees on contract. They are independent contractors (freelancers if you will) who carry out the duties you assign and issue you an invoice for their services. You issue a W-9 form stating the amount you paid this person and they file taxes independently. This is an easy way to avoid the added expenses of employees. An example of the types of employees would be a bookkeeper who works as a freelanced employee, working for you, but other business as well.

If you choose to hire employees the traditional method, known as common law employees, there is a lot more work on your end, which is why we often hire managers and HR to manage the employees. The initial hiring process can take quite a bit of time and then records and files need to be kept on every employee. There are also added costs such as benefits, taxes and workers compensation which is a form of insurance to cover wages in the case that your employee is injured on the job. It is also difficult to fire employees. Once you set an employees wages/salary you can expect to pay much more realistic over the year for your employee, up to 1.5 times more than the salaried amount. For example an employee that you pay $50,000 will truly cost you up to $75,000 for the year.

Some employees offer their services as a business. These are statutory employees. For example when I hire marketing services I might hire a separate business that offer these services. These would be an example of statutory employees who claim income as a business.

If you want to grow your art career hiring employees is inevitable. At some point you will need help, but fortunately for you there are several different ways you can hire help, whether it be for just a short period of time, or part time or full time. Employees cost money so only hire when you can afford them and are sure the work they do will bring in more money. Pay for an assistant if it gives you more time to create art. More time to create art means more art to sell and increased profits. Or pay for a marketing professional that will earn you a return on your investment and ad spend. Employees are designed to lessen the work you have to do and to make your business more money.

Hiring an Art Agent

An art agent is a great way to relieve the stress of selling your art. The role of the agent is to represent your art and sell you to customers, galleries and exhibitions. Typically they are paid on salary or commission from sales.

Many top artists have agents that get them into galleries and negotiate contracts. They set up exhibitions for their artist and advertise their art to potential clients. They are often present during events to support the artist and help produce sales.

When you can afford to hire an agent I would recommend doing so. Agents can be hard to find and only really interested in representing well respected artists. If you are bringing in $100,000 per year in sales and pay them a 30% commission, which is standard, $30,000 is hardly an income to live on, unless they represent multiple artists. This is why only top artists can truly afford to hire full time agents. At this point too there art is in such high demand, they need all the time they have to devote to creating more art.

You must hire an agent who is competent at selling and has the knowledge to promote your art and give it the attention it deserves. This takes strategic planning and execution so it is wise to hire an agent who has experience working in the art world and knows how to expand your business within it.

At any time you can hire affiliate marketers that you pay to sell your art. They can earn up to 30% of your sale price. But this is more freelancing work rather than a full time position. But it gives you some experience working with agents and saves you time, while filling your bank account.

Licensing your Art

Another option to print series and relieving work from your end is to license your images. You grant permission to another company to reproduce your images for a profit while paying you a licensing fee in the form of a royalty or upfront package cost. You continue to hold the copyright. A licensed package can be structured several ways. You can grant permission for a limited number of uses and the company pays in full for these uses. Or you may decided to grant a life-time use of these images for percentage of profits or a royalty. For example every time a product is sold with your art on it you receive 8% of the sale price or 25 cents.

Licensing your art can be a great opportunity to generate consistent flows of income without doing any additional work. Once you create an image you can license it out to someone else to create all your products and sell them. You can enjoy the rewards of a small royalty. Obviously profits wont be as much as if you created and sold the products yourself, but it is nice if creating original art is your only interest.

You can sell these licenses on your website or contact companies that are looking for artwork to reproduce. These companies will have the contracts set up and are most likely non-negotiable. It will be easier to sell your work to an established company rather than waiting for someone to reach out to you. But when they do, you have the power to set up your own licensing terms. When you are getting famous you will be requested for licenses to use your images, even if it is just a one time use. Companies will recognize the popularity of your images and pay you to use your images for their advertising or products. Any time you want to put a Disney character in your art, you have to pay a hefty licensing fee to Disney, but it will attract popularity and sales because of the strength of Disney’s brand. Companies recognize the importance of using strong brands/images to catapult their sales and will pay for these licenses.

Putting your Art into Auction

Putting your art into auction is inevitable and something you will do time and time again. It can be both disappointing and hugely rewarding. Auction results can easily push you into stardom, but more easily tank your art’s value.

It is difficult to accept the value of art based on its auction sale value, but these numbers are important to collectors and galleries. You will find it isn’t always about how good the art is, but how much is your art constantly selling for and does it sell over asking price in auction. Auctions define your perceived art’s value and selling value so you must be very sure of your success before putting your art into auction.

An auction is very risky. Your art can sell for under its asking price which deflates the value of your art, especially if it happens multiple times. This indicates that the public perceives the value of your art to be less than you think it is worth. Perhaps you are pricing your art too high in which case you should scale down and adjust to what your buyers demand. On the flip side your art can sell for over its asking price indicating that the public perceives it to be more than you have valued it at. This is what you want and if it happens multiple times you can raise your prices to meet this market demand. You can also sell right on asking, which also a great indicator that you are right on price with your value at this time.

Auctions are very important for gathering this information, but you should only put in your art when you are very sure you can get a bid at asking or over asking. You never want to see your prices undersold. These results go into records and can be looked up by any collector or gallery.

When you have a piece to put into auction first make sure the auction is reputable and your art will sell. Are there big collectors present and willing to bid top prices for art. Are there top artists in the auction as well? There are so many different types of art auctions. Everything from a local fundraiser to Christie’s auction selling multimillion dollar pieces. Anytime you consider submitting your piece into the auction identify the market that it will be sold to. Are the people attending able to afford your art? If not, do not enter.

Next, make sure your piece is the best it can be and appropriate for the auction. Is your art too much like the other art or does it have the same subject matter as other pieces? You want to add unique art that sparks up a bidding war. If it is too much like other pairings, people lose interest.

Size of art is important. Obviously most artist want to submit large pieces to get top bids on their art. But not everyone is in the market to buy large art, consider submitting smaller pieces too. Often these will go up higher in bids because many people want to take home a smaller painting and will compete for it.

A bidding war is what every artist desires. Two or more buyers compete for your art and drive up the bid price. This number can go way over asking and as a result bring in great amounts of publicity and fame. I have seen unrecognized artists watch their art increase in bids all the way into the 6-figures. Instant fame seemed to follow. They now sell consistently in the 6-figures.

A lot of attention can be achieved by a well placed piece of art. This why being strategic when entering an auction is so important. Results near impossible to predict of course… every audience is different. One auction may hold the perfect buyer for your art and the next doesn’t. Or the economy has taken a down-turn. Many factors can affect the success of your art. But it is always good to consider placing your art into auction. Do not bet on instant fame, auctioning shouldn't be to gamble your success. It can kill it too.

Invite previous collectors to participate in the auctions. Most likely they will be the ones to buy your art and compete against other buyers.

Start off with smaller auctions to get your feet wet and move up into larger auctions. Larger auctions require your art to be juried in. Later after you have some recognition auctions will request for your art. This is typically when they see that your art sells well and they want to produce a sold-out auction and a profit. Your coveted art will attract buyers to their auction.

Later in your career you may begin to see your art show up in the secondary market. This means a previous buyer has chosen to sell their piece of your art back into the market with hopes of earning a return. Perhaps they bought from you when you were just starting and now your art prices are much higher. They can put your art into auction or galleries to sell for a profit. Some artists negotiate contracts with clients and auctions where they receive a percentage of art sold in the secondary market.

When submitting your art you will be asked if you want to add a reserve. A reserve is the minimum bid price you are willing to accept. If it is not met your art will be passed, unsold. I always add reserves. I would rather have my painting pass than be sold for under value. Most auction houses wont accept your art if the reserve if it is too close to the asking price, unless your famous. Typically the reserve is set at 50% or less of the asking price. Without a reserve your art can sell for any amount, even $1. Most likely this will never happen, but it is possible because it is not protected by a minimum bid.

As you grow as an artist you will discover which auction to aim for and which ones to avoid. Always err on the side of caution before entering your art into auction.

Trading your Art for Goods and Services

An artist has the unique advantage to trade their art for goods and services. I often trade art for free travel, but I am friends with artists who trade their art for such since as dental care or even real estate. When you art is of considerable value and highly desired you can make these trades of equal value.

You can also trade art among other artists to build your fine art collection. Instead of paying thousands of dollars for another artists’ work, call them and ask if you can trade a painting of equal value for one of theirs. Many times they will respond positively. Anytime I want to trade art for a service for a product I am not afraid to ask, the worst they can say is no, and then I pay or leave! Try it out for yourself!

I don’t do it too often because I prefer hard cash for my paintings, but every once and a while when you can’t afford a service such as dentistry you can offer your art!

Traveling for Free

Did you know you can travel anywhere in the world for free? Well almost. It is quite easy and I will show you how.

First you will need to sign up for a credit card. This credit card will be useful to you in many ways. Sign up for a card that has airline and travel benefits. The airline’s card will award you miles for every purchase you make on the card. These miles can then be converted to a free ticket. Other travel cards award you points for purchases and these points can be redeemed for cash to use on any airline. A card like this would be Capital One’s Venture Card. I personally use Alaska Airlines and United.

I have several airline cards. I use one exclusively for absolutely every business purchase I make. I am awarded 1 mile per $1 I spend and 3 miles per $1 I spend on purchasing a ticket through the airline, which I don’t often do because throughout the year I spend so much on my credit card that I am awarded several free round trip flights. The other reason I put every business expense on this card is at the end of the year the card company prints out a beautiful categorized statement of all my business expenses. I then use this with my taxes to add up all my deductions. It is so painless, I love it. Other benefits you get with the card is a free checked bag and priority boarding. Also Alaska Airlines has a $99 annual companion fare which allows you take a companion with you for $99 anywhere in the USA.

When you first sign up for the card you get a bonus of miles worth a free roundtrip flight!

Anytime you want to travel you can redeem your miles for a free flight. Most airlines have partners so you can travel virtually anywhere in the world with these miles. Most roundtrip flights will start around 25,000 miles.

If you haven’t quite worked up to 25,000 miles yet, you can still travel for free!

Any traveling you do for your art is tax deductible. This can be traveling to and from shows or galleries, or, my personal favorite, to gather references and inspiration! Anytime I fly somewhere to take photographs of wildlife, such as Africa, I pay for the trip with my credit card and I get awarded 3 miles for the ticket prices, plus all the miles I travel by air are credited to my account. I then write off this trip as a business expense! For example a ticket might cost $900 to fly from New York to Johannesburg, South Africa. I am awarded 2700 miles for my ticket purchase and the traveling distance round trip is 16,000 miles. All together I accumulated nearly 19,000 miles for this business trip that cost me $900 in flight costs. 19,000 is awfully close to another free roundtrip flight.

What about paying for lodging?

All my lodging costs are almost always free. I have stayed at the most luxurious resorts in the world because prior to my arrival I contact the management and owners and offer them a painting in exchange for free accommodation. You will be surprised how often this works! Probably because they never get the request and a beautiful lodge could always use more original art. I then roll the canvas in a tube and carry it on the airplane with me and deliver it to them when I arrive.

You can also write off your hotel/lodge stay and meals from your taxes. You are allocated a certain amount each day for food (i.e. $50).

I encourage you to get on board with these travel benefits and secrets. Your art career will be enhanced and much more enjoyable when you can get out and discover the world and generate new ideas and inspiration for your work!