Promotion and Snow

This is a long one - lol.

It seems that this year a number of my artist friends are thinking about promoting their art as well as creating.

Last week a friend asked me about having a Facebook art page or a web page. Another friend is finally sharing some of her paintings on Google+. One of my blogging friends has started a web page with FASO and is also trying out Canva.com for design stuff.  Then on February 1st, Leslie Saeta wrote a blog about blogging.

All of these things got me thinking (again) about how to promote my art and how to get my name out there. How do we go from being artists to being business people AND how to we do it cheaply? Lets face it, most of us do not make enough at our art to spend big bucks on promotion: neither do we have the skills to do the work ourselves. Plus, do we want to spend a lot of our time on promotion?

Is social media the answer? Here is an excerpt from Leslie's blog on blogging,

"Another big difference is that social media has made it a lot easier for bloggers to build a following. Create a blog and then share your message on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Find followers and entice them to follow your blog. Ask your followers to share your message and the next thing you know your blog has thousands of followers. With some work you may end up with tens of thousands of followers. For the hard working bloggers you may end up with over a million followers."

I think the key word above is "entice" which is not easy to accomplish.

Out of curiosity I decided to do a Google search of my name. Then I did a search for Mellowood Studio which is the name of most of my social media pages and my home gallery. I found my name 11 times in the first 5 pages and the Mellowood name over 10 times in the first 2 pages. BUT, the questions remain: how do people know what name to search for? and, how do you get them to follow you, once they do find you?

These are a few of the links where people can find me and my art. BTW, my Etsy shop is empty but is still getting new followers which I find amusing.

Link2Creston, My Handmade at Amazon store, my GoBC entry, my Facebook Art Page, my Blog,  my Pinterest page, my Web page, an entry in artsillistrated on-line magazine, my Esty shop, my Google+ page, my Creston Arts Council profile

I could probably spend many hours a week on promotion but I think I would rather paint!

On another note, I haven't been doing any painting lately as my time has been used shovelling snow or recuperating from the shovelling. Here are some pictures of my yard.

the courtyard last week

the front walk 3 days ago

icicles hanging from the snow above the courtyard

the courtyard from the kitchen window 2 days ago

the view from Bob's office 2 days ago

the front walk today after the snow came off the roof

the view from Bob's office today after the snow came off the roof

the courtyard today

 This past week has been a real challenge; trying to keep the 200 metre long driveway through the forest clear has been the hardest part. Here is a picture of part of the driveway from a few years ago.

heading to the road

And, a couple from the same spot today.

heading to the road today

Heading to the house today

I am so looking forward to spring!

Promoting Yourself

Every artist who wants to sell their art needs to make an effort at promotion. This can be very difficult as many artists prefer hiding in their studios painting to getting out in the world.

In the rural area where I live, it is doubly difficult. The majority of our  population is retired: people who are more likely to be down-sizing than buying art, and we no longer have a professional gallery in the area. Some artists display their paintings in local restaurants or book stores and some of us have small home-based galleries. Many of us display our art at the Creston Public Library and at the Chamber of Commerce as these venues offer 2 month long shows all year. Various groups put on annual Art Shows and we have a moderate influx of tourists from the late spring through to the end of September.

The problem remains! How do we get people in the door and buying? This year a number of us are trying something new. We are going to put together a directory: Artists and Artisans of the Creston Valley. The directory will be available at the Creston Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Centre for visitors to look through. Hopefully, it will encourage visits to our galleries and more sales of art.

I have spent the last few days working on my information sheet for the directory and after three versions I think I have one that will work.

front

back

The Artists and Artisans of the Creston Valley directory will be a simple binder with information sheets about a number of the artists in the area - lets hope it will be effective.

Thank you to my Google+ friends: Sheila Delgado  and Sea Dean
http://www.sheiladelgado.com/ - http://paintamasterpiece.blogspot.ca/
for introducing me to http://www.picmonkey.com/ so I could make the collage on the back page of my information sheet.

Expanding my Reach

I have expanded my reach by opening an Etsy shop. Here is the link that will take you right to it: http://www.etsy.com/shop/MellowoodArtGallery.

 One of the reasons I did this now was some encouragement from fellow artist Sherri Ann Strikwerda. You can see her art at:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/artbysas/192487130599

I didn't just jump in, I checked out a few shops hoping to figure out how it all works but I can't say that was overly successful. One thing I did find out was that people are selling their art which was encouraging. So, with the help of another fellow artist, Laura Leeder, (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laura-Leeder-artist/302848629743774?fref=ts), I filled in some blanks, added some art and voilà! I have an Etsy shop.

To start, I decided to just display some of my smallest paintings and to keep the prices down. Even after looking at what others have sold, I can never tell what might make the grade.

Winter Grove

Little Daisies

Rosy Glow

I also added a few slightly larger paintings although I kept to the same medium - watercolor. I have two reasons for just displaying watercolors: they are easy to ship unframed and I have a lot of them. I hope to add different media as I expand although all of my art can be purchase right now through the webpage. http://www.mellowood.ca/art/index.html

Floating Flowers

Now come the hardest part - letting people know the shop exists! I have posted the link to my shop on Facebook and the website: added it to my emails and will add it here. I am trying to connect with other Etsy shop owners as well.

Once again, here is the link to my Etsy shop, I hope you will check it out and share it with your friends. http://www.etsy.com/shop/MellowoodArtGallery