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Marketing tactics: Generate hype to sell more art
WHY NO ONE IS BUYING Artists often feel like the way to sell more art is to make better art. While honing your skills certainly helps, it ultimately doesn’t make sales for you. Have you ever seen a successful artist that you genuinely thought was bad at art? Me too. That’s because for one: all art is subjective. I’m sure…
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Picking color schemes: psychology, strategy of color
COLOR IS POWERFUL Did you know that color can influence the way you taste your food? It can increase the effectiveness of placebos. Color schemes can make women look more or less attractive to men. It can draw your attention to danger and effect your emotion just by looking at certain hues. As artists, color is a powerful choice. Color…
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Juried Art Competition: What to do when you lose
WHEN YOU’RE NOT A WINNER This weekend I did some live painting at Paint Out at the Park in Dearborn. It was a super cool juried art competition where dozens of artists were given 4’x4’ boards to paint over the course of three days. The winners were given cash prizes and honored at the event, which was part of the…
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After an art show: Do these to see results faster
BEHIND THE SCENES Yesterday I had an art show booth at the Detroit Festival of Books. I was excited to be there; the organizer asked me to show and I always am grateful when someone else does the reaching out. There were so many book shops, fellow bookworms and good food. Plus, it was in the Eastern Market — which…
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Is being an artist a real job or a real risk?
YOUR TITLE MATTERS Being an artist is a real job. And, it’s truly not any more risky than any other job. Let me tell you why. Last week I got laid off from my job at the newspaper. For the past three years, I’ve hidden behind the “safe” title of Copy Editor. It sounded impressive at parties, in professional settings,…
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Build a personal brand and make real connections
IN YOUR OWN IMAGE There’s something in your creative business that will bring you success in all the ways: more sales, a bigger following on social media, a more deeply committed audience, more opportunities in your local art community, etc. Are you ready to know what it is? A personal brand. Now it’s easy to talk about a visual brand.…
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A mood board is the secret to consistent artist branding
BUILD YOUR BRAND WITH BOARDS Mood boards are the perfect way to begin building your artistic business brand. You can keep them for reference when making decisions on the look, feel and message of your brand and truly personalize them. Before we get into how to use them, let’s talk about what it is, exactly. WHAT IS A MOOD BOARD?…
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Go full time with your art by planning prices + sales goals
PRICE WITH THE END IN MIND We all have trouble reaching our sales goals in the beginning of our art careers. We blame it on a small following, on the quality of the art itself — but have you ever considered that it’s because we’re approaching our goals the wrong way? Every goal needs a clear, measureable path to be…
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How it feels to start taking commissions — the emotional truth
WHAT’S THE TEA, SIS? Well if you don’t have any, I do. It’s not real gossip, because it’s really about me. Here’s my tea: I’m stepping into doing commissions slowly but surely but I want to say out loud that it’s SO uncomfortable for me. Let me explain. NOTE: This article was written in April 2019. My relationship to commissions…
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Finding your target market: Online, offline tips
YOUR PEOPLE ARE OUT THERE Everyone says that to sell anything, you’ve got to start finding your target market. Once you identify that group, you can aim your sales at them and selling artwork becomes loads easier. But how do you find them? WHAT IS A TARGET MARKET Let’s define this clearly first. A target market is a group of…
