Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Artist as a Brand

Winter Morning Canvas Print
What I've learned about investing in an online art presence, building my brand, selling my art:
  • Art is fun
  • Art marketing in multiple venues is not fun
  • Selling art is fun
  • Pricing, billing, collecting and shipping art are not fun
  • Self-representing myself in online galleries is fun
  • Working half a day on artist's websites, editing to assorted formats, then uploading art is not fun
  • Note to Self: Don't worry be happy, paint, hire an intern!

Island Butterfly Series -3/6
Well, perhaps only extraordinarily successful painters hire interns or other assistants who help with everything but the painting. But we can dream. We paint because we enjoy painting and perform as best we can in all the work that supports our brand--our service of delivering our best product.

I've worked hard for six months setting-up my websites and painting a little over 100 small acrylic paintings and studies and 3 medium-sized oils. With the children's gallery that I've started, I'll begin with maybe 30 images and then move on to larger works for the GailKentStudio.com domain site.

Before taking the domain gallery live,  a consultant will get all the websites performing the social networking plan functions I began with. A few major kinks with Google's Plus changes have to be smoothed out.

I've used PayPal with my Etsy shop, and been pleased with performance there. Easy for the buyer to know they will get the product they paid for, easy for me to ship out my art knowing I'm being paid.

With my Fine Art America site, I have nothing to do but upload the art. They format, print, ship, and collect and pay me through PayPal. Wonderful!

The brand is established and now must be maintained. I've met interesting artists through my online presence and we've supported one another with concerns, endeavors, and pats-on-the-back. Contacts, customers and potential customers also contribute to the brand when they comment or share information and links about an artist's work. It's a sense of accomplishment. 

All in all, online art marketing has been a learning experience and will continue to present challenges, growth, and rewards as I expand my art activities. It was a decision without regrets because I started with a plan. I posted about that in this link Set up Online Gallery

Now, to get on with a promotions plan and creating lots of little canvases to fill the children's gallery.



Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 
    Fine Art America Gallery Page Sponsor
    minimalism prints

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