Advance Your Artist Website: Hire a Professional Web Designer

If you’d like to be a successful artist, you should be making art, not hassling with website design and maintenance. Professionally designed and managed sites are an investment in your craft that when done well will pay off in recognition and possibly sales. As my regular blog readers know, I’ve just launched Full Deck Design, a firm specializing in designing and deploying eMedia. I’m about to meet with a couple of artists interested in creating websites and thought it was the perfect opportunity to outline how to prepare for working with a professional web designer.

Tips on Preparing for an Artist Website
1. Website Purpose. Will this be a place dedicated to selling fine art? Or do you just need an online portfolio? Have people hire you for custom work? Advertise your classes/workshops? Or do you have another goal?
2. Determine How You’ll Measure Site Success. Sales? Number of visitors to the site? Exhibit opportunities? Gallery signings?
3. Design Guidelines. Decide who will design the look of your site. If you already know how you’d like the site to look, tell the designer right away. It may save you some money. Bring a sketch outlining any special features, fonts, colors. Print samples of sites you like and what you like about them.
4. Clear Communication. Make sure you choose a web specialist that you’re comfortable with. Don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions. What is very familiar to them may be Greek to you.
5. Functionality. Do you want to include a link to subscribe to your blog or eNewsletter? Include an animation? Have fancy navigation or portfolio features? Include a shopping cart? Be compatible with handheld devices?
6. Decide on a Budget. Be honest about what you can afford to spend. Your budget may limit the functionality features, but better to set the parameters before the clock starts ticking.
7. Domain Name. Contrary to what some web hosts would have you believe, you can purchase a domain name easily and directly from many places online. I use NetworkSolutions.com. I know many people who let their web host purchase a domain name for them who subsequently wouldn’t give them their own domain account information when they wanted to switch host companies. So be careful!
8. Site Map. Most artist web sites focus on the portfolio but may also include press/news, bio, artist’s statement, gallery affiliations, class/workshop schedule, store and contact pages.
9. Content. Gather information for each site page. Try to include appealing visuals for text-based pages—a head shot for the bio page, a video of you creating your art for the home page, press clippings for the press page, etc.
10. Quality Imagery. Your art MUST look beautiful. Invest in high quality, high resolution image files. If you’re a photographer, consider digitally watermarking images or preventing image downloads with code.
11. Affiliations. If you’re a member of an arts organization or other professional organization that could reinforce your credentials, have them send you a logo to include on the site. If you’re involved with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or any other networking site, you might consider including links to them as well.
12. Search Engine Optimization. Do you want people to find you easily via search engines? See my earlier blog explaining this further.
13. Timeline. When do you want your site to go live? Is there a special event in the future?
14. Web Host. After the site is complete, you will need your user name and password to upload the final files.
15. Ongoing Maintenance. Who will be responsible for updating content? Discuss options with the designer that might allow you to handle after the initial setup.

Main Printing Matches ModernPostcard

In these tough economic times, it’s good to save money when you can. But, it’s even more important to support local businesses. If you can do both at the same time, well, that’s a no-brainer. We chose Main Printing in Poughkeepsie to print the post cards for our upcoming Bounty show. Owner Marla Neville recently bought a high-end digital machine that allows her to offer color output at competitive prices. She matched ModernPostcard’s price for a 5x7 post card. Add to that, her eye for quality, and the card is beautiful. If you need small-run printed pieces, ask her for an estimate. You won’t be sorry.

Stone River Archival Rocks!

Got my prints for the Bounty Hudson Valley 7 show and they look fabulous! I know I’ve mentioned him before, but seriously, if you need quality digital output call Steve Kerner (845.679.6286). He knows more about profiles than you’ll ever dream of learning. And being an artist himself, he knows how to talk to artists about subtleties in color, hue and contrast—over the phone!

Attention Graphic Designers: Buy Molly Ahearn Photos Through Alamy

Signed up with British company Alamy to sell my photos online. As a designer, I find their images fresh and varied and their user interface lightning fast. It’s the first place I go to look for royalty or licensed images. So far, I’ve uploaded a few hundred images. Search my Alamy library by hitting the link above the search box, or type in Recession, Alaska, Hudson Valley or Outer Banks. (Designers, maybe you’d like to bookmark my Alamy page?)

Fellow photographers, Alamy offers a 60/40 split favoring the artist; a heck of an improvement over the 50/50 or 40/60 of other agencies. Take advantage of their extensive keywording opportunities to make sure your photos get the most traffic. I also put a link to my Alamy search page on the home page and the portfolio page of my Web site.

Wanna Know How to Make National and International Calls for Free?

One of these days the free online stuff will be a thing of the past. For now though, you can do lots of stuff without spending a penny. Skype is an internet phone service. You can set up a free account and dial any other Skype user around the world and talk for free. [Free calls come in handy when you get that show in Buenos Aires, Paris or Sydney!] I’ll admit the audio quality isn’t as good as an old-style Ma Bell phone, but then again, what phone service these days does? If you have a video camera built in or attached to your computer, you can speak face-to-face with your caller. Our son really enjoys video calls with my husband when he’s traveling. If you want to get rid of your hard-wire telephone line altogether, you can buy a Skype phone and set up a paying account at a fraction of what you’re spending now. Of course, who knows how long these internet deals will last.

Make Fabric from Photos

Ever wanted to make a shirt or a tablecloth from one of your photos? I found a neat website—spoonflower.com—that creates fabric from photos or drawings. Here's one of the designs from their library. Though I haven’t tried it yet, the process looks pretty simple. Upload a jpg, png, tif, or gif file of your photo or design. Select what size fabric you’d like (swatch 8”x8”, 1 yard, 2 yards, etc.). Then you decide whether you’d like the design to print once in the center or create a repeat pattern that will fill the area of your fabric order. The orders are printed on 100% cotton fabric and cost $18.00 per yard ($5.00 for an 8”x8” swatch). The company is a new one, so orders could take up to 3 weeks. After they get through the beta testing stage, you’ll even be able to sell your fabric on their site if you’d like. What fun. I’ve got to try this.

Do I Need a Model Release Form?

When I decided to exhibit my photos from the Dutchess County Fair, I didn’t have a single model release. I’d been photographing the fair for ten years. I never would have made that mistake shooting professionally, but because I was shooting the fair for fun, it never crossed my mind. I was lucky and was able to find and get permission from everyone. Many of the kids had grown and had children of their own!

Learn a lesson from me. Always get a release. It makes life much easier. Technically, you need to compensate people for modeling. I’ve found that people are happy to be paid with a nice print of the photo they’ve posed in. Also, write a description on the release form of the photo, so you won’t have any trouble identifying what it’s for years later.

For detailed information on when you need releases and sample release forms go to the American Society of Media Photographers web site.

Rejection Letters Make You Feel Like a Talentless Piece of Lint

I have received enough rejection letters to wallpaper my hall. Nowadays many places don’t even bother to send a formal letter on nice stationery, preferring a quick email instead. No matter the delivery, rejection is always a blow to the ego. The words kind of blur a bit after that first sentence, as you prepare yourself for the rest of the correspondence. Thanks for entering, the level of work was high, but you didn’t win…again. Rats. I didn’t win the Aperture Competition…again. (A girl can dream, can’t she?) Purdue University also turned me down recently.

Sometimes I make myself feel better with a few choice words and a hand gesture. Others I treat with a big fat glass of wine. A younger me might have tried tears. Occasionally, I’m grown up enough to reconsider my entry. Was it my best work? Did I describe it well in my artist’s statement. Or, was my work okay, but the winner’s soooo much better. (As is always the case in the Aperture Competition, which actually makes me feel better about losing. It reminds me to work harder and try again.) Don’t know who won the Purdue show, but suspect it’s that sort of avant garde/Whitney Biennial kind of art.

My yoga teacher would say to take a deep breath. Sometimes it works. What’s your remedy?

Tag, You’re It!

Bloggers like to have loyal followers, but it’s easy to get lost among all the voices on the internet. One way to increase readership is to share your blog audience with other bloggers’ and vice versa. That’s just what Carol Lambert did when she tagged me. Carol paints found objects in her native Alaska and shares them on her blog. I met her some time ago through artscuttlebutt, a community for artists.

To follow the tagging procedure, I’m supposed to
1. put a link in my posting about the artist that tagged me
2. write 5 -7 unusual things about myself
3. tag 5 - 7 other bloggers and let them know.

Bloggers I Tagged
Sally Ahearn Nepotism is completely okay in cyberspace. My sister Sally is a writer and editor. Her blog offers helpful advice to writers from her own experience as well as many guest experts.

Donna Iona Drozda My cyber friend Donna is a very spiritual person and her paintings reflect a deep sense of thought and symbolism. She also inspires and guides others to reconnect with their own inner creativity. Her blog is always worth stopping by.

Cheryl McClure I also met Cheryl through the butt. A very successful professional artist, she uses color in a sensual way that draws me in every time.

Paul McCubbin I went to high school with Paul. When I first started my blog, he reentered my life by leaving me many helpful comments and suggestions for how to keep it going. He maintains several blogs, I like the Central Park Zoo blog best.

Deborah Mix Deborah is a talented illustrator and uses her skill to make all kinds of gift and craft items. Check out her needlepoint Santa!

Nadine Robbins Nadine’s portraits are so lifelike, many people mistake them for photographs. She’s halfway through her yearlong project to paint artistic couples, so look for a show announcement next year.

Unusual Things About Myself
1. I can still do a handstand.
2. I can whistle extremely loudly using my fingers.
3. I have been in every state in the country except Hawaii and Louisiana, two places I definitely plan to visit.
4. One weekend while my husband was out-of-town, I had a Home Depot employee sell me everything I needed and give me instruction on how to install tile in my bathroom shower. (My husband says I did a great job!)
5. Every year I get together with several girlfriends for Wild Women’s Weekend where we do secret things and laugh a lot.

Google Knows Who’s Talking About You

Google is as deep as you look. Recently, I signed up for Google Alerts which sends me an email every time my name is mentioned on the internet. You can set an alert to watch for anything—photography fellowships, portrait competitions, humpback whales, whatever. Try to target the search as narrowly as possible to avoid being inundated with alerts. It’s been interesting to see where my name pops up. There’s a high school swimmer named Molly Ahearn whose name pops up in the local papers occasionally. I’m quietly watching her career develop. I wonder if she’s watching mine…

Meet Moll Diavolo

In September’s Art Calendar, I caught a little side note about a blog dedicated to opportunities for artists in Second Life. For those of you unfamiliar with Second Life, it is a virtual 3-D illustrative world that mirrors the real world in every way—currency, home buying and building, shopping—except it is a complete fantasy. The first thing you do is create an ‘avatar’ to represent yourself. This is where the fantasy begins. You can be blonde, tall, muscled, sexy, tattooed, whatever you’ve most desired. My second life name is Moll Diavolo and she’s a vampy babe with a muscled butt (the view I see most frequently).

Having created Moll, I was ready to navigate to Artropolis, the place Ann Aubree created for her virtual ethnography project. Trouble is I couldn’t figure out how to get there. The graphics load in slower than your navigational instructions, so I frequently found myself in a hole, or wall, or under the ocean. I gave up on Artropolis and did a search for art galleries. Bohemia—Home of True Creators & Artists—sounded intriguing. A collection of studios along a tree-lined walkway, I tried to find some art. One studio I entered showed promise. A pig was roasting over a fire and a mouse kept dashing by at my feet. Gray squares—presumably art—were hung on the walls. But as long as I stayed there waiting for the graphics to load, nothing appeared in the gray squares. Sigh.

I searched for photographers. The Google-like search feature turned up 493 results and a sidebar filled with paid classified ads(!) I checked the International Photographers Society, a club for real life photographers who want to promote and sell their real life work in this make-believe world. A window popped up with what looked like it could be a directory but I was unable to make it do anything. Is my computer too slow?

Then somehow I clicked something that landed me in Artropolis! Happy accident. It’s a cool place with virtual art! And, my ‘fly’ capability was activated. I took off and flew around the island. Now I see what people like about second life—flying. I had a little trouble landing, but what fun.

I never ran into another person which was kind of a relief. What would you say? What are their expectations? Will they be themselves, or a make-believe person? I can’t say that I’m a convert, or that I’ll return, or that I can see how it would help your art career. Have you been? What do you think?

No More Shelter

Sad news to report. Photoshelter, the stock photo company that was founded on the idea that artists should make the lion’s share of sales revenues, has had to admit defeat. Their business model apparently didn’t translate into a profit for themselves.

Though I’d yet to make a sale through Photoshelter, I’d had over 100 of my images selected by their staff to sell and was very excited about the longterm prospects of selling through them online. Maybe there are other good places. I’ll keep you posted if I find any.

Make Your Own Book—and Sell It!

If you’ve always dreamed of being published, the internet has made it a quick and easy-to-accomplish task. The first thing you need to do is decide what the purpose of the book is and whether you’re going to sell it. If you want a beautiful coffee table-style book of your photography or artwork, you will need high-resolution output, quality paper and a hardbound cover, then blurb.com is a good place to look. For really high-end books check out loxleycolour.com (leather covers!) or photobookpress.com. If it’s more important to keep the price low, consider lulu.com or winkflash.com. I recently used lulu to print programs for my True Cowgirls show. An 8-1/2 x 11, 44-page book with a color cover and b/w inside pages only cost me about $6/per book including shipping. The quality of the printing on the inside leaves something to be desired and I learned the hard way not to have images fill the full size of the page, but at a selling price of $12, many people bought a copy.

All of these sites offer templates that you can download and insert your own images and text. Some of the templates are more artful than others, but using their templates certainly makes the process fast and easy. Since I’m a graphic designer, I prefer to design my own layout using InDesign (layout software by Adobe) and upload a print-ready PDF file. This takes more time, but allows me to maintain a similar ‘look’ to all of my printed pieces.

The beauty of these online sites is that you can publish on demand. In other words, you’re not required to print more than one copy at a time. While this makes the books more expensive for small quantities, you’re only printing what you want to sell or give away. So, if you want to make a big impression at your next pitch to a new client, design a custom book especially for that meeting. You can also make the book available for the general public to buy (and make millions!). The top sellers at lulu are e-Start Your Web Store with Zen Cart, How to Become an Alpha Male, and You Can Beat Prostate Cancer.

With the holidays approaching, making a book is a personal and special gift. Consider a cookbook of family recipes, turn your blog into a book, share your antique car hobby, make an unforgettable record of last summer’s vacation, document your family’s geneology, write a songbook of your original music, or be brave and launch that novel.

How to Post a Video on YouTube

1. Export to the QuickTime movie format using the default settings. If you know what you’re doing, you can set different preferences for audio output and video quality. (I used iMovie to create my video.)
2. Create an account at YouTube.
3. Verify your account after they send you an email.
4. Go to YouTube.com and in the upper righthand corner of the window, click on the Upload button.
5. Give your video a title and a bunch of key words that will help people find your video.
6. Click on the Browse button to locate your .mov file.
7. That’s it! Check back in a while to see it by going to My Videos under Account in the top right nav bar. I’d already gotten 5 views a few hours after posting!
8. YouTube will provide you code to embed the video as you see here.
9. Pass this link on to all your friends!

Art that’s Healthy

Suzanne Ashley is curating a show/fundraiser of images called Art for Health to create a sense of comfort and relaxation for patients, visitors and staff at the Hudson Valley Hospital Center. I believe the mind is a powerful thing and wouldn’t be surprised to know that imagining oneself inside a beautiful image eases the mind. I’m sharing a few of the photos I entered with this post. If you’re interested in participating, they’re looking for Hudson Valley landscapes, water views, florals and figurative work. The show will take place at Boscobel. Your art may also be selected to become part of the permanent collection, seen by over 100,000 annually. All media are welcome, maximum dimensions not to exceed 40” in any direction. Artists retain 75% of sale price. To enter, send images to smithstudio1@comcast.net.

Making Your Blog Less Stressful to Manage

The hardest thing for me as an artist about blogging is the pressure of posting on a regular basis. I did two things to ease up some of that pressure. First, I brainstormed a bunch of ideas for each category that I write about (e.g., my work, artist tech tips, my site, etc.). Then, I used Excel to create a blank form with month, title and category headings. I took at least one of the ideas from the brainstorm list in each category and spread them out over a 12-month period (using a pencil). Some things, like my sneak peek at my home page photo, come up every month and were easy to assign. Of course, life is fluid and I’ve made many changes in that original plan. But, for the most part, I stick to it and manage to keep blogging and keep my sanity at the same time.

Is Selling Art for $20 a Good Idea?

Times are tough for everyone, but artists get hit first. I’ve been hearing from many that nothing is selling in the Hudson Valley area. What do you do to compensate?

One idea might be to try selling online. I don’t know anyone who’s doing this successfully, but did come across one online gallery that is selling like gangbusters: Jen Bekman’s 20x200.com. They release a limited edition print every Tuesday and Wednesday. Buyers have a choice of buying one of 200 small prints for $20, one of 20 medium-sized prints for $200 or one of two large prints for $2000. Many times all prints are sold within a day, one sold out in a matter of minutes. When you add all that up, the numbers get interesting.

Jen Bekman started out with a gallery on the lower east side of New York City a few years ago. Her mission to introduce emerging artists to (new) collectors exploded with the 20x200 web site. Let me know if you sign on. I want a full report.

Planning Makes for a Successful Show

If you want to have a good crowd at the opening reception of your next exhibit—and hopefully sell well—you need to get organized. I like to have 3 months to plan for a big show. Once I have a plan, I find the whole process is a lot less anxiety-producing.

Spreadsheet
First thing I do is create an Excel spreadsheet with the dates running across the horizontal top row (one week per column) and a list of every task that has to be done running down the left column vertically. Then I fill in the cells with gray when every task needs to be done. I print it out on one page and that page lives on my desk. Every Monday morning I review what needs to be done for the week. I put a check in each box that’s finished.

Finalize Dates
The most important date to establish is the opening reception. As soon as you work that out with everyone involved, send a “Save the Date” email to everyone on your list. People make plans months ahead of time and you need to leave time for family/friends who don’t live nearby to make hotel reservations.

Promotion Materials
Print: Remember to keep the design of all promotion materials the same so people begin to recognize the event.

Post card: When I’m responsible for printing post cards, I use modernpostcard.com. They’re inexpensive, fast and the quality is good. If you’re lucky, the gallery or sponsor will cover the expense of printing post cards. In any case, you need to carefully review and update your mailing list.

Poster: Posters are a good way to advertise locally. Many local shops with storefront windows let you put up a poster. The library is also a good spot, as well as the community bulletin board and the Chamber of Commerce.

Ecard: The internet is king. You can reach millions if you want to. Create a jpg version of your post card and email the world. (If you don’t use an email service, DO NOT put everyone’s email in the cc box. People get really annoyed.)

Advertising: If you’ve got the money, advertise in local/art publications.

Press: Find out what the submission dates are for all the publications. Magazines will have deadlines at least 6 weeks ahead of publication.

Newspapers: Get a broad list of all publications in the gallery’s vicinity.

Magazines: Include arts magazines as well as local magazines and any other publications that might be interested in the content of your art (ex: for my cowgirl show, I researched publications that are interested in cowgirls/cowboys/horses).

Online/print calendar listings: This is something you do a couple of weeks before the show. Mostly, you can file a listing online that will serve for both print/online calendar lists. Don’t forget your local radio stations.

Art
Survey space: Take your camera and a tape measure. Write down how much space is available and note which are the best spots.

Plan show layout: Figure out what size prints to make and plan where you will hang them.

Plan prices: Decide on selling prices—don’t forget to factor in the gallery’s percentage.

Prep photo files: Clean spots, touch up, etc.

Order frames: Leave enough time for shipping if you’re ordering.

Make Prints: Send files out for archival prints.

Sign prints/put together: Do this before you go to hang the show.

Show
Plan food/drinks
Buy food/drinks/paper products
Hang show
Guest book

Quick Color Correcting Using Curves Adjustment Layer

Learned this invaluable basic color correcting tip years ago in a book by Scott Kelby, Photoshop guru, and have used it on every image since.

1. Create Adjustment Layer. Open an image. At the bottom of the Layers window, select the Curves... Adjustment layer. In the screen that pops up, you'll see a curves graph with a grayed out histogram behind it of the pigment in the photo.

2. Set Black. Just beneath the graph are 3 eyedroppers. Double click on the black eyedropper (far left), set your black RGB values to 10-10-10 and click ok. You'll find that the black eyedropper is still selected. Roll over the image's darkest spots until you find the blackest (helpful to have your info menu showing to help you do this) and click on it.

3. Set White. Now double click on the white eyedropper (far right) and set the RGB values to 240-240-240. With the white eyedropper still selected, roll over the image's lightest spots until you find the lightest and click on it.

4. Set Gray. This is where the meat is. Double click on the middle eyedropper, the RGB values should be 128-128-128. With the gray eyedropper still selected, click on something in the image that should be (but might not be) gray. This step isn't always easy and may require several attempts. When you're happy with the results, click ok.

5. Quick global adjustments. Once you've set your 3 color points, you can apply global lightening or darkening very easily. To lighten, grab the middle of the straight graph line and move it up. To darken, grab the middle of the straight graph line and move it down. You'll notice that a dot was created on the line where you grabbed it. You can then grab a different spot on the line and move it up or down to lighten or darken highlights or shadows.

6. Flexibility of Adjustment Layers. The greatest thing about adjustment layers is that you haven't changed the original image layer. You can add the curves adjustment layers to accommodate different printers or display situations. If you've shot a series of images with the same lighting, you can copy a curves adjustment layer by dragging it into another image.

Get Your Own Web Address

Like everything internet, figuring out how to set up your own web site address seems impossible, but is really very simple to accomplish.

• Navigate to Network Solutions. [There are many other places that will do this, but this is the one I use.]
• Enter the name that you’d like to have for your web site in the “Find a Domain Name” box. Hit the Search button.
• A secondary screen will come up letting you know the name is available. If it’s not available, try another name. Click the “Add Domain(s) to Order” button.
• Decide whether you’d like Network solutions to host your site (the place you’ll upload your files). If yes, select a hosting package, If no, select the “Continue Without Adding Hosting” button.
• The cost of just registering your domain name is $35.00 for one year.

That’s all there is to it. From experience, I can tell you that even if you aren’t capable of designing your own site, you should register your domain name yourself. If you let your host company do it for you, they are not always happy to provide you with your domain account information if you want to change hosts. Let me know how it goes.