Read more about the article #113 Shandra Smith: Collaborations in Surface Design

#113 Shandra Smith: Collaborations in Surface Design

Artist Shandra Smith is from a small town in British Columbia, Canada. She’s a surface designer, and her designs have been printed on walls, shoes, home décor, and even in the rooms of a hotel. Her brightly colored geometric art is well suited for both small and very large items. She’s a go-getter who’s not afraid to cold call someone if she thinks her art would do well there.

Listen here or use a podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Spotify, or Stitcher.

Shandra Smith

Shandra’s website is shandrasmith.com. 

You can see the promotional video that she created on YouTube.

You can find her on Instagram @shandrasmithart.

And she is on Facebook.

And Linkedin.

If you happen to be in Kelowna, BC, Canada, you can see her artwork at Hotel Zed.

Visit the Shop page on Shandra’s website to find all the products that share her designs, like her shoes, wall art, prints, and books.

Here are some great takeaways from our conversation:

  1. It’s not necessarily the artists with the most talent who are the most successful, it’s the artists who work hard, try new things, and can handle rejection well who really make it.
  2. Surface design is any design on products, like fabric, shoes, home goods. Surface pattern design means it’s a repeat pattern that can be used for things like fabric and wall paper.
  3. You can find licensing opportunities for your art by cold-calling businesses or they may call you because they’ve noticed your art online or elsewhere. Do a little research first and make sure your artwork would go well with the aesthetic of their business.
  4. You can also use an agent to find licensing agreements. While the agent will receive a cut of your art that is sold, an agent can find many more opportunities that you may not be able to find yourself.
  5. Some licensing arrangements are exclusive, meaning those designs can’t be sold anywhere else or used on other things. Other agreements are non-exclusive.
  6. Some arrangements for putting your artwork on products are royalty-based, meaning you’ll get paid once a month or every quarter. This can become a great source of passive income for your business.
  7. Shandra created a short video that introduces her and her style to people. When she sends an email to a business, she can attach that video so they can get to know her better.
  8. Try to offer art that has a variety of price points. Shandra also offers little pouches with her art that can be purchased for as little as $12.
  9. Not all of your art needs to be sellable. You should put some time into your schedule to make art that’s just fun for you to make, with no regard to the purpose of the art.
Read more about the article #112 Amanda Hilburn: Creating an Artist Community

#112 Amanda Hilburn: Creating an Artist Community

Amanda Hilburn is a Florida artist who creates paintings using palette knife techniques, and she demonstrates her methods on Facebook and YouTube. She has also created an artist community, where people can learn, share, and encourage each other with their art. She explains how this community works, and what’s in store for her newest business community for artists.

Listen here or use a podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Spotify, or Stitcher.

Amanda Hilburn

Amanda’s website is artbyamandahilburn.com

You can find her Creative Community on her website under classes here, and her Business Tribe here.

You can find her on Instagram @thelittlebluebirdgallery

You can find her on Facebook at The Little Bluebird Gallery.

She can also be found on Pinterest.

Here are some great takeaways from our conversation:

This first tip is a basic art hint, but I wanted to include it here. Sometimes it’s these little tips that can make life so easier when you’re making art. So here it is:

  1. In her collage work, she’s found that the liquid matte medium doesn’t smear ink on copies like gel medium does.
  2. When starting an art business, just do a little bit at a time. You don’t need to try to have all aspects of a business on your website at the beginning.
  3. As you add more offerings to your business, think about which things you can hire others to do for you so that you can focus on the things in your business that you are best at.
  4. A lot of places are moving toward online membership groups, where you pay a monthly fee to receive content. Amanda has two online communities, and the members use a password to get to a private section of their website to see the content. They also have a private Facebook group where they can interact.
  5. Online communities are great because the members encourage one another and they all become friends.
  6. The monthly fee allows the member to have access to all the content, both past and future content. For past content, they can view the videos on her site, and for future content, they will receive an email with a link so they can download the videos or view them from her site.
  7. She drives traffic to her business Facebook page by making a lot of live videos of her creating a painting. She gets a bigger audience when she’s actually painting and talking over it rather than just talking.
  8. She does these live videos weekly, because when people engage with that video, they are more likely to see her future announcements on that Facebook page.
  9. She is also active on Pinterest, and she pins her twice weekly blog posts and her Youtube videos to Pinterest.
  10. Make sure everything you do with social media is sincere, and not just done to boost traffic.
  11. Amanda also does YouTube Live videos, which also have an interactive component like the Facebook live videos do.
  12. Her YouTube video might just be a small portion of a painting video, and she will tell her YouTube audience to join her online community if they want to see the whole video.
  13. Amanda uses Clickup project management software to keep track of everything she and her team does for her business.
  14. She offers a free tutorial video so that people can see what she’s like and consider joining her community.
Read more about the article #111 Lisa Congdon: Artist, Illustrator, and Author

#111 Lisa Congdon: Artist, Illustrator, and Author

Lisa Congdon is an artist with a unique illustrative and lettering style. You’ve probably seen her photographs of her collections, like erasers and tools. You’ve also probably heard of at least one of her many books, possibly her art business book called Art, Inc. She talks about her new book, Find Your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic, and how she has created a successful career as an illustrator, and author.

Listen here or use a podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Spotify, or Stitcher.

Lisa Congdon

Lisa's book Find Your Artistic Voice will be available August 6, 2019.

Lisa’s website is lisacongdon.com

Her new book Find Your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic will be published August 6, 2019. Check her Instagram page for book tour cities and dates.

Here are a few things Lisa mentioned during this interview:

She previously worked with artistic agent Lilla Rogers.

Her very first book was published by Janine Vangool of Uppercase Magazine. Uppercase is a great independently published magazine for creatives.

Lisa uses these platforms for creating and distributing her online classes: Skillshare, CreativeLive,  and CreativeBug. All of her course offerings can be found on her website.

Here are some great takeaways from our conversation:

  1. Try to get over the labels you might have taken on as a child, like your sister is the artistic one, you are not creative. Lisa says she’s the last one her family would have predicted would have a successful art career. You need to get beyond your former labels and just do what you want to do.
  2. Share your work online, even if you don’t think it’s great yet. You’ll get better, and people will encourage you to do more.
  3. The more you work at something and the more you practice, the better you become at it.
  4. If you’ve been developing a portfolio in illustration, you may want to look into an agent who can mentor you and help you get clients.
  5. A great way to become a better artist and to garner attention for your work, is to do a multi-day project, like a 100 day project, with a theme, that you post to your Instagram. Back in the day, Lisa did this more than once and posted her photos of her artwork to her blog.
  6. When building your website, make sure you have proper SEO built in as well so that people can find you.
  7. When considering whether to sell your art on Etsy or any other online marketplace, evaluate the fees or commission they will be taking from your sales and whether that is still worth it for you.
  8. If you keep your art shopping on your website rather than a third-party site, that will keep your customers on your website and that will help you in the search rankings online.
  9. When you create a website to showcase your art, or when you hire someone to create it for you, make sure you have been given the instructions on how to add new art to your site. You don’t want to have a site created, and then have it be outdated immediately because you don’t know how to add more art. Think of your website as the professional face of your business. And one more thing: Don’t treat your Instagram account as your portfolio that you show to potential clients. You should have a website for that.
  10. When looking to offer online classes, you can go the route of you creating the video and everything yourself, or you can go through a company that can do the video and coach you through all aspects of making a class, like Lisa has done with using Skillshare, CreativeLive, and Creative Bug. These are great options if you need assistance in filming, editing, or distributing your class, but just remember that working with them means that they will take fees or commissions from your classes.
  11. When trying to figure out what you want to do, consider what brings you joy and what makes you get out of the bed in the morning. And then figure out what people are willing to pay for and what resonates for them, and find the sweet spot between the two.
  12. There will be many things out there that you’ll want to try, and you won’t find out if they’re successful until you do. You need to be curious enough to try the new thing.
  13. Part of gaining your artistic voice is learning to work with your fear. You’re not eliminating your fear, but you’re learning to work with it.
  14. Fear has an important purpose in your career, because you push through it and you learn from what you’ve done and get better at it.
  15. Lisa’s newest book, called Find Your Artistic Voice, will give you practice tips of how to work through the fear and anxiety, and how to keep moving to find your art. It also includes interviews with 11 artists who give more tips and affirmations toward finding your voice.

If you’re ever in Portland, Oregon, feel free to stop by Lisa’s retail shop:

LOCATION:
687 N Tillamook Street, Portland

HOURS:
Wednesdays and Fridays, 1-5 pm

Read more about the article #110 Stacey Mandell: Communicating Through Shorthand

#110 Stacey Mandell: Communicating Through Shorthand

After twenty years in the field of law, Florida artist Stacey Mandell has taken one of her skills, the writing of shorthand, and creates abstract art using shorthand phrases. Her mission is to convey a feeling and a message with her art. Every art piece is different, as she experiments with other languages, as well as different materials and surfaces.

Listen here or use a podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Spotify, or Stitcher.

Stacey Mandell

Stacey Mandell
To Our Younger Self, 9.5' x 16'
Stacey Mandell
Replace with Love, triptych, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 40"
Stacey Mandell
Love Poem #1
Images from her solo show.
Stacey Mandell
I Love You, Te Amo, Je T'aime, triptych, mixed media on wood with epoxy, each one is 24" x 24"

Stacey Mandell’s website is staceymandell.com.

You can find her on Instagram @stacey.mandell.art and Facebook at Stacey Mandell Art.

You can watch a YouTube video of Stacey creating her shorthand art here.

Stacey mentioned that she took an abstract painting class at the Boca Raton Museum Art School with Edyi Lampasona. You can check out their website here to see if she is currently teaching a class there.

You can find Calls to Artists here at Paul Fisher Juried Art Services.

Stacey has donated an artwork to the Cornell Museum’s 6×6 show. You can attend the fundraising sale night on July 25, 2019. Here’s the information.

Here are the great takeaways from this episode:

  1. If you have an idea for making artwork out of something, like Stacey did with Gregg Shorthand, try taking an art class and experiment to see how you can incorporate your ideas into art.
  2. If you’re starting to make art and you’re thinking about it too structurally or logically, try abstract art so that you can get rid of any rules you think you’re supposed to follow.
  3. When taking an art class, listen to what the instructor says to the other students, not just what she says to you.
  4. Experiment with different art making tools when first trying to make art, and even tools that aren’t traditionally art making tools, like cake decorating tools or condiment squeeze bottles.
  5. Experiment with different surfaces too, like canvas, paper, or even sculpture.
  6. Stacey had a strange first experience with having her artwork in a show, when she put her art into a shipping container. But what she did learn from this is that you can become friends with the other artists, bond with them over the show, and connect with them on future shows.
  7. If your artwork is unique, like Stacey’s shorthand artwork is, be prepared to explain it to the people who are attending your show.
  8. Treat your art business like a full-time job: keep learning and trying different techniques.
  9. When you’re making your art, give consideration to the materials, surfaces, and colors and how they interact to tell the story you want to tell.
  10. Consider translating your art onto large public art projects. You can find a lot of these Calls to Artists through municipalities.
  11. It’s always great to support other artists by attending their events.
Read more about the article #109 Betty Krause: Painter of Abstract Florals and Master at Videos and Instagram

#109 Betty Krause: Painter of Abstract Florals and Master at Videos and Instagram

Artist Betty Krause paints beautiful abstract floral pieces. She also shares her techniques through her Youtube channel and Instagram posts and stories. We talk a lot about the methods she uses for taking her videos, transferring them to her computer, and editing them. She also shares many tips for promoting your business through Instagram. I always include key takeaways at the end of the interview, and I’m giving you a heads up that this episode has 21 takeaways. That’s the most ever. Betty shared so many amazing tips and techniques for your art business, that I wanted to include them all.  

Listen here or use a podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Spotify, or Stitcher.

Betty Krause

There's No Place Like Here, 30" x 40" acrylic on canvas
Summer Scene, 20" x 20" acrylic on canvas
Smiling in Sunlight, 22" x 30" acrylic on paper
Promises, 24" x 30" acrylic on canvas
Paradise of Being, 24" x 18" acrylic on paper
Golden Meadow Glow, 24" x 18" acrylic on paper
Betty teaching at one of her workshops.
Meditative Moments, 36" x 36" acrylic on canvas
Peeking Over My Shoulder, 36" x 36", canvas
Cozy Oblivion, 24" x 24" acrylic on canvas
City Views, 12" x 9" acrylic on paper

Here are some of the things we discussed in this episode (click on the names to follow the links).

Betty Krause has a website that is called bettykrauseart.com.

Go to the Contact tab on her website, and then Quick Links, and you will find her links for her Email List, her Favorite Art Supplies, her Youtube Channel, and more.

You can find her on Facebook at Betty Krause Art and on Instagram @betty.krause.art

Here are some great takeaways from this episode:

  1. Pick a gallery that goes with your art and your personality.
  2. Bristol paper and paints are great materials to bring when you’re traveling and you want to make some art.
  3. When shipping canvas art overseas, the least expensive way is to remove the gallery wrapped canvas from the wooden frame, and mail the canvas in a shipping tube. Then your customer will have to get the canvas re-stretched onto a frame.
  4. Betty does cross-promotion over many platforms. So for example, when she puts a video on her Youtube channel, she will put it in her Instagram stories, on Facebook, and she’ll mention it in her Newsletter.
  5. Betty shared a lot of tips for filming process videos. One of the tricky things she faced was that Instagram prefers portrait videos, and Youtube prefers landscape videos. So she makes separate videos for each platform. She also discovered that using your phone to film a long sequence will fill up its memory, and then it stops recording before you are done with the video. She got around this by investing in a camcorder that she can use for all her filming.
  6. She can film an hour-long painting session, but then speed them up for a smaller video. She will add voice overs for this, and she’s invested in a good microphone to record the voice overs.
  7. She uses PhotoShop for videos to edit her videos.
  8. I suggested Windows Movie Maker for editing your videos.
  9. Betty uses One Drive to automatically upload her photos and videos to the cloud, so that she can retrieve them on her laptop for editing.
  10. Betty also suggests that if you can’t figure something out, search for a Youtube video that will explain how to do it.
  11. The best way to market your artwork is to market yourself to. People want to see videos of you making art and describing what you’re doing, because they want to purchase from someone they feel like they know.
  12. As a final protective coating for her paintings, she first uses a matte spray, then she brushes on a Liquitex varnish, either matte, satin, or gloss. For protecting her paintings on paper, she uses a matte spray, and a gloss liquid.
  13. If she does not use a mat when she frames her paintings on paper, she will use spacers so that the paper does not touch the glass.
  14. Betty uses a company called Skyline Printing out of Austin, Texas to create the prints of her paintings. Their website is skylineartprints.com.
  15. When offering different print sizes, she makes sure not to offer to large a size, or the image might get distorted.
  16. When teaching a workshop where you may get students from out of town, be sure to offer them lodging options for their stay.
  17. Betty has a great way to protect the table surface when she sets up for a class: She covers the tables with 4mm plastic sheeting, which is a little bit thick, and the bonus is that the students can use the plastic as their paint palette.
  18. The best way to get more followers on Instagram is to let people get to know you. You must engage and connect with your followers.
  19. Keep your Instagram feed focused on your art and your business, and be consistent with what you post and how often. Your Instagram stories are a great place where you can show a little more personal things about your life.
  20. If you post to IGTV on Instagram, it now shows up in your feed as well, but a shortened version.
  21. One last thing that Betty mentioned after we were done with the interview: She said that Cory Huff of The Abundant Artist has a book called How to Sell Your Art Online, and that was instrumental in helping her get her art business off the ground. Betty includes a link on the Quick Links section of her website where you can buy that book.

Betty is also offering a free PDF titled  TOP 10 THINGS TO DO on INSTAGRAM. Click on this link to receive it.