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: 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. 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. 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. 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. Some licensing arrangements are exclusive, meaning those designs can’t be sold anywhere else or used on other things. Other agreements are non-exclusive. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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: In her collage work, she’s found that the liquid matte medium doesn’t smear ink on copies like gel medium does. 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. 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. 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. Online communities are great because the members encourage one another and they all become friends. 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. 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. 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. She is also active on Pinterest, and she pins her twice weekly blog posts and her Youtube videos to Pinterest. Make sure everything you do with social media is sincere, and not just done to boost traffic. Amanda also does YouTube Live videos, which also have an interactive component like the Facebook live videos do. Her YouTube video might just be a small portion of…

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: 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. 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. The more you work at something and the more you practice, the better you become at it. 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. 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. When building your website, make sure you have proper SEO built in as well so that people can find you. 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. 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. When you create a website to showcase your art, or when you hire someone to create it for you, make sure you have…

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 To Our Younger Self, 9.5' x 16' Replace with Love, triptych, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 40" Love Poem #1 Images from her solo show. 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 6x6 show. You can attend the fundraising sale night on July 25, 2019. Here's the information. Here are the great takeaways from this episode: 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. 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. When taking an art class, listen to what the instructor says to the other students, not just what she says to you. 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. Experiment with different surfaces too, like canvas, paper, or even sculpture. 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. If your artwork is unique, like Stacey’s shorthand artwork is, be prepared to explain it to the people who are attending your show. Treat your art business like a full-time job: keep learning and trying different techniques. 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. Consider translating your art onto large public art projects. You can find a lot of these Calls to Artists through municipalities. It’s…

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: Pick a gallery that goes with your art and your personality. Bristol paper and paints are great materials to bring when you’re traveling and you want to make some art. 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. 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. 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. She can film an hour-long painting session, but then speed them up for a smaller video. She will add voice overs…