Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Seeing Red Spots

I LOVE RED DOTS!
I love seeing RED SPOTS!  No, it's not a rash or the chicken pox but rather they denote a sale of art and to me that is the ultimate goal as an artist.  The measurement that you are heading the right direction with you work.  If the public appreciates your style well enough to fork over their hard earned cash, then you know they love what they see.

Yesterday I was thrilled to received a phone call from one of the Boulder City Art Gallery where I have several of my works hanging.  I was told I had a man there that was very serious about my "Autumn Gold" piece and while I was on the phone he made the decision to go a head and buy it and have it shipped to him.  I'm not sure where he lives but I will try to find that information out.

The original may be gone now, but you can always order a beautiful print, a pillow or a greeting card of this painting or any of my other pieces at my FineArtAmerica.com site.  Here is the link if you are interested in checking it out.

Fine Art America- Autumn Gold Print

You can also visit my gallery at my website at julietownsendstudio.com to see this and  my other works.



What a great way to end 2014!  I'm looking forward to seeing what 2015 will bring!

"Autumn Gold"- 24 x 36 Original Acrylic - This piece won the 1st Place Visitor's Choice Award at the Lincoln County Art Show in Caliente, Nevada in 2013!  I even got an amazing trophy for this piece.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Fresh Look for 2015

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are looking to 2015 with joy and excitement.  Here is this year's Family Christmas Photo
Merry Christmas from the Townsend's

I had to include our Funny Christmas Picture too!


The past two days I have been working to overhaul the looks of my website and this blog.  Gone are the heavy dark colors that draw your eye away from the main focus of the website.  I have just a few more house cleaning tasks to do on my website and I will be done with my remodel and then it's back to the studio for me.

Approaching the new year is a great time to begin scouting out other websites to see what the professionals are doing and what catches your eye.  If you don't have your own website and or blog to showcase your artwork or whatever you are passionate about, then I encourage you to step up and just do it.  I found Weebly.com to be fairly easy to navigate and as you can see I am on blogger.com.  Both are free and provide a good internet presence if you just take the time to keep them updated.

Check out my website at julietownsendstudio.com


Putting A Little Action In Your Dreams







Well, it is that time of the year again.  You know the time that we all begin thinking about the new year that is too quickly approaching. It has been 2 years since I left the 8-5 workforce, so in my mind that marks 2 years that I have seriously been pursuing my art career.  I've managed to hit many of my early goals and targets but now I find in this current economy it very difficult to grow and really be successful.  It is a good time to evaluate your true motavation and ask yourself why do you DO art.  Is what you are doing a business or is it a hobby?  This is the first important question to consider.  If your art is simply an activity that you enjoy doing with no regards to the profitability of the activity then you are a hobbyist and there is nothing wrong with that.  I on the other hand want to measure my success by seeing my hard work and effort actually helping supplement our household income.  I want to end 2015 with a positive bottom line. The concept is a pretty simple one....I want to make money with my art.

So I have been considering some 2015 goals and doing some research artist goals in particular.  Today I actually began compiling a list.  If you are serious about your art being a business then you must focus on measurable goals.  You need to DREAM and DREAM BIG, but more importantly you must put ACTION to those dreams or they are really nothing more than fleeting daydreams. 

(1)MAKE $1000 A MONTH FROM MY ART-That is how my list starts.  I started my list by establishing a monthly profit amount that I would like to see me attain.  $1000 a month may seem small to many established and successful artists or it may seem completely out of the grasp of many that are struggling to get a sale.  I'm currently in that struggling category and so increasing my sales is certainly a priority in 2015.  

(2) REGULAR ART STUDENTS- A good revenue source that many artists can utilize is that of teaching.  Having students is a scary step because it feels like I need to have become an expert at painting in order to teach painting and that is so far from where I see myself.  I have been told that your art improves greatly as you begin to teach others so for 2015 I am hoping to find those that appreciate my style enough that they are willing to paint with me and pay me money for that privilege.  Having just 3 weekly student taking 2 hour lessons at $20 an hour gets me almost half way to my monthly income goal.   

(3) BECOME A LICENSED ARTIST- A second revenue source that I am going to start to focus on is getting my art licensed.  It feels a little like moving away from fine art, but there is money there if you work hard enough and I actually really enjoy sketching and painting in more of an illustrated style almost as much as painting a large landscape. Much of my weekly goals for 2015 will be focused on creating designs that can be licensed by companies and eventually provide a steady stream of revenue.  I joined a greeting card facebook group and I downloaded an excellent how-to book by Kate Harper.  I have also been reading some excellent articles on the subject.    

(4) FIND A CREATIVE ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER- In my researching articles about artist goal setting, I noticed on several sites a common suggestion.  Find a friend that can be your creative accountability partner.  Someone that can weekly motivate you to keep your time and energies focused on attaining your goals.  It doesn't have to be another artist, but someone who has an equal drive to attain measurable goals that you can meet with or talk to and share everything you did that week to reach your goals.  I'm thinking of creating a private Facebook group just for that purpose.

(5) FIND GALLERY REPRESENTATION OUTSIDE OF LAS VEGAS- Gallery exposure is key and I want to expand my exposure outside my local area.  

I have a number of other goals listed and I won't bore you with all my ramblings, but I would close with encouraging you to a notebook and pencil and start your own 2015 business goals.  I would also love to hear from you about your plans or suggestions on how you reach your creative goals.


Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Don't Throw Away Your Revenue Potential....Rather Turn it into a THROW PILLOW

"Bluebird and Rose Hips" as a beautiful throw pillow






















Did you know that even though you have sold the original artwork, you as the artist still owns the image?  If you don't take the time to get a high resolution photo of the piece, then your revenue potential for all your hard work is over.  For the last three years or so I have made sure that I get a good photo of each piece of original artwork I produce  I can then load it to my website and make it available for purchase there like my own brick and mortar gallery.  I also upload the image to a wonderful site that allows my image to be custom added to a number of items.  This is a wonderful way to continue having a revenue stream.

How many of you have an account with FINEARTAMERICA.com? I love this website. This week alone I have sold 1 print and 2 pillows. All I had to do was upload my images over a year a go and after that, they do all the work including mailing me a commission check.
It takes time and no way am I saying you are going to make lots of money but I find it a great way to have my work available to the public so they can order pillows, prints, greeting cards or phone cases. You set the profit you want to make. I include a link button on my website for each of my works that says "PRINTS" that allow anyone interested in my work to go straight over to my Fineartamerica page.
2015 is a great time to make your art promotion a goal. 

Here is my link to one of the pillows I sold this week.  Doesn't this painting as a pillow make a wonderful gift?

Most of my artwork is available at on my website at JulieTownsendStudio.com so click the link and check it out.