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Artistic Word List

When writing descriptions for pieces, your bio or artist statement, it's a reality that words can often escape us. Words are important.  As an artist, you need to become practised at saying what you mean and meaning what you say.  Collectors can and will decide to buy something or not based on the written narrative you attach to your work. Not all visual artists are blessed with the gifts of a wordsmith either.  We understand that. Also for those first entering the world of art, the language can be high faluting, pretentious, daunting and off putting. We have therefore taken the time to create a list of our favourite artistic words for a dictionary project which over time will be completed with definitions using various online sources and where a phrase is used, it will be defined either by another source or by our editor. We hope this turns into a useful resource for all who need it. As always, if you can see the need for [...]

By |2019-08-07T12:29:01+00:00July 24th, 2019|Common Mistakes Made By Artists, Selling Art, What Makes Art Sell|0 Comments
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Welcoming Craft Onboard

New Collection As you may have noticed, the newly designed ArtMarketDirect boats s new collection; Craft. We have over the years been approached by several creators asking us to host such a collection and the time seemed right to do just that. The term Craft is at this stage to act as an umbrella to all Applied Arts including but not limited to: Jewellery Making Metalwork Glasswork Ceramics and Pottery Woodwork Furniture design Textiles Paper It is likely that as artists, we know other creators in these fields and the benefits of using ArtMarketDirect means their work might now be seen by a wider audience. Craft Collection Facebook Group As well as having space within the market to upload wares for sale, we have created another Group on Facebook;  Craft Collection (Applied Arts) If it is relevant to you, we hope that you will join the Facebook group and add your friends and contacts who will be interested and active in sharing their creations. End. [...]

By |2019-07-23T00:47:08+00:00July 23rd, 2019|Craft|0 Comments
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Get Rid Of Unfinished Work Once And For All

Maybe you remember when you were at primary school and during an art session, the teacher told you to take the colour to the edge of the paper after you had drawn your subject right in the middle.  It was an important lesson and as a professional artist, the same spirit of that lesson applies.  Don't stop, push on through until you have completed your work. Finishing what you start helps you make more money.  The idea that a couple of shots of details from your latest work in progress will satisfy your Real Collectors enough to give you money is fantasy island.  Your Real Collectors will only buy finished paintings.  Show them that instead. The Model relies on the premise that you will be 'prolific', but that does not stand if you are forever starting new work with new styles which confuse your Real Collectors who have already committed to your brand style. All creatives have a million and one ideas which can 'go off' in [...]

By |2019-07-20T11:58:01+00:00July 20th, 2019|Creating, Model, Real Collectors|0 Comments
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Knowing When To Stop

This topic will most probably resonate with every creator on earth.When you are in the zone creating and you step back from your work for the last look, asking yourself "Is that enough?".You will see that line that needs softening, that place which needs a little extra work where the colour is not quite how it could be or that mistake you would like to correct (even though only you will ever be able to know it was a mistake).This is arguably the most dangerous time in the process. It is the difference between something with is complete or something at risk of being 'overworked'.No one can help you. You are on your own. Only you can decide.It's a difficult balancing act and every other creative empathises with you.In the end, you will need to down your tools and move on to the next piece.In reality, if there were no pressures on you, the adage "For an artist, a painting is never finished" is apt.The difficulty is knowing [...]

By |2019-07-16T09:54:15+00:00July 16th, 2019|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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How To Set Price Points Your Real Collectors Will Love

Explore and learn the market you operate in.  Discover art most like yours.  Learn about the artists and where you find their stories chime with yours; check their prices for benchmarks and learn why they charge the amount they do.  benchmarking does not mean that you charge the same, it just means you use that price point when comparing your own.  You might end up charging more or less, but you will have justified that in your mind and you will be able to communicate that to your collectors. A nice place to kick off is with a formula for pricing your art which considered: time labour cost of materials For example, if materials cost €150, you take 10 hours to make the art and you pay yourself €35 per hour, then you price the art at €500. This is a very crude means of working out value.  Most artists will testify that they do not earn an hourly wage.  We ask "why not?" Of course, give yourself [...]

By |2019-07-03T03:18:42+00:00July 3rd, 2019|Model, Real Collectors, Selling Art|0 Comments
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Real Collectors: A Bit More Detail

In other posts, we have mentioned Real Collectors and in this post, we will attempt to outline the principle on Real Collectors in simple terms and you will see how easy it is to understand. As we have outlined before, the principle is based on 'The Model' espoused by the late British fine artist, Brett Neal and the writings of authors Kevin Kelly and Ylane Duparc respectively. Let’s say that you define your success with an income from your sales of £4,000 per month, you are talking about £48,000 per year.  For most folk, that is a comfortable amount to live on, even after taxes. Using the Real Collector model, you would need to find: 48 Real Collectors who give you £1,000 per year. 2000 Real Collectors who pay you £24 per year. 1000 Real Collectors who pay you £48 per year. 500 Real Collectors who pay you £96 per year. You can change the numbers to work out what works best for you. Using the same premise, [...]

By |2019-06-29T06:39:49+00:00June 29th, 2019|Model, Real Collectors, Selling Art|0 Comments
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Building Your Market: The Real Collector Theory

Many artists find themselves caught in a quagmire of hope as they thrash about the internet trying to post images of their art to the larget audiance imaginable...often with little or no success.  Some might not like the idea and we hear from artists all the time who don't seem to appreciate that they are creators AND business people.  In shourt; YOUR ART CAN BE A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS IF YOU WANT IT TO BE. We also have folk telling us that when uploading work to our marketplace, they see words like 'product' or 'discount', 'vendor' or 'customer'.  The idea that we have intentionally designed these words into our platform is like an anathema to them that this could be an extention of our philosophy; but it is. Business and Art are an inseperable reality if you are a professional artist.  Most artists can't afford to be precious about symantics, so neither should we...and really, neither should you. After trying again and again to build, Likes, Shares, comments and [...]

By |2019-06-29T05:10:22+00:00June 28th, 2019|Selling Art, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Losing Track of Your Art

It is difficult enough creating artworks, but managing an up to date catalogue raisonné can be both tedious and something most artists simply don't do; even though they should. Obviously if keeping track is one thing, losing track is worse.  Surely!  So, however tedious the idea of keeping notes up to date might be the consequence of not is profoundly worse. Staying on top of where things have ended up is relatively straightforward for the average artist when considering pieces which have not sold, but the point here is to maintain information of where the body of work is spread out.  Who bought what and for what price.  Have workes been resold?  Where are they physically located now? This might seem like a waste of time, but when you are trying to curate an exhibition of your work, it is invaluable.  You will not need to panic, you can get in touch with long lost collectors and most will be honored to have something they own in an [...]

By |2019-06-27T02:23:35+00:00June 26th, 2019|Common Mistakes Made By Artists, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Fine Art Or Just Offensive?

On 13th December 2017, this graphic and the URL to this resource was blocked by Facebook on the groups that it 'promotes porn or sells sexual services'. An appeal was subsequently submitted and lost. THIS POST IS A DUPLICATE OF AN ARTICLE FIRST PUBLISHED IN DECEMBER 2017. Is there a distinct line between what is generally considered to be sexually explicit Fine Art and what is considered to be offensive?  What is acceptable and what crosses the line? This article deals with the issue of changing attitudes and attempts to provide a general guide to uploading artists when considering if their artwork is acceptable to sell on the ArtMarketDirect.com platform as well as give information to those who might be offended by an image on the platform. If you see an image on ArtMarketDirect.com which you find offensive If anything displayed on our site causes you offense, please email us the URL of the offending upload and we will conduct an investigation.  In all cased we [...]

By |2019-06-26T07:34:07+00:00June 26th, 2019|Selling Art, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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10 Top Tips for Open Studio Success

What's Open Studio? Most artists are aware of what Open Studio events are but for those who are new to the game, here is a definition: "A studio or workroom which is made accessible to anyone and everyone, where artistic or creative work can be viewed and bought." For a successful Open Studio event, you need to plan to get yourself the greatest result. We have assumed that you know how to advertise using the ArtMarketDirect events page or on social media so without further ado: 10 Top Tips for Open Studio Success: 1 Brand: For some artists, hearing the word brand can be off-putting. Don't let something like a word get in the way of getting your work in front of a new audience. You need to think about your style and all the things (including you) which supports that. Bottom line it is you and your brand which is selling the piece. (See: Sharing Success) 2 Tidy Up: Its all very well flinging open your doors [...]

By |2019-06-03T03:23:17+00:00June 3rd, 2019|What Makes Art Sell|0 Comments
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Where You Can Upload Your Work Online

Getting your artwork online by uploading it to ArtMarketDirect.com is a great way to create a checkout facility for your family, friends, contacts and collectors to use to buy your artwork. With our flat-rate 10% for our FREE package or 3% if you bet on yourself commissions we know that we better value than many industry leading online galleries and marketplaces. We are so confident that we have the fairest deal online, we have provided a list of our peers and equals below. That way you can compare what's there and do what's right for you to create the right 'marketing mix' to sell your artwork. At the ArtMarketDirect Basecamp. we often talk about how we are not interested in competing. Instead, we talk about how the global market is big enough for everyone and we hope everyone succeeds. After your work is uploaded to your gallery on ArtMarketDirect the question is "who knows it's there?" Putting your work on any online site is not the be all [...]

By |2019-06-03T03:11:41+00:00June 2nd, 2019|What Makes Art Sell|0 Comments
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Where You Can Find Us On Facebook

Where To Find Us On Facebook Our Wonderful Fan Page: Our Fan Page 'Art Market Direct' can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/artmarketdirect/ We also manage various groups which might be of interest depending on your medium: Exclusive Group ARTMARKETDIRECT.COM - https://www.facebook.com/groups/artmarketdirect/ (EXCLUSIVE to artists who upload to our main site) Non-Exclusive Groups PAINTING COLLECTION (ART) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/paintingcollection/ DRAWING COLLECTION (ART) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/drawingcollection/ DIGITAL ART COLLECTION - https://www.facebook.com/groups/digitalartcollection/ COLLAGE COLLECTION (ART) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/collagecollection/ SCULPTURE COLLECTION (ART) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/sculpturecollection/ TYPOGRAPHICAL COLLECTION (ART) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/typographicalcollection/ PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION (ART) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/photographycollection/ PRINT COLLECTION (ART) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/printcollection/ THE ART COMPETITION - https://www.facebook.com/groups/theartcompetition/ The general rules of each group First things first; take off your shoes and make yourself at home. This group is for ANY digital artists to post their artistic creations, details of up and coming exhibitions, submission invitations, competitions, events, work in progress and requests for recommendations, information, advice or guidance from the group cohort. It does not matter to us what software you use. If you create digital art - we [...]

By |2019-06-03T02:30:54+00:00June 1st, 2019|What Makes Art Sell|0 Comments
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What Makes Art Sell?

What Makes Art Sell? Email us at admin@artmarketdirect.com using ‘Sharing Success case study’ as the subject. Although we do not promise that we will feature you and we can’t feature everyone, we do promise that we will get back to you in any event. If we are going to feature you we will email you a link to the online form you will need to complete, together with quotes, text and media. We will also send you some guidance o help you fill it in. We do not publish anything which you have not told us, but we do retain editorial rights to condense, cut, paraphrase and edit what you give us, although you will have the final say on the way the article reads. Be featured In this section of our website, we will feature artists who want to share their business model to success. Obviously, not all successful artists use the same business model. Some celebrate local virtues whilst others exploit international opportunities. One artist might [...]

By |2019-06-03T02:04:29+00:00May 29th, 2019|Selling Art, What Makes Art Sell|0 Comments
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Can’t Keep up? Ways to Simplify Your Creative Life

We all know what is like being pulled in a dozen different directions. You have galleries calling because they want more work, you have some events including Open Studio in three months, and the Annual Seafood Festival in a months time, an exhibition in the Autumn coming up which you will need to have some new works for...and on top of that half a dozen little shops between your city and the coast are begging for more cards and tea towel deliveries. Your oldest is going through their exams, needing parental support and guidance and you booked a holiday which is for two weeks in two weeks time AND the dog has started to be picky about her food, which probably means she is sick and will need to go to the vet. On top of everything, a local face has tipped you off that they are opening another location and they want some big dramatic works to offer to their clientele.   A big opportunity. With no [...]

By |2019-05-20T09:22:18+00:00May 20th, 2019|Common Mistakes Made By Artists, Creating, Selling Art|0 Comments
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Using Low-Quality Materials

It is such a cliche; "Always buy the most expensive materials you can afford." Like most cliches It is based on a nugget of truth. The reason is that you will be wasting your time and neither will the finished piece look as beautiful as it could. It will, in all likelihood, not last as long either. If you are a painter in Oils, at least get the best Linen canvas you can afford, stretch it yourself. Never buy these horrible pre-stretched canvasses. They are fine for students to practice on but you are a professional. The same applies to watercolour paper; get some nice thick high-quality brand paper. In Oils, buy the best quality professional grade Titanium White you can. Cheap white will 'yellow' after only a few years, likewise any other colours you mixed with it. When my budget has been tight, there are some 'essential' colours after white which I spend as much as I can on, the cheaper versions simply are not as good. [...]

By |2019-05-11T04:07:43+00:00May 10th, 2019|Common Mistakes Made By Artists, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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