Setting a Limit

Summerfall, 36 x 30, oil on canvas


One of my galleries just sent an email asking for new paintings. I'm always happy to send out new work. In fact I don't keep many paintings on hand at the studio. What's the point of that? Nobody sees them here.

The problem with this gallery's request is that they don't want to send back the paintings that they have. Most of my paintings are on the large size: 24x30 - 30x40. I think 6 pieces make a good display. More than that can be over whelming. (I also do smaller paintings, 8 x 10, and don't always include those in my "count")

The other reason is for my own protection. I've had galleries go bankrupt. A friend of mine had work in a gallery that was destroyed by a natural gas explosion. Limiting the number of paintings protects me from huge losses. When a painting sells I replace it with a new one as quickly as I can.

Of course, there are some exceptions. In case of a show, or if a gallery has a long track record with me I'll send more work.

What are your thoughts on this?

Re-evaluation: galleries, art work, etc

This is the time of year I look back and see what I can do better.

99.9% of my work is sold through galleries. My goal is to find galleries and stay with them! But sometimes it just doesn't work out. I sent Exit Letters to 2 galleries last week. And I've had a request to send a painting on approval to another gallery that I would like to be in. Wish me luck on that.

I look at what paintings the galleries have and how long they've had them. Ugh! Some have been hanging too long. Time to get old work back and send new. What paintings flew off the wall and why?

How is my communication with my galleries? Needs improvement!

Of course the most important thing is to paint Great work and the rest will take care of itself (That's my theory anyway!)

My Magic Painting

Red Globe II, work in progress

I have a magic painting. I've been working on it FOREVER. It's complicated and I'm using lots of layers of paint. Why is it magic? Every time I put it on my easel to work on it, one of my galleries sells 1 or 2 paintings so I have to put it aside to paint a "faster" piece for the gallery. I guess I should hope that I never finish this magic piece. Every time sales are slow, I'll just put it back on the easel.

The Artists Diet

I just sent out an email to my customers, galleries, artist friends, etc. One of my artist friends wrote back "Your newsletter is also a major inspiration, it's something I must do. Hard to find the time while trying to supply galleries/enter shows."

To me that is like saying, "It's hard to find time to brush my teeth because I am so busy eating". I happen to know that this artist friend has several wonderful paintings in each of her galleries. Filling the walls of the gallery is like over eating. You are more attractive if you eat a balanced diet and don't stuff yourself. People find it easier to buy your work if they are not over whelmed by too many choices.
My suggestion is to Go On a Diet. Instead of sending more and more work to the galleries, spend time creating a newsletter and communicating with the world.

I actually quit sending my monthly newsletters because I was getting little, if any, response. Instead, I send out emails when I have news (accepted into shows, won an award) and when I have a new painting. I try to send something out once a week. This brings in lots of response. I also like to keep images on several website and keep up with my blogs.

And how much time does it take? As little or as much time as I have. If I sit down and do this all at once it can take me 2-3 hours. But I usually breakup the task into small bits. I have my email addresses in different folders: customers, friends, galleries, media. The first people who get my email are my customers. I use Mozilla Thunderbird for my email and am able to personalize the emails, click "Send" and I'm off to the easel while the computer is sending all the emails. Later, I come back and send emails to the rest of my contacts.

If you have time to post on Facebook, you have time to send an email.

My blogs and images on websites are done in a similar fashion. I prepare an image with description and put it on my own blog (sharing the info on Facebook and Twitter) Then over the next few days I put the same info on other website where I show my work. It really take very little time each day.

The trick is to get in the habit of doing it. Yes, sometimes you really DO need to stay in the studio and paint and the blogs and emails get neglected. And that's ok. Just get back on your diet as soon you can and stay in touch with the world.

Frustrations in painting and Greeley Stampede Art

High Noon, 24 x 18, oil on canvas, at Greeley Stampede Western Art Show

The past week has been frustrating for me. If I don't get a full day of painting in I get cranky!

First, we've had to have work on the truck. Since a round trip into town is about 2 1/2 hours it took a big chunk out of the day when we had to drop off the truck. And since we drove all that way, we took advantage of the trip and did grocery shopping. The next day we showed up when the truck was suppose to be finished. Of course, it wasn't so we had to wait an additional hour.

Then the next evening, June 9th, I was going through my folder of upcoming shows and found a copy of the invitation to the Greeley Stampede Western Art Show. I had accepted their invitation in December but hadn't heard any more from them. I thought the opening was July 4th weekend. But on a closer look I found that the show started on June 24th and ended July 4th. PANIC!!! Emails were sent, phone calls were made. They hadn't received my acceptance letter! To make a long story short, I spent Thursday, boxing up 5 paintings (fortunately, I had set these paintings aside for the show) made arrangements for the FEDEX to meet me the next day(they don't come to my house) the paintings got shipped and hurray! the paintings arrived by the June 15th deadline!

Whew! I'm sequestered in my studio this week hoping to get some work done. And to top it off, I'm working on 4 (!) complicated paintings so I don't get the satisfaction of finishing a painting anytime soon. Ah, well. It sure beats having a "real" job!

Split Personality

Apples and Stripes, Oil on board, 9 x 12, currently at Atlanta Art Gallery

I've been painting American Indians forever. Maybe longer. I still enjoy painting them but lets face it, painting the same subject matter in the same style day after day can get tedious. And when that happens the paintings start looking tedious.

A few years ago I started painting still lifes which I have always loved. There is a myth in the art world that your customers will abandon you if you venture out beyond your (or their) comfort zone. To that end, I started a new website that just had my still lifes. I even considered painting under a different name. Here is what I learned.

1) I felt schizophrenic painting under two names so that was abandoned pretty quickly.

2) Painting still lifes got me into juried shows that I'd not been able to get into with my American Indians. I won awards.

3) The galleries I'm in only want my American Indians. That makes sense. They took me into the galleries because of my American Indian paintings.

4)Although my second website (http://www.fineartoils.com) has just still lifes, my original site (http://www.khenderson.com) has both subject matters. I also post both subject matters on Facebook and several other websites. It's just easier for me to do.

I have gotten into 2 galleries with my still life. They both know that I also paint western/American Indian. BUT while the western folks don't care that I paint contemporary still lifes I think that the Contemporary folks have a prejudice against western artists.

I'm now in the process of separating my 2 styles: A second  face book identity, new pages on websites where I post etc. I'm still painting under the name K. Henderson, but my New Self in some cases is KHenderson Fine Art.

My goal in doing this is to find Back East galleries for my still lifes, galleries that turn their noses up at western art.

I'd like to hear from those of you that paint in different styles. What has your experience been?

5) 

An Artists life

The Heart Fears Nothing, 40 x 30, oil on canvas. Shipping to Gallery at the Windsor,Del Norte, CO

When I started this blog I thought I would update it daily. But lets face it, most of my days are just like the day before and the day after. Today I took a break from painting to box up some art work to ship this week. I have a shed that holds all of my shipping supplies. It was such a disaster area that I spent the day reorganizing it. Pretty exciting, huh?

But that's part of being an artist.

Do you really Need a website?

Quilled Moccasins, 12 x 9, oil on canvas

I've read all sorts of articles about 'How to sell on the internet', 'Bring customers to you Blog'. Does it work? Not much.

I find my websites are most useful to show my artwork to my galleries.  And the buyers that are already familiar with my paintings  stop by and look but still, almost all of them buy from my galleries. I don't think I'm going to Be Discovered through my sites and become rich and famous.

So, is a website / blog worth the trouble. You bet! This is what happened to me this weekend: I was participating at a gallery show and a buyer came up to me and said "I really liked that painting you did of the Moccasins but it sold before I could buy it. Do you think you'll be doing another one?"I happened to have another painting of moccasins on my website so the buyer and I went into the gallery office, pulled up my website and voilà! I sold the painting. And as long as we were on my site, I showed them another painting I thought they might like. Sold! 

Because my website was up to date I was able to sell 2 paintings then and there. I've had that happen more than a few times. And of course, this is counted as a gallery sell and the gallery gets their commission.

I'd love to hear any success stories you've had with your paintings and your website.

Email List and Aggravation

Quilled Moccasins,12 x 9, oil on canvas

As you know, on Fridays I like to email folks about new work. I always send the emails to myself and Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) the emails to everyone else in groups of 25. I have about 500 folks on my list so I send out about 20 groups of emails. NEVER 'carbon copy' your list when you are emailing. Other people can see their names and email addresses. This is an invasion of privacy to you clients and can result in them asking to be removed from your list.

When you send each group of emails to yourself (with everyone else getting a BBC) you will get your email when each group of 25 is delivered. Am I making sense? Well, today I only got half of the emails I sent to myself. Something wonky is going on with my email server. I was unable to reach my server by phone. I suspect that something strange was going on and they were receiving numerous phone call complaints. Very irritating but something I must reconcile with my server before I can send out next weeks emails. If I weren't sending each group of emails to myself, I wouldn't have known that something was wrong

 

Welcome to my New Blog

There are many talented artists out there that are wonder How to Make a Living as an Artist or What Does an Artist Do All Day? I've been making my living as an artist for many years.  All artists approach their art and business in their own unique way. Starting tomorrow I will post the highlights of my day to give you an idea of what I do.

The painting shown is We are the Dreamer of Dreams. The reason I picked it for my first image is because I painted it 11 years ago and I still to this day get requests for it.

I would love to hear from you. Let me know what you think