Online Updates, Improvements, and Messing Around

Over the past few weeks, I've been working on improving my online studio presence.  A good online capability is crucial for successful marketing these days.  I gotta admit, I am the world's worst salesman and marketer.  I will talk somebody out of a sale.  Salesmanship is just something I never, ever, got the hang of.

But it was time to take a look at what I had and how it could be improved.  I had several things going already that were kinda/sorta okay: the web site, the studio Facebook page, this blog, and an Etsy site.  Each required some attention and there needed to be some additions.

The web site came first.  It was just okay as it was.  The home page was up to date but didn't have a whole lot of information and wasn't laid out well.  The individual pages for different series of paintings were not visually compelling.  There was no information about purchasing or commissioning anything.  All that needed some work, so I took advantage of Weebly's capabilities,  templates, and drag-and-drop features to spruce things up a bit.  The home page now has a LOT of information about recent and upcoming events, along with links to other places where my work can be seen.  And it makes much better use of the available real estate on a computer screen.  I also tweaked the pages for the different artworks series so they are more visually interesting.  Finally, I added a section devoted to purchasing art.  This included a page with links to Etsy and Saatchi, as well as a page where art could be purchased directly.  All the marketing experts say that if you don't make it easy to buy, people never will.  I've certainly proved that over the years, so it's time to try a new approach.  So take a look and let me know what you think.

The studio Facebook page was pretty good.  There are a lot of images on there and it's updated several times a week.  That's good.  But it still didn't have a large reach, especially considering it's been active for several years now.  So I tried an advertising campaign and it actually worked out pretty well.  I need to go back and take a look at the campaign, figure out lessons learned, and do another one.

Etsy isn't that great a site for visual artists.  It's a crafts-oriented site where the average sale is under $20.  That may work well for crafters who do a lot of inexpensive stuff, but not for visual artists whose work often entails many many hours of labor.  Despite that, there are some really good visual artists on Etsy.   Don't believe me?  Check out the list I put together on figurative artists.  I've got about 30-40 small works listed there, like figure drawings, quick oil sketches, photos, that sort of thing.  I've had a few sales.  You really have to market Etsy hard to get any traffic since there are thousands of others on there, and with the low price points, it's hard to justify.  Still, I'm there, and I'm going to push it a bit through the end of the year and then re-evaluate.  There are a few other artist sites that may be better for me.

One of the biggest of those is Saatchi Art.  I used to have a page there many years ago, but never pushed it and never had any traffic.  It eventually went into hibernation.  An American company bought Saatchi Art Online in 2014 and has aggressively expanded its capabilities and growth since then.  So I reactivated my account and built a new page.  There are just a few paintings on there now and more will be added.  One of the neat things about Saatchi is that they will also do open-edition giclees from the photos we provide.  Pretty cool.

I've been doing a newsletter for a number of years.  They come out aperiodically, just a few a year.  Email marketing gurus say that newsletters should come out much more often.  I don't want to spam people with too much information, and occasionally there's not much to say for a long time.  But that's an excuse.  I decided to step it up and send out a newsletter at the beginning of each month.  I sent one at the beginning of October and another yesterday, so I've got a string of two going!  The newest took some work as it was significantly revised to be more inclusive and informative.  If you're interested in getting these newsletters, go to my web page and you can sign up on the Home page.  Or send me a note and I'll add you.

Instagram is another site that I finally joined.  I'm using it strictly to promote my studio biz.  I post once a day (max) and have been very slowly building up my number of followers.  If you're interested, look me up: @skiprohde.  And follow me.  I can say a lot more about Instagram, but that will be a separate post.

So that's what I've been doing to improve my online presence.  It's taking a lot of work.  Once things get started, though, they get easier to update.  Got any thoughts on what else I should be doing?  Or about what each of these sites needs in order to be improved?  Let me know, I'm looking for advice.

Different Figure Drawing Styles

Since my last post, I've been to a number of life drawing sessions and, in between, have been painting the fall colors.  These are two very different subjects that can't be tackled in the same post.  So I'll talk about figure drawings today and talk about fall landscapes next time.

The Asheville area is fortunate to have a lot of life drawing sessions going on every week.  On Monday evenings, David Lawter has a two-hour session that is entirely short poses.  He starts with 1-minutes and ends with a 5-minute.  That's quick.  Because of that, it's lots of fun: you have to have to keep moving because the next pose isn't going to wait.  My drawings usually have a lot of life to them because of that.  On Wednesday evenings, Frank Lombardo runs a 3-hour, single-pose session in Marshall.  This is the polar opposite of David's session and is great for painting.  On Thursday evenings, David has a two-hour session that is mostly 20-minute poses - great for drawings that have some development to them.  Yes, that means David runs two sessions a week.  The guy is dedicated.  If you're interested in either Frank's or David's sessions, contact me and I'll put you in touch with them.

I'm constantly trying to improve my skills, so going back and forth between the different sessions is good.  It doesn't let me get into a rut.  I'm also constantly looking at other artists and seeing what I can learn from them.  One I'm looking at pretty hard now is Steve Huston.  Steve lives/works out west and is associated with the New Masters Academy in Huntington Beach, in the Los Angeles area.   I took an online workshop with him early this year (here's the post).  He's done a number of videos about his technique, some of which are on YouTube and others on the New Masters website.  I watched a video and decided to try out some of the ideas at the 3-hour life drawing session.  Here's what resulted:

This didn't come out at all like I intended and looks nothing like a Huston drawing.  However, it was an interesting exercise.  I did a rough line block-in of the figure in vine charcoal on a pale toned paper, then smudged charcoal all over the place,  Then, in addition to laying in the darks with more charcoal, I drew just as much with the kneaded eraser to pull out the lights.  The result has a lot of heft and volume.  It's more like a traditional style of drawing, I think - slow and deliberate.  Yes, it's probably overworked, and some parts need more development (which they've gotten since this photo was taken).  Still, I got to try some new ways of working, and added some new tools to my drawing tool chest.

After this, I went back to Huston's work to figure out where we were different.  I saw that Huston is very concerned with the form, and builds it up with fluid, flowing, gestural lines (like what I do with the very short poses).  He then focuses on three lines: the two outside edges of the figure, and the intermediate shadow in between.  The "intermediate shadow" is the one at the boundary between the lighted and shadowed area.  Getting this one right is really critical to getting the feel for volume in the figure.  You have to pay close attention to where it is wide and narrow, where it has soft edges and sharp, and how light or dark it is.  Huston also works with a small range of light values and a small range of darks, not a full spectrum of values like I did in the drawing above.

So I went to a session with shorter, 20-minute poses, and here's one of the results:

This one started with more gestural strokes and then was gradually developed using both the vine charcoal and kneaded eraser.  I tried to keep both tools working quickly and not get bogged down in detail.  I also tried to limit the values to a small range of lights and a small range of darks.  Most importantly, I paid close attention to the outside lines of the form as well as the intermediate shadows.  You'll see that some of the outside lines are pretty heavy.  A heavy, dark line accentuates the light volume of the form next to it.  Mostly, though, it's the intermediate shadows that define the volumes of the form.  Follow the intermediate shadows down from the shoulders, through the hips, and down the legs, and you'll see how their movement back and forth shows how she's standing and twisting.

Finally, here's a detail from a sheet of figure drawings from Monday's short-pose session.  I used the same principles here as in the drawing above.  Quick gestural lines establish the figure, while hatched areas indicate the shadowed areas and create the figure's volume.  This was done with a mechanical pencil on a Strathmore sketchbook.

This is actually a pretty similar approach to the one I talked about in a post last month, in which I used a Sharpie pen during the 20-minute poses.  As a refresher, here's one of those drawings:

This is quick and gestural, but it doesn't have the same focus on the intermediate shadow.  It's still a pretty decent drawing.  Different tools and different approaches are needed for different drawings.  I feel like I've expanded my capabilities a bit over the past month or so.  Cool stuff.

By the way (crass commercialism alert), several of these drawings are available on my Etsy gallery at ridiculously reasonable prices.  Just sayin'.

Artists on Etsy

Last month, I wrote a post about establishing a gallery on Etsy.  Since then, I've continued to add to it, refine the listings, and actually sell a couple of pieces.  My gallery currently has 62 items and I'll add some more this weekend.

Some artists cringe at the thought of putting their work on Etsy.  It has an image of a craftsy place for hobbyists.  I've found that's not necessarily true.  While, yes, there are tons of people who are hobbyists, and frankly a lot of the work is about the level of a hobbyist, there are actually some highly talented and capable professional artists there as well.  We're talking about people with bachelors and masters degrees in fine art, teachers at some of the best art schools in the country (Rhode Island School of Design, for example), and many who are just plain good.

Etsy has a feature called a "treasury" list.  Members can put together a variety of "treasuries" of items that caught their eye.  I did one called "Outstanding Figurative Art on Etsy".  It links to really strong work by 16 different artists.  Here are some of them.

Kristina Havens does some beautiful classical figurative work.  She has an MFA degree and it shows in the quality of her drawings.  Kristina is actually the reason I've got an Etsy shop: she wrote an article on setting one up that was published in Professional Artist magazine.  It got me started on the project and I'm still following her advice.  Kristina's shop is Krystyna81.  She also has a blog.

I've been looking at Helen Gotlib's figure drawings for years.  This young lady really knows how to draw expressive figures.  And flowers, too.  She earned a BFA degree, has exhibited in solo and juried shows, and has worked the art festival circuit.  Her shop is HelenGotlib and her web site is helengotlib.com.

Derek Overfield is a beautifully expressive artist.  His drawings are gestural rather than classical, full of energy and power.  Derek, like the other two, has a degree in fine art, and has exhibited in numerous juried shows.  His Etsy shop is derekoverfieldart and he also has a website.

Rory Alan MacLean has a way with the figure.  This one, for example, is so strong and captures the weight and mass of the model beautifully.  He studied partly in the classical manner and also in school, earning a BFA.  I really like both his drawings on his Etsy shop (roryalanmaclean) and his oils on his web site.

Ute Rathmann is a young lady in Germany whose work continues the spirit of German expressionists.  She has a very vibrant style with a great sense of composition.  I have no idea what her background is since her bio is in German, but it's clear that she's prolific and exceptionally skilled and talented.  She works primarily in drawings, etchings, drypoints, chine colle, and related media.  Her Etsy gallery is uterathmann.

So there are five of the 16 artists I've found.  If you like figurative art, go take a look at my list and browse through.  I guarantee you'll find something that will catch your eye.

Etsy Shop

Ever feel like you're one of those performers who get dozens of plates spinning on poles?  And you're running from pole to pole, trying to keep all those plates spinning without crashing to the ground?  Yeah.  That's me.  Between my consulting work, trying to make progress on the "Survivors" paintings, taking care of house and car maintenance, going to life drawing sessions, working on my taxes, yadda yadda yadda, there seems to be a net negative amount of time in the day.

I know: waaah.  I'm whining.  Deal with it.

One of the things I've been working on is setting up an Etsy shop.  It finally opened last night.  Here's the link to it:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Metis21Studios

There's not much there yet.  Heck, I just got it set up, give me a break!  I'll eventually have original paintings, drawings, etchings, pastels, watercolors, photographs, as well as lower-priced prints and cards on the site.  It'll take some time to get it up to full speed.  But it went live about 11 pm last night and already has a number of people who've "favorited" it.

They advertise that setting up an Etsy shop is easy.  Well, kinda sorta.  Stepping thru the setup process is easy.  Stepping thru the process while doing a professional job the first time around is not.  I looked at a lot of Etsy stores to figure out things like presentation, shipping, policies, price levels, what to say, what not to say, what to have photos of, photo preparation, what tags to use, you name it.  Then I had to learn how to get what I learned into my store.  Then I had to learn how to change it when the first try was unsatisfactory.

But I got there.  I think.  It looks pretty good, although a bit sparse for now.  I'll continue to prepare more new items and post them.  Take a look and let me know what you think.  I'm always, always, open for constructive comments.