Join me for Art Marketing Boot CampMarketing Boot Camp is a once in a lifetime opportunity to push your art career to the next level. Sure, we will cover some of the basics when it comes to selling your art such as identifying your brand, using social media and selling on-line. But Marketing Boot Camp is NOT the same, typical things you read about that artists need to do to sell more art. It's about trying new ideas. Finding a new audience. Being organized. And managing your creative time vs. marketing time. And you will learn how to have fun doing it.
Imagine twenty-three hours of learning marketing with instruction, role playing and fireside chats. Marketing Boot Camp also includes all of my secrets. I share a lot of what I do on the Artists Helping Artists radio show. But there is a lot I don't share. That will change at the Marketing Boot Camp. Nothing will be held back. And each one of you will walk away with your own "plan of attack" to sell more art. We also have fun time scheduled in the agenda to shop at the Silos, Magnolia Market, Magnolia Bakery, Magnolia Garden Store and visit the antique stores we have seen on Fixer Upper. Plus we have "Late Night Fireside Chats" (that really aren't that late) to talk about personal marketing challenges and all of those questions you have been afraid to ask. We will not be painting during the Marketing Boot Camp as paints are not allowed in the Magnolia House. Thus no painting supplies or wet paintings are allowed in the house. Of course artists are free to plan a painting extension trip to paint on their own after the boot camp. Check out my blog out every day this week for more information about my Marketing Boot Camp. I will be sharing everything that will be taught at the Boot Camp, the agenda, dates, costs and lots more! Registration is on Friday!
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The Magnolia HouseFor years I have been considering hosting a Marketing Boot Camp. But the catalyst to finally getting it on my calendar was confirming the location. For years I have been a HUGE fan of the show "Fixer Upper". In fact, all three of my sons are also fans because their mom did a good job of making sure the show was constantly showing on our TV! When Chip and Joanna Gaines decided to renovate and open a Bed and Breakfast House I knew where I wanted to host my first Marketing Boot Camp! In Waco, Texas! (If you are not a fan of the HGTV show "Fixer Upper" then you are seriously wondering why I would ever choose Waco, Texas as the city to host my Marketing Boot Camp. You just need to start watching the show. And then it will all make sense.) For weeks I "stalked" the Fixer Upper website awaiting the day when the Magnolia House was open for reservations. Fortunately I was on the website at 5:55am on the day they started taking reservations. Within hours the house was booked for a full year. I was lucky to book the house for TWO different weeks which means I can offer two Marketing Boot Camps!
Check out my blog out every day this week for more information about my Marketing Boot Camp. I will be sharing everything that will be taught at the Boot Camp, the agenda, dates, costs and lots more!
Registration is on Friday! I only participate in one art show every year. It's called the Balboa Art Walk and it is Sunday, May 22nd. I don't do any other shows for a lot of reasons. But this one is so fabulous, I never miss it! (Ok, to come clean, I missed it last year. But that's because my son Matt graduated from college on the exact same day. And we were in North Carolina). Needless to say, it would take a pretty big event for me to miss this show!
The art show season is right around the corner and I am curious how many of you participate in these shows. They are not a cakewalk by any means. The set up is brutal, the days are long and they are way harder than they look. Plus, after a long day )or weekend) the take down is the worst! I think the key in participating in any of these shows is to do your research and realize it may take a few years before you can determine if the show is right for you. The first year I did the show my sales were very slow. In fact, when the guy in the booth next to me sold a painting that was PAINTED ON VELVET for $250 I almost croaked. Seriously? The second year my sales tripled from the previous year. By the fifth year my sales were way beyond my expectations. So I have made the show a very big part of my sales focus every year! I have created over the years a really long list of everything I need to do to get prepared for the show. I keep revising it and updating it to make every year more efficient and better than the previous year. If you participate in any art shows this list is a must. I am also painting frantically to have lots of new art for the show. This will be the first year I am showing both my traditional oils and abstract paintings. I can't wait as I think both styles of art work very well for the Newport Beach area. If you live in Southern California please plan on attending the Balboa Artwork on Sunday, May 22nd. The show is from 9:00 am - until 5:00pm on Balboa Island. I will be located at the end of Ruby street (and South Bayfront). Please come by and say hello! Today's Artists Helping Artists show is titled "Managing Marketing vs. Painting Time". Since I get emails about this topic almost every day, it seemed appropriate to do an entire show on the topic.
I think most artists fall in to one of two categories. The first (which is me) spend more time marketing than painting. The second (which is more like my co-host Margaret Sheldon) spend more time painting and not enough marketing. Today's show will help all artists try to find a healthy balance between the two. If by any chance you struggle with marketing time vs. painting time, then you should listen to this show. It airs live today, Thursday, at 9:00am PST, 12:00 noon EST but you can listen to it anytime afterwards as all shows are recorded. Listen to the show here. And let me know what you think! My blog topic today is a bit of a conflicting one. Electronics in the studio are a good and a bad thing. There are wonderful "gadgets" you can have in your studio that will enhance your painting experience. You just have to be careful that they don't distract you and interrupt the creative process.
So let's start out with the electronics that are a good thing in your studio. And I will use my studio as an example. First off, I have a large TV mounted on the wall that I use to display photos that I am referencing for my paintings. The TV also occasionally plays netflix shows if I want something playing in the background while I paint. I have an apple TV in my studio which allows me to project the netflix on my TV and also let's me project any photo from my phone, iPad or computer to the TV as well. I also have a large Mac monitor (connected to a laptop) that also displays painting photos. Finally, I have a printer hooked up to all of these electronic devices. You will find a Sonos speaker in my studio that plays Pandora stations all day long. Sonos is a wireless speaker that just plugs in to an outlet and works fabulously! The best part? It is controlled by an app on my iPhone. I also have a massive charging station in my studio that charges my computer, phone, apple watch and iPad. And that's it. But here is where these electronics can be a problem. If you have a phone, iPad, apple watch and computer in your studio (and as previously mentioned ... I have all of them) then you need to make sure your email inbox is turned off or silenced. On every electronic device! The same goes for text messages and any other notifications that constantly pop up on all of your electronics. Believe it or not, these notifications can wait. At least until you take a break from painting and creating! I know it is tempting to want to be up to date on all of the latest communications. I mean, what happens if you miss a potential sale? Actually, waiting an hour to respond to your email or text messages probably won't make a difference in a sale. Rather, it just may help you complete a fabulous painting. And that makes sense. So what does "If This Then That" mean? IFTTT is a service that connects the apps you love.
IFTTT is a free web-based service that allows users to create chains of simple conditional statements, called "recipes", which are triggered based on changes to other web services such as Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. IFTTT is an abbreviation of "If This Then That". Ok. Let me try to explain this in English ... The internet is a wonderful thing chock-full of fun and useful experiences, but it can also complicate our lives. With so many websites and apps in the world, you've probably experienced difficulty in managing them or even completing basic tasks. Luckily for you, there's a single web tool available that acts as an ultimate automation service for all your internet-connected things. ‘If this then that’ component basically means: If an event happens (this) in one application, it will trigger an action (that) within another one. For instance, if someone comments on your WordPress blog you can thank them automatically with an email. If every time you post an image on Instagram it can be automatically uploaded as a Tumblr post. If every time you are tagged in a photo on Facebook, it will automatically save the photo to your iOS Photos. These connections between channels are called ‘recipes’. These recipes can be created by yourself, or you can browse through ones that other users have created on IFTTT.com itself. And the "recipes" are for all of the things we need: connecting your home, keeping in touch, being more productive, news alerts, staying healthy and shopping smarter. IFTTT is accessible on your desktop, can be downloaded as an app for the iPhone or Android and can also be integrated into your blogging platform: WordPress or Google Blogger for instance. There is an endless array of ‘recipes’ to make your life easier. IFFT just released some "recipes" for weebly. Some of the things you can do are ... 1. Create a to-do item if a sale posts to your Weebly website 2. Get an IF notification when someone posts a comment to your blog 3. Publish a post on your Weebly blog if you upload a video to Instagram Click here to see all of the weebly recipes. Check it out. I think IFTT is a really cool tool that we can all use. I wrote a blog post last week about the Mother's Day gift that I have been working on for my kids. I have made a huge commitment to get healthy this year and so far, so good! I mentioned I have lost 35 lbs. (which is now 37!) with an amazing weight loss program. I failed to mention the name of the program and have received hundreds of emails requesting more information.
The company is called Lindora Clinic and they refer to their weight loss program as Lean for Life. Their centers are only located in Southern California BUT they do have an online program. Basically, here is how it works. I signed up for a ten week program. For the first week I ate mostly their food but I also went in to their center five days a week. Every week. I also got a shot every day (either B12 or B6 or Lipo) and of course, stepped on the scale as well. I then ate a lot of protein and very little carbs, every day for nine weeks. I had very little alcohol and a lot of water! The support system is amazing and yes, it was pretty easy. If you aren't located in Southern California then you can do the online program and basically get everything the program offers, except for the shots (oh darn!). They do have a great book called Lean for Life. It's a good lesson for life. So what's next? My ten week plan ended last week but I can still go in three days a week and get more shots and advice. I am also in an important stage called "metabolic adjustment" which adds back a lot more carbs to your diet without gaining weight. It's they key in living "happily lean thereafter". I went ahead and signed up for another six week program because I really want to continue losing weight. I mean, why not? I posted this painting because of it's title. It seemed appropriate for today's post! Mother's Day is only a few days away. So why don't you give yourself the perfect gift? I know you deserve it.
It's the perfect time of the year to treat yourself with the right Mother's Day gift. Pick something art related that is going to help you become more successful. Buy a new easel, some new paints or anything that will make your life as an artist easier and more fun. Or ... Join me in Ventura for an incredible painting workshop. I have two spots in the beach house available for my four day oil painting workshop in Ventura. The dates are May 16 - 19 and you will have an incredible time - I promise! Paint with me in the day time (we will paint at the beach house and also plein air), enjoy my homemade cooking, taste some fabulous wine, enjoy the fabulous ocean views from the house and fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing every night. Treat yourself. Tell your kids or husband that this is what you really want for Mother's Day. Join me. We will spend lots of time laughing, sharing stories and talking about selling your art. Don't miss this incredible experience. Click here for more information. ** For those of you (and there were tons) that emailed me wanting more details about my "Younger Next Year" experience featured in yesterday's blog post, I promise to include all details in my blog post on Monday! Mother's Day is just around the corner. As children everywhere are trying to find that perfect give for their mothers, I have been focusing on the best gift to give my three sons. (Ok, to be honest I was scrambling earlier today trying to find the perfect gift for my mom. So now that I found and bought a great gift, I can think about my boys.)
Most mothers give back every day to their children. We love them unconditionally, support them, nag them, encourage them and serve as their "rock". Our children know we are always there and will drop everything in a second if they need us. I mean that's what mothers do. But this year I decided it was time to give my boys a really important gift for Mother's Day. I decided it was time for their mother (that's me) to take better care of herself and get REALLY healthy. No more taking care of everybody else while making excuses as to why I wasn't taking better care of myself. My quest started with the book titled "Younger Next Year". (There is a version for men and women so make sure you get the right one.) This is a book of hope, a guide to aging without fear or anxiety. This is the book that can show us how to turn back our biological clocks—how to put off 70% of the normal problems of aging (weakness, sore joints, bad balance) and eliminate 50% of serious illness and injury. The key to the program is found in these rules: Exercise six days a week. Don't eat crap. Connect and commit to others. Pretty simple. There are seven rules all together, based on the latest findings in cell physiology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and experimental psychology. Dr. Lodge explains how and why they work—and Chris Crowley, who is living proof of their effectiveness (skiing better today, for example, than he did twenty years ago), gives the just-as-essential motivation. Both men and women can become functionally younger every year for the next five to ten years, then continue to live with newfound vitality and pleasure deep into our 80s and beyond. Get this book! I also have been very focused on eating healthy and thanks to an amazing weight loss program I have lost 35 lbs. in ten weeks. It happened so fast that I am afraid I am going to wake up one morning only to find these last two months were just a dream. I threw away a ton of clothes (that are two sizes too big) and can't believe how great I feel. Tons of exercise and eating right has been an amazing experience. So what is 12,800? It the number of steps I took today, according to my apple watch. That's a good number for me as my daily goal is 10.000. The funny part? It's almost time to do it all over again tomorrow. And every day after that. And that doesn't bother me a bit. This one is for you boys. I love you with all of my heart. I posted my 28th on-line class yesterday. That's a lot of classes! Most are traditional oil painting classes but there are seven abstract classes painted with acrylics. I have been doing this for a few years now and I really enjoy it. The only problem? It takes forever. The painting and filming part is easy. It's the editing and uploading that drives me crazy. I edit each one, add music, delete outside noise and occasionally speed up the video. Each video (and some classes have 18 of them) takes from 20 - 75 minutes to upload depending on the file size. So it is safe to estimate that each class is about a 15 - 20 hour investment. Yikes. The good news is once they are done then they are available forever. And I love that I can offer my classes to students who aren't in Southern California for a very reasonable price. Will I offer these on-line classes next year? Not sure. I have a lot of other projects that might just put this one on the back burner. We shall see ... Here are the paintings you can paint in my online classes.
Click here to visit my online class website. |
Leslie
Mom. Wife. Artist. Marketer. Teacher. Radio Show Host. Archives
July 2017
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