I am not referring to a beauty makeover, I promise. It's time for a website makeover. 

Are you happy with the way your website looks? Is it easy to read and more importantly, is it easy to shop and buy paintings on your website? When was the last time you updated the "look and feel" of your website? Hmmm. See what I mean?

Take some time today (less than an hour) to review the main pages of your website. Do you have a white background? You should. Are you paintings all uploaded to your website with prices and buy now buttons? Is your Events page current? Try to fix any of the updates you need but don't hesitate to make a list of the ones that you may need to come back later and fix.

If you think your website needs more help you might be interested to know that I am offering a free online webinar called "Is Weebly For You?". (Weebly is the website builder I use to build my websites and it's also the website builder featured in my webinARTs class.) I think weebly is really easy to use and my webinar will show you how you can use it to build your website. The online webinar will give you a chance to decide if it will work for you. If you are worried it may be too hard or want to see all of the options it has then sign up. It's free.

The online webinar will be offered January 4th at 9:00 am PST, 12:00 noon EST to the first 50 people that register. Mark your calendars and sign up here. I will be sending you information and a reminder about the free class.

We all get stuck in the trenches from time to time. It's hard when you are running your own art business and you are in charge of design, production, inventory, marketing, sales, shipping and collections. You would think we could have found a business that didn't require us to do absolutely everything. Jeez.

We all need to stop at least once a week and reflect on our art business. Don't think about what's on your easel. Or what deadline is next. Rather, take a step back. Think about your art business. Ask yourself, "Is there something I can do today that will make my business more successful tomorrow?". Start a list of all of the "projects" that you can do to help yourself be more successful. A little more effort now can make a lot more success down the road.

I have a list of all of my "projects" and "goals" in my Moleskin planner. I try to complete at least three of these tasks every week. It's Monday and I already have two tasks completed. It's gonna be a good week.

How often do you take pictures in your studio? The answer should be "all of the time!". And I am not talking of photos that are just "of your studio". (Those are fine and I encourage you take them right after you have reorganized.) The photos I am referring to you need to take while you are painting.

Progress photos are very interesting and some of the most popular photos you can post. When you post progress photos you are engaging your reader and giving them a reason to come back and see more! Post your initial sketch or drawing in the morning and let your viewers know you will be posting more photos throughout the day. You can also share your paint palette (mixing colors makes a great photo or video). If you are teaching a workshop share photos of your students, their progress and some of your teaching techniques. And if you want to show off your studio then be sure to snap photos that show how you store wet paintings, how you organize your art supplies and where you get your painting inspirations.

Grab your nice camera, ipad or mobile phone and start taking photos. Then upload them to social media and share the magic that happens in your studio. 

There are eight artists sitting in here with me at the Magnolia B&B House that are probably a bit tired of talking about their "brand". It's such an important part of any business and it is something we have spent a lot of time talking about the last two days.

In fact, tomorrow morning these eight artists will each have an entirely new "brand". We have spent hours and hours working on this and I cannot wait to see the results. I am so excited for each of these artists and the process they have gone through to develop and re-define their brands. Soon they will have a new look, a targeted audience, a new message and a new website. This is simply amazing.

It's not too late to find an intern. I just found an amazingly talented college graduate who is looking for work experience and specializes in social media! How cool is that?

I think most of us think that we need to wait until spring to find an intern for the summer. But there are lots of places you can find interns, both paid and non-paid. For right now.

Here are my suggestions:
1. Ask your friends if any of their kids (or their friends) need work experience credits for high school.
2. Call your local high school or junior college and see if you can list the intern job with them. Of course art majors might be most interested.
3. Reach out to local art school and colleges and post the job opportunity.

Remember you will get a lot better response if you can pay your intern. But you don't have to pay cash. You can offer free painting instruction, a free workshop, some of your art or private painting lessons as an option!

Good luck. These young kids are so smart on the computer and know a ton about social media. Just saying.

I can't believe it. My webinARTs course has officially launched. I don't dare try to count the hours I spent creating this course. WebinARTs is an online class that shows you how to build a website and blog for your art business. If you are wondering why it launched four days late ... well ... I have a good reason. The amazing web builder I use for the class is called weebly and ten days ago they launched a new platform weebly4. Needless to say I quickly figured out that I had to redo the entire class and re-film hundreds of hours of video. Yep. That really sucked.

But ... the class is now based on the new platform (that is only two weeks old) and thus it will be current for a very long time! If you don't have a website or you have a website you can't manage on your own or you have an old weebly website then you really need this class. I am not kidding! Check it out. 

"Sun Lit Waves"
36" x 36"
Click here for information. 

I mentioned a big idea yesterday on my blog post. This idea is to identify the biggest marketing challenges artists face and then tackle them as a collaborate effort. I am so excite to take on this project. In the next month I will select the top 12 challenges and then we will all start the reseach, submit information on the public google doc and figure out how to make this work for each of us. While the information will be available to everyone I do have an idea on how to recognize the biggest contributors in this project (and take them with me to the next level). Find out about all of this, and more, on Wednesday's Artists Helping Artist show. It airs at 7:00 am PST, 10:00 am EST.

Click here to listen to the show.

Help us get started on this project. Help us identify the challenges artists face by filling out the form below!

It's true. We are going to change the art world forever. How?

First off I want all of us to create a list of all of the biggest challenges we face in the art world today. Things like "how can I get galleries to notice my art?" or "How can I get more people to follow my blog?". I hope it's a big list. Just go to the google doc here and add as many items as you want. 

Once we have a decent size list then we will identify the ones that we want to solve. We will then work together as a group to solve the issue, tackling a new issue every month. Together. And the entire process will be shared online so everyone can contribute and follow our progress. I can't do this by myself and I know if we all work together by identifying the tasks, doing the research and coming up with a solution then we will see huge results. The last step will be for each of us to personalize the solution for each of our art businesses. 

Does this sound like a good plan? Let's get started. Please follow this link and provide your input!