Any form of art be it paintings, cartooning, writing poems, novels, stories is a special creation of an artist who created them with passion. It may be possible that in the beginning people may take up any art as a hobby or just a time pass but soon in the future they came to realize that it is something they always wanted to do in their life and with time then it become a serious ambition for them to carry on for whole of their life. These are the kind of people who don’t want to follow the crowd blindly and want to create their own unique niche; listen to their inner consciousness and commit themselves to art. Painting is one of the most common forms of art in which a painter creates different paintings, sketches, drawings of different objects. In other words; painter just paints his imagination and depict common scenes into magnificent views.
Painting is not just something drawn in black and white or colors scattered here and there without any sense but it is an artistic creation; which speaks a lot to its viewers. It has been observed that most of the amateur artists or novice painters think that their work will not earn them a good livelihood and it is better to take these things as a hobby. But, real truth is very different; one can make a lot of money by selling the paintings. In this article, I will be providing some useful points about how to sell your paintings (both as online and offline sale). Where to show your art work and how to market your artwork. And create a name for yourself.
Another big problem for selling painting is to find a market to sell them. For a new comer it is very difficult to find a good market to sell his work. Only very few artists; are aware of a good place; where they can put their art work for sale; ie on the internet. Most importantly for a new artist it is the most suitable place to sell his work as modern generation is crazy after internet. It is so popular that more and more people are using internet to buy paintings of all kind. Earlier those of us who want to buy a painting used to visit a nearby art gallery, street shop or other retailers.
It is very complicated to find a good gallery or reliable dealer to successfully sell paintings. That’s why more and more people are turning towards online mode to sell paintings and other art works. It is also very convenient and a happy experience to sell a painting using internet. The variety of paintings available on the internet is much large and provides a lot of options to customers. These entire factors clearly points towards one fact that the internet is the best place to sell your art work; including paintings. It is not only about wide exposure but it is also about showing your work to whole of the world. Consider a scenario where an US customer is buying work of a UK artist; this can only be possible if the UK artist is wise enough to put his work on the internet. It is very economical for a budding artist to showcase his work on the internet. If the same work is to be marketed on TV or in newspaper it will cost much more. Conventional process of submitting paintings to various galleries, print dealers or print stock firms is very tiresome. Added to this fear of your work being rejected or not being reviewed for long time; make this very risky for a new artist. This can be disastrous for career of a new artist. No such risk if one goes for online and sells his work on internet.
One more advantage of putting your art work on the internet is the wider and international exposure that your work gets; because millions of people all over the world browse internet 24x7. Such a huge exposure is impossible to reach in case of conventional way of selling paintings. Once after understanding all the direct advantages of selling paintings on the internet; problem arises is how to sell paintings online? Where to put your art works or how to market them? I will put forth number of useful and practical tips that can help even a budding artist to successfully sell and promote his paintings online. One important decision you should take from the start is whether to publish your art work. On your own website or to use an existing web site of some third party?
If you have some basic understanding of computer and internet then it is good you if you'll get your own website created by a professional web programmer and publish your work there yourself. If one is not aware of internet and computers then it is better to publish your artwork and paintings on an existing popular web site. Remember one thing; where ever you may be putting up your work just make sure that user faces no problem in browsing or buying it.
One way to attract more and more customers to your website is to create some unique paintings and showcase these special pieces on the homepage or main page of your website. Try to understand what a customer is looking for and try to understand the current trends in the market, you are targeting. Such a comprehensive study will help you to create paintings which are in demand now these days but withouth leaving your style. Decide about a particular customer set you are going to target and then create paintings only for this selective segment. Because it is better to play safe in the beginning and never try something very extraordinary. So just stick to the some basic patterns and take care of taste and expectation of your intended customers. Another important thing is to display your work into an attractive and innovative manner.
Take quality photos of your works and then display them along with proper information about them like: painting name, year of creation, technique, size (both in inches and centimeters) and prices (usually in USD) with a "Buy Now" button below each of them to make online purchasing more easy and fast. Don't insert more than one slide show or flash presentation of your paintings to make the website loads faster and user friendly. Make sure you post all the information a customer may requires on your website like: "returning policy", "privacy policy", "contact information", "expected delivery time". Also make sure you have a "back to paintings" button in case a customer click on a painting for more information.
Try to create bigger paintings since these paintings are more and more in demand and there is a fixed market for this type of work. Now a day’s series of small painting are very popular; try to create one two such series of painting which together depict a theme as a whole. In nut shell you must have every arsenal in your bag; to be ready to take on every challenge (different demands from potential buyers). More will be variety; more will be crowd. Never try to overstate the facts about your artwork because if you are exposed by someone then your reputation is at stake and it is one important thing that is basic needs of any business.
Remember one rule that it is very important to retain your existing customers as it will be very difficult to attract new clients. Follow a systematic and well planned approach to attract new customers and retain the existing ones. Numbers of options for advertising are newspaper, magazines, Television etc. Another good option is to advertise on the internet itself. My pick is to go for online galleries like www.gallerytoday.com as it most cost effective of all others. |
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