Artists: What’s Your Potential?

Don’t underestimate your possibilities. They’re greater than ever!

By Carolyn Edlund

Over the past few months, I’ve talked to many artists, and heard some self-defeating comments, like:

– It’s not like it was back in the 1990’s; you just can’t make money like that anymore.

– I’ve never been able to take my business past being a start-up.

– I know that the market is saturated for my type of work, so I can’t make much money. I don’t want to price my work any higher, or I won’t make any sales.

– I get frightened that I’m not thinking the right way, or making the right choices, and so I freeze and do nothing.

Have you been thinking along the same lines? It’s easy to fall into that trap. Many artists aren’t born businesspeople. Creating business plans and marketing strategies are not familiar activities. Fear of rejection and lack of confidence combine to grind everything to a halt. You “freeze and do nothing.”

There is very good news, however. Is the market shrinking? No. Are opportunities going away? No way. In fact, with today’s global marketplace, there are more possibilities than ever to sell your work and make money as an artist. The key is to understand those potential opportunities so that you can unlock them and position yourself. Continue reading

New painting

It is done. Pondering a title.

Pardon the flash...

You know, I don’t think I do anything “right” when it comes to the Art World. I often thin my acrylic paint down to almost the consistency of water colors, and I use my water colors more like India Ink. And colored pencils really are just crayons for adults, except when I shave them and grind them into the paper with a Q-Tip i.e. cotton swab.

Don’t get me wrong; humans have rules for a reason. I look both ways before I cross the street. But when it comes to creation, who needs rules?

Godspeed Thomas Kinkade Mr Happy Art

Thomas Kinkade, the prolific painter of bucolic and idealized scenes who estimated that his mass-produced works hung in one out of 20 American homes, died on Friday at his home in Los Gatos, Calif. He was 54.

Though often disdained by the fine art establishment, Mr. Kinkade built a decorative art empire by creating sentimental paintings that were, for the most part, relatively inexpensive and resonated with the desires of homeowners who did not ordinarily buy art. He sold his work directly, through his own franchise galleries or on cable television home shopping networks, and eventually online.

His works were reproduced in books and on posters, canvas prints, hand-signed lithographs and collector’s plates. He likened himself to Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney, insofar as all three “really like to make people happy,” he once said. Many of Mr. Kinkade’s paintings captured scenes from Disney.

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