Art and a quick Class

Look at what Janell Berryman of Pumpkin Seeds Folk Art made just for the SpookyTime Jingles Debut!!! Excuse me while I drool!


Now onto a new topic of discussion. BLOGS, Blogging, Blogger,Oh MY!


Ok, you do not have to have a blog to be a SpookyTime Jingles artist. I understand it is not for everyone...BUT that being said blogging is a very important tool for an artist who wants their work to be seen. It is FREE marketing and allows not only hundreds-thousands of more people to see your work but allows fans of your work to feel connected to the artist. What does this do? It helps turn fans into collectors.
Now, you do not have to keep a detailed blog with oodles of (expletive here)on it (Like my Ambitions Design one) but even a simple post once a week or every two weeks would be more than ok. People will not comment at first but they will look and the comments will follow.

If you are an occassional creator and do not care about an audience for your work then maybe not a great tool for you but I will tell you that blogging is how all of us artists keep in touch and see what is new. It is a great source of inspiration if nothing else. To end my blog spew, I personally have found Blogger to be much easier and user friendly vs. the other blog sites for whatever that is worth ;) Happy Blogging~


Finally, another great FREE marketing tool is Flickr. Many of you are already on it and if we are not linked please add me. Flickr is an online photo hosting/sharing site. I upload all of my pics onto Flickr and put them into easy to reference collections & sets. You can even put personal pics on there and mark them private when you upload them and only you can see them. Flickr allows you to upload 500 pics free and promises to host them forever. You can only view the last 500 pics you uploaded but it will save all of them even if you do not have a pro acct ($25.00 for 1 year). With a pro account the sky is the limit with as many photos you want to host there.
I have bought from seller's whos items I have found on Flickr and people have bought and commissioned me from finding me on Flickr. But truthfully I love Flickr more for the ability to save my favorite pictures of artists work I find and can gain loads of inspiration from it.



When you click a photo that is hosted on Flickr (hint to click the snowman) it takes you directly to the artists pictures and allows you to see what else the artist has. I love this b/c then your buyers can click the photo on SpookyTime Jingles and see it larger and see if there are other photos of the artwork! We all always want to host 3-5 pics of our work for people to fully appreciate the piece but that is never realistic to host that many, so this is a great alternative. Plus, at the top of each photo you upload if you click the ALL SIZES link it will give you the html code for that picture in 4 different sizes!! How easy is that? Just copy and paste that code into your listings or into your blog an voila...instant fab photo!


That is all for class today kids... Happy Blogging & Photog-ing