Cindy’s Blog
Your Natural Gift of Horizontal and Vertical Comparison
Lets test your first natural gift. Here's your first question (in a series of five). You walk into your living room and there is a painting hanging on the wall. The painting is hanging crookedly. What would you do next? (a) Get a strong urge to straighten it, and then...
Your Natural Gift of Size Comparison
Here's your second question (in a series of five). You go to the kitchen and there’s a tasty looking chocolate cake on the table. You have eight(!) hungry kids who all want a piece. What would you do next? (a) Cut the cake so there are eight evenly size pieces. (b)...
Your Natural Gift of Arranging Objects
Here's your third question (in a series of five). You have just moved house and even though the removalists unpacked and arranged all your furniture, cushions and decorative objects in the living room, it’s not organised quite how you would like. What would you do?...
Your Natural Gift of Light and Dark Comparison
Here's your fourth question (in a series of five). You’re on holiday, it’s a lovely summer day and you’ve decided to leave the mobile phone at home, turn off the TV and radio and put away all the clocks in the holiday apartment. You fall into a relaxed holiday doze...
Conquering Artability Phobia
Here's your fifth question (in a series of five). Which of these statements do you feel apply to you? (a) I know I can become really good at drawing with practice. (b) I’m not sure if I can draw but I’ll give it a go. (c) There isn’t a creative bone in my body. I...
You already have the gifts… where to from here?
Conclusion of our series of posts about your natural gifts for drawing... By combining the four natural gifts that you already have with some traditional art skills, you will be quickly able to draw. You don’t need to enter any mysterious altered state of...
How to Get in an Art Gallery Without Trying (and how I did it twice)
You’ve stood outside the gallery and gazed in just wishing that your artworks could be in there, under the bright halogen lights that make every artwork look like its worth a million dollars. If only the gallery director would see your work, if only he would give you a chance, then your dreams could come true. Is its really possible? Could it happen? Well yes it can, but first you have to go under the radar!
Art Collectors – What do they really want?
As an Artist, you are a hunter. You didn't know it, but you are. You are hunting elusive and rare game called the 'Art Collector'. Mostly solitary creatures, roaming the plains of the art gallery establishment they need very tasty bait if you want them to come out of...
Art Agents for Early Career Artists – Good or Evil?
Years ago when I first took the plunge into the professional art world I started out creating screen prints in runs of up to 100 at a time with home-made equipment in my Garage. I figured it would make sense to be able to distribute my wonderful works as widely as...
Art Tutoring – 10 tips for supporting your art career by teaching art
The income of a professional visual artist can be a roller-coaster ride of financial highs and lows, and knowing this, many artists naturally turn to teaching art in order to bring in some bread and butter income. I myself have taken this path in the past, and along...
Creating Mini Art Prints for fun and profit
You've created a brilliant artwork. All your friends want it but of course they don't want to part with the vast sums of money required to prise this gleaming jewel of paint and canvas from your hot little hands. They ask "is there a print available?" The trouble is...
Procrastination – how to overcome it
Life is so busy. There are so many distractions. So many things to keep your eye off the ball. It's almost a full time job being an administrator of your own life. Everybody has their hand out wanting money. Bills keep coming in. Friends demand be Facebooked and...
How to hang an art exhibition
And so the time has come... Exhibition day is almost upon you. You've loaded up the back of your compact car with all your artworks in such a way that you would think that your vehicle must defy the laws of the universe by having more interior space than is indicated...
Taking photos of paintings – tips for non-photographer artists
Photographing art... For me F-stops and exposure times are alien concepts, however, that does not prevent me from making a relatively decent job of taking snaps of my work to pop on websites, brochures or those snazzy little gallery exhibition cards. I admit it. I'm...
Is your Artworld in Recession?
So, what do we do now? Just sit twiddling our creative fingers? Or do we get on and do 'something' while we're waiting for the affluent people to feel affluent again? Okay, enough already! Everybody has now heard that we're in recession and the media seem to bang on...
Is your Art a Charity Case?
For some reason whenever charity committees get together there is always someone (let's call her Jenny Brightspark) who displays their pure money raising genius to everyone by brightly suggesting "Lets have a charity art raffle / auction / lucky door prize" (*delete...
Selling Your Art – The Golden Rules of Art Sales Hand-to-Hand Combat
It's a jungle out there and now its time to engage in guerrilla warfare and hand-to-hand combat in order to sell your art direct to the public. Don't like the analogy? Think all this art sales stuff should be all comfortable and snuggely like a warm blanket? Yes of...
10 good reasons why artists should get real jobs
Readers please note: This post was originally published on another of my blog sites 'CreativityPro' and the reaction over there was a mixture of hilarity (by those who have really read and understood the post) and anger from those who didn't really read the post...
Is your Art any good?
I'm a positive thinker, and I really don't like to burst anyone's bubble, but even us creative types have to come out of our cosy self-created wonderland sometimes and ask the question "Is my art any good". Yes we've all watched Idol on TV, laughing and cringing as...
Who is the Audience for Your Art?
If you are going to sell your art it would be useful to know who your art is really for. That way you can concentrate you marketing and promotions efforts on the people most likely to buy it. Is your art for the locals in your town? art collectors? industry bigwigs?...
Find a Famous Friend to open Your Exhibition
Sooner or later when you are out and about in your daily life talking to people about your art and your next art exhibition you are going to come across famous, important or influential people who it might be good to invite along in an official capacity to open the...
Do you have enough art for an exhibition?
It can take a considerable amount of time and effort (not to mention expense) to create a full exhibition of artworks so its wise when setting the date for your opening night to set realistic dates by which you can produce enough works. As a rule of thumb when...
How to hold your own art exhibition
Just think of it... an entire gallery full of your artworks with crowds of people looking at them admiringly and ready to part with a sizable amount of cash to take them back to their own homes. Does this sound like a dream? Does this sound like something you would...
Begging for your Business Card
Ah, the humble business card. Such an institution in the world of commerce and trade that to not to have one is positively unseemly. Could such a thing induce begging behaviour? Would one even want someone to beg for your business card? We shall see... Make them...
Make a Portable Art Promotion Portfolio
A fantastic and very tasty looking Recipe for creating a personal organiser mini art portfolio for promotions on the go! Buy one classy looking small to medium sized Filofax style personal organiser or equivalent, preferably in a nice arty colour. (Classy I said! No...
How to build a marketing list at your exhibition
So it's opening night. Your heart is all aflutter with excitement. Will people turn up? Will they like your artwork? Will they buy it? Will you have enough white wine to get people tipsy enough to extract their credit card? So many things to think about, and here's...
How to have a massive art exhibition opening night
By now if you've followed the rest of this series you'll have gathered a list of people to invite to your exhibition in your Portable Mini Art Portfolio. It's time to get a plan together about how you are going to contact the people on your list again. Don't just rely...