Selling Prints and Products on Fine Art America

 I offer prints and products on Fine Art America / Pixels, which are print-on-demand sites, "FAA" in my shorthand. They are two sites, same  company, practically identical, but Pixels offers a few more products than does Fine Art America.

A few products available from FAA: acrylic print, throw pillow, tote bag, and pencil case

People often ask me if I like the way FAA sells my work. I read this as emphasis on THEY. Are they (meaning FAA) doing a good job for me? They, in this case, are not doing anything to sell my work other than provide a (fabulous, in my opinion) platform and process for me to sell prints and products.

In the question is embedded a little confusion about marketing. A gallery markets your work - they get the potential customers in front of your pieces and try to match buyer with artwork in a satisfactory fit. I see this as a kind of highly-skilled matchmaking. It takes experience, insight, and knowledge to match the right client with the right artwork. And it takes serious curating. A gallery will not show just anything - they will show work (and dedicate resources to) that they believe they have clients for.

FAA and other POD (print-on-demand) sites do not do marketing. They offer a convenient platform for the artist to offer prints and products. It is up to the artist to get the clients to the site. They also do no curating, so the platform is open to anyone.

Framed Print of "Line of Fire #1"

If you have work up on FAA or another POD site and nobody is buying it, it is not because the site is not doing its job. It is because you are not doing your job. Don't give up on POD if your work is not selling. Send people to your POD page via links on your website, social media posts, newsletters, etc., and see what happens.

This is a screen shot of my new website's navigation menu.

I personally love the POD concept. For me it means that people can have images of my work in whatever form suits them, for very reasonable prices. Not everyone who likes my work is in the market for original pieces of art. I love it that they can have phone cases, notebooks, tote bags, etc. as well as fine art prints at a size and price that works for them. It's not for everybody, and it doesn't pretend to be original art.

I would like to hear your thoughts on print-on-demand, and to know what kind of experiences you have had with this kind of platform.

New Work Available

 I have some new work available as prints and on products at Pixels/FineArtAmerica. Take a look at a few of the options here:

Framed Print

Canvas Print

Metal Print

Framed Print

Acrylic Print

Wood Print

Tote Bag

Carry-all Pouch

Shower Curtain

Throw Pillow (cover)

Enjoy! Thanks for visiting.

Stripes as Meditations on Color

Here are a few of the stripe pieces I've been working on. The ones pictured below are all 11"x14", acrylic and collage on paper. There are larger ones in the works as well, which I'll post at some point.

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Since all of my spring workshops have been cancelled, and the non-profit I'm part of, the Rupert Village Trust, has suspended activities for the time being, I've had more time in my studio. Though I am teaching online, I am not traveling, and I find the longer stretches of time in my studio have allowed me to relax into a narrower and deeper focus than is typical.

How has the pandemic affected your art practice? Are you more distracted? More focused? Do you have more time or less time to make art?

These stripes and others are available as prints and products on Pixels/FineArtAmerica.

Making hearts is a way to engage in painting or collage without taking it too seriously. How can you agonize over your image when it is the most over-used, cliché of clichés in the realm of shapes?

For this reason I am offering a workshop on mixed media techniques in which we use the heart as the image. It is called Light Hearted, and I'll be offering it along with other workshops at Art and Soul this May in Colorado Springs. Read about it here. See my other workshop here.

In the video I am using Utrecht acrylic matte medium to adhere the collage to the substrate, and also for the top coat. It is my favorite matte medium for collage. The markers are Posca, which are opaque paint markers.

These and other 'light hearted' images are available as prints or on products through Pixels/Fine Art America. Click here for prints and products.

Hearts on Video!

This is just a playful little video of me drawing and collaging simple heart images. I am finding this practice of making hearts a really good way to HAVE FUN in my studio, and I'm using it as a warm-up exercise. We discussed what it means to "have fun" making art, and the difference between doing it "just for fun" and doing it as a serious practice but finding it fun, in a previous post.

I realized that I didn't have a particular thing I go to when I want to relax a bit and just play around with materials in my studio. When I've been away from the studio for a bit and feel a bit rusty, I do have some really low-pressure practices that get me back in the flow, but there had not been one particular focus. The heart image might just be it. It could be something else - a landscape, a circle, a grid, a drawing of my cat or the view out the back window. But there is something just silly enough - cliché and sentimental - about the heart that keeps it from getting the least bit serious. See more of my hearts on Fine Art America.

So, here is the video. Miche Fambro has kindly allowed me to use his music.

Hearts for Fun

OK, I finally found a thing in my studio I can do JUST for fun. As in, light hearted, for the purpose of relaxing and enjoying time in the studio without the kind of focus and effort that Art requires. Making valentines!  Just making collage, drawings, paintings, on a really small scale that feature hearts.

This is a collection of the single heart pieces I made. I'll be posting a video about this on February 1.

Here are a few more; these are 5.5"x7.5".

I found this a great way to play with color, shape, composition, and materials and techniques. You can see more of the collection on Fine Art America. Even if you don't celebrate Valentines Day, try making a group of heart images JUST FOR FUN!

My Work in an iPhone App Video!

Well, this is a surprise.  Check it out:

My work is available as prints on Fine Art America.
Check out the video on their site.

Work In Progress

I started these improvisational pieces while teaching at AVA the other week.  Here are four that I consider finished; each 10"x10":

Color-Pattern-Line #1

Color-Pattern-Line #2

Color-Pattern-Line #3

Color-Pattern-Line #4

Nine more (of a dozen or so) works in progress in the same series.  

The four finished pieces are now available as prints in Fine Art America.

New Stripe Piece

I did shoot video of making this piece (or maybe it is a part of a larger piece).  Will post video when I get a chance to edit.  Just wanted to share this for now:

12"x12"

I am really enjoying working with these textures, lines, and colors in the stripe format.  This piece is available as a print from Fine Art America.  It will be part of a larger piece in a solo exhibition at AVA Gallery in Lebanon, NH opening April 21.

New Stripes Available as Prints

You can now buy my Stripe Assemblages as prints from Fine Art America.  Choose the size, material, and framing style.  Below are images of the pieces as Canvas Prints. 

Stripe Assmemblage #1

Stripe Assemblage #2

Click on the titles below images to view all your options.

One option not available on Fine Art America is to make your own! Interested in a tutorial?  I could do a little step-by-step in the next post.

Scaling Up - the easy way

I did two posts last week on the project of Scaling Up.  The goal was to see what happens when I try to scale up one of my paintings.  The goal isn't to accurately reproduce the piece at a larger scale.  "Scaling Up" was a starting point, am idea to work with. As you can see from the second post, it did indeed send me in a new direction.

If you (or I) really want the piece accurately reproduced, you can buy a print of it at a much larger scale on Fine Art America.  My work on Fine Art America is scanned at very high resolution so they can produce a good quality print much larger than the original.

You choose the size, up to 48"x48"/120cmx120cm for this one.

 You can also choose the material and framing style:  a matted, framed print; a simple print on paper, or have it printed on acrylic or metal.

Here it is as a matted, framed print.

THANKS for all of your comments and suggestions.  I'll keep going on this.

New Work Available as Prints

I've made some of my studies and new pieces available as prints on Fine Art America.  Here is how it works:  you go to my page; then click on the image you want to view:

"89/100", 9"x12", acrylic and crayon on paper

You choose among framing and format options.

And then you can choose the size.

One benefit of purchasing prints rather than originals is that you get to choose the size.  The original of this piece is 9"x12", but you can get it as large as 36"x48". 

I have been pondering the issue of scale.  Often I see a piece of my own work or that of a student, and think:  this would be FABULOUS at a drastically larger scale.  But how do you DO that??  I also find interesting the juxtaposition of dramatically contrasting scales - teeny tiny marks next to great big marks.  In my studio I am investigating both of these ideas.  I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Here are a few more of the new pieces now available as prints:

Stripes

I am fascinated by artists who can do stripes - simple stripes! - that are compelling.  Taking a simple idea, one of the simplest of patterns, and making it rich with subtlety.  Here are a few examples from artists I admire.

Take a look at Kathleen Waterloo on Pinterest.  Here are a couple of her stripe pieces:

Kathleen Waterloo

Kathleen Waterloo

I am particularly in love with the way Jylian Gustlin works stripes into her vessel pieces:

Jylian Gustlin

Jylian Gustlin

Jylian Gustlin

Daniella Woolf does beautiful stripes in encaustic; and Leonard Ragouzeos in his teeny tiny gouache pieces:

Daniella Woolf (this is a screen shot, thus the word "next" in the upper left).

Leonard Ragouzeos

Here is one of my first attempts to do a large (large for me, 22"x30") piece in stripes:

"Stripes, Yellow", my work, 22"x30"

This piece, "Stripes, Yellow", is now available as a print on Fine Art America, along with forty more pieces of this scale.  Take a look at the new uploads!