Yvonne Branchflower's Art Blog

Learn how I paint in this step-by-step illustrated demo of Spring Storm.  In this start-to-finish demo, I will tell you what materials I am using and what I am thinking about at each stage of the painting.  Brushwork, color theory, botany--it's all covered.

My first foray into plein air painting involved a Jullian French easel.  Once it is set up, a French easel makes painting a true pleasure.  However, it is heavy, and it does not protect wet oil paintings.  When pochade boxes first began making waves, I bought one.  It made plein air painting much easier.

An 8x10” pochade box holds quite a bit of stuff.  A homemade adapter for smaller panels increases its versatility.  It is light-weight, compact, and best of all—it fully protects 2-4 wet oil paintings, depending on the thickness of the panels.  My box is a prototype made by California artist John Budicin (the box is a work of art!)  Guerrilla makes very well-rated pochade boxes, with the 8x10” running around $100 at www.aswexpress.com

ArtComber, a canvas cart, further contributed to making plein air painting easy.  It is capacious enough to hold everything I need when painting out—including a hefty tripod for the pochade box.  Water container, lunch, extra jacket, 12x16” palette keeper—it all goes in.  If that is not enough to recommend it, it comes with a fold-down chair which can also serve as a low table.  The ArtComber handles smooth to moderate terrain, such as uneven dirt paths and packed sand.  It would probably bog down in loose beach sand, and you would not want to drag it up the face of a bluff, but in my normal painting environs it works perfectly.  ArtCombers are about $60 at www.aswexpress.com

I don’t buy many art gadgets.  But these two items have really made plein air painting more accessible for me. 

A few months ago I decided my home page bounce rate was too high.  Google analytics showed my home page bounce rate routinely above 65%.  One month it was 77%.  This is the page the majority of visitors first land on—and I was losing them.  I did an on-line search and found many articles that helped me recognize strengths and weaknesses on my home page, and with a few modifications, lowered the home page bounce rate over 10%.  You will want to do your own research, but these tips will get you started:

Heading or Title

As an artist, your name is your brand.  It should come first, followed by a summary of what you do.  Example:  Yvonne Branchflower, oil paintings.  It should be big enough to see easily, but should not dominate your work.  (Using “artist” is too general, in my opinion.)

Subheading

This should concisely summarize the second most important facts about your work.  Example:  Small Landscape Paintings of Oregon and California.  People use search terms like these—and find me.  It may seem redundant to use “paintings” in both header and subheader, but when I used an abbreviated subheading of “Small Landscapes: Oregon and California” a search turned up lots of landscape gardeners.

Image

Changing or not changing the image is a personal choice.  I change mine every 2-4 weeks.

Call to Action

I really got hung up on this.  It is just not cool to shout “Buy my incomparably fabulous paintings NOW!”  Eventually, I decided my website is about more than selling paintings.  It includes my thoughts on art, and sharing information with viewers.  I decided on three calls to action:

• Read my Notes From The Studio…. (my blog)
• Subscribe to The Palette Keeper….(my newsletter)
• See more paintings at….(my best selling gallery)

Each call to action has a link to the appropriate page on or off my site.  These calls to action improved the stickiness of my home page.

Readability

There are a lot of black background sites with white text.  They are very hard to read.  If you want your site read, use a light-to-medium background with black text.  Yes, black makes the paintings pop.  It also makes your text fall flat.  Keep the fonts simple and large enough to read.

Miscellaneous Home Page Additions

Based on web guru’s recommendations, I added:

• My name and phone number
• Copyright information
• Last updated on….  (shows you keep your website current.)

Summary

I learned the hard way not to streamline my home page too much.  It is not enough to rely on one image to carry the burden of interesting viewers to look deeper into your website:   Entice the viewer with a few calls to action—with links.

I refuse to obliterate my paintings with a big copyright mark.  A general statement will suffice.

The value of “last updated on…” is up for grabs.  Some gurus say the search engines don’t see that.  I say, the viewer should, and perhaps search engines do, because I make changes often, record them, and rank pretty high in searches that don’t include my name.  It certainly doesn’t hurt to show the last update.

Make a note of your home page bounce rate for a few months leading up to your revisions, then see what happens.  This assumes, of course, that you read your analytics.  If you don’t, get with it!

Getting the most out of your art website is crucial in today’s marketing climate.  Your website does not have to be extensive to impress viewers, but it must be current and easy to navigate.  Following are some tips for tuning up your website—go through the steps at least once every six months (quarterly is better.)

Check your outbound links

Check every outbound link on your website, including your prior blog posts.  If a link has broken, try to re-establish it (the URL may have changed.)  If it cannot be reestablished, give your reader a searchable phrase by which he may be able to find your source.

Check your internal navigation links

Don’t take for granted that your internal links always work:  They can fail for a variety of reasons.  If an internal nav link opens to a blank page, either get some interesting content on the page or delete the navigation link and page until you have material for it.

Use your spell checker

Spelling errors make you look unprofessional.  Give your entire website a baseline check.  An easy way is to copy-and-paste your text over to your word processing software and run it through spell and grammar checks there.  I do all my writing and editing in Word, then copy-and-paste to FASO’s templates. 

Use your grammar checker

This is harder for many people, especially those for whom English is not their first language.  Do your best.

Check your contact info

Sometimes we forget that the web doesn’t know we just moved, changed our phone number, or the phone company changed our area code.

Check location of your art

If you list the work’s current location in the description be sure to update the location as you move your work from studio to gallery to another gallery.  Since that is easy to neglect, make the verification of locations part of your tune-up.

Every time I give my website a tune-up I find a few quirks that need to be corrected.  Rather than commit them to memory, I make a list of what needs to be done and tackle it all at once.

When visiting other artist’s websites I do more than look at the art:  I look at presentation and learn.  Most artists maintain their websites nicely, but a large minority don’t.  Would you be favorably impressed by an art gallery that had filthy floors, loaded ashtrays, stinky bathrooms and crooked paintings?  Of course not!  You assume that if they don’t take care of their stuff, they won’t take care of yours.  Keep your website clean—take good care of it.  Be assured, you get judged by it.

Next week:  Some bigger improvements to your art website.  These may take a little longer, but they are worth it.

I have 15-20 blogs saved to a “Good Blogs” folder, and read them when I get around to it.  Most of them are in the folder about a year before they get repetitive or the writer loses interest in blogging.  Kirsty Hall’s blog has staying-power.  Based in Bristol, England, Hall writes about her art projects, business, life and her chickens.  Aside from never being boring, what are her secrets?

Kirsty Hall informs.  Many of her blogs are about the business of being an artist.  She puts a different spin on why artists should blog and be online:

“When I’m curating an exhibition, I still advertise for artists through print media and expect artists to send me postal applications. However, if I get a postal application and I’m interested in the work, my next step is always to Google the artist’s name to see if I can find more images of their work. I won’t discriminate against an artist if they’re not online but it does make it harder for me to accurately judge their work.”  http://kirstyhall.co.uk/2007/08/10/why-artists-need-to-be-online/

She inspires:

“I had been afraid that understanding my process would kill it. Would take the spark away. Would result in my work becoming boring and mundane. Instead, it made me fall more deeply in love. My process became more accessible, understandable and controllable, yet ever more rich and fascinating to me….And I learnt to trust it. I learnt to trust that the ‘post-exhibition blues’ would only last a few days. I began to recognise that research phases were different from ‘not working’”.

She entertains and cajols:

“All artists, even the best ones, make rubbish. The smart ones appreciate it and understand its part in the creative process.  You don’t have to show people your rubbish. But you do have to make it….you do bloody have to show up and make your work every day – or as often as you can possibly manage.” http://kirstyhall.co.uk/2011/05/18/please-make-rubbish/

Kirsty Hall also writes fairly often, and she is a very good writer.  Hall knows how to illicit laughter as well as sympathy.  She is nearing completion of her 365 Jars project that is as intriguing as it is grueling.

Hall writes for her readers, something that many art bloggers don’t know how to do.  Her irreverence is never mean-spirited, with the exception of a few digs at the upheaval of divorce.  She is worth reading, and if you like her words, save her to your “Good Blogs” file.

Judging by the spike in readership during the compact art studio series, there is a lot of interest in art studio design.  I hope other writers pick up on this and publish their successful solutions for efficient use of space.  Meanwhile, I apologize for dropping the ball—I was going to list a few untried (by me) ideas.  Here they are:

Remember those huge television armoires?  For an artist who has inquisitive toddlers and no designated space in which to work, I would think the interior of a big tv armoire could be converted to easel/painting space without too much difficulty.  Under-counter lighting could provide necessary light.  A tabletop easel could sit in the tv space.  Attach some wire or plastic racks to the interior walls to hold supplies.  A lock on the cabinet would make it child-proof.  For artists who sit, an old computer armoire might be better.

For artists lucky enough to have a room in which to work, but challenged by kids or pets, a Dutch-door (the top half open, bottom half closed) can allow contact and communication with less under-foot distraction.  There are other types of door barriers that are more transparent and can accomplish the same thing.

That’s it for my compact studio ideas.  Next blog is about my all-time favorite art blogger.  Find out who that is and why!

Frame storage should be designed to allow frames to set on end, not stacked.  I built shelving in the studio closet, which has 2’ of inaccessible space at one end.  Were it being used as a bedroom, that is where you would stuff your off-season clothes.

Materials:

• Two 1x12”x5’ pine boards
• Four 6’ standards
• Clips for the standards (four for each shelf)
• Enough 1x12” pine to make as many shelves as you need
• Wood block (scrap) the same thickness as your floor molding—use the block as a spacer between the wall and the board at the top, so it stands vertically.

I went cheap on these shelves, using materials left over from another home.  It would be a more useful system had I purchased plywood and made the system two feet deep, completely filling the available space.

One nice thing about these shelves is that they fit in their space by pressure.  Nothing is attached to the walls, so if you rent your home you can install this without damage.  In a different home we used this same system running the width of a 5-6’ closet—that held lots of stuff!

I specialize in paintings 8x10” and smaller.  12” deep shelves accommodate frames this size.  If you work larger you will require deeper shelves made of plywood.

While on shelves, keep your frames padded.  I sew old bath towels into bags, and while you cannot see which frame is inside, that frame will never get scuffed.  If the frames are new, the corner protectors are sufficient.

Many artists will frown on this, however I currently paint in only two sizes.  This is very economical in both space and money:  My frame inventory never needs to be as large as my painting inventory.  Paintings can be shifted in and out of frames as needed for exhibit.  During good economic times, and when I had a grand studio, I worked in more sizes.  That just doesn’t fit my life now.

Next week:  While I wrote this series on the “Compact Studio” I thought of other ways artists could make extremely limited spaces work.  I’ll write about those in case you find them useful.

In my last blog I wrote about the choice of easel and furniture in a small art studio.  Today is about “the drying rack”, which serves several purposes.  In many ways it is the nerve center of my studio, and it really helps me stay organized.  In this studio the shelves are on the wall behind the door.  In a prior studio (when I was young and willing to climb ladders) I had one long shelf near the ceiling.  Behind the door is much more accessible.

What the shelves do:

• They keep the oil paintings fully visible/accessible, making it easier to determine needed adjustments
• They offer a clean and safe place for paintings to dry
• They provide a sorting area for paintings that need to be photographed, varnished, or selected for exhibit.
• It is handy storage space  for unframed paintings.

Location:

Behind the door on that otherwise wasted expanse of wall with 4” of available depth.

Materials:

• 4” brackets (not available in any of the big-box hardware stores.  I found these online at www.cabinetparts.com     4” brackets are a little pricey, but they allow the shelves to be adjustable.
• Two 6’ standards from Lowes or Home Depot.  Brackets and standards are usually interchangeable between brands, so buying standards from Lowes or Home Depot saved a lot of money.
• A doorstop in the door hinge guarantees the door cannot bash the shelves and paintings.
• 1x4”x5’ oak was used for the shelves.  Oak is expensive, but it does not warp like pine does.
• ½ x1” cheap trim was glued and tacked to the front of each shelf to keep things from sliding off.

Prior to installing these shelves, I stored my small paintings in little plastic letter organizers from Office Depot.  It worked well as an extremely compact drying/storage device, but I could never see the paintings.

I cannot concentrate in a cluttered environment.  However, I know many artists who would go nuts unless they could have all their artsy stuff scattered about, exuding creative energy.  How you design your compact studio has to be determined by how you work best.  Google “art studio design” and you will find sites that offer many more ideas.

Next week:  Frame storage in the closet.

 We live in an era of downsizing and doubling-up.  For many, studio space is getting squeezed.   My next three blog entries will show you how I’ve dealt with creating an efficient painting studio out of a fraction of the space I used to enjoy.

I am fortunate.  I have a whole room (a smallish second bedroom sans bed) for office, sewing, and art.  Multi-purposing an art studio provides many distractions from creativity.  The trick is to make it efficient enough to move from one activity to another with little hassle.

One side of the room contains a high-boy dresser, a large L-shaped secretary’s desk and the fold-out sewing machine cabinet.  You don’t need to see photos of those.  It is the studio side you want to see.

Cornerstone of the studio wall is the Maybef Lyre easel, a sturdy beechwood tripod that has a small footprint.   I wrote an article in my enewsletter, The Palette Keeper, about the easels in my life—you might enjoy it.  The easel is flanked by three microwave stands on wheels, which can easily be reconfigured for framing projects.  These “taborets” hold a tremendous amount of painting paraphernalia plus a paper cutter and a box of mini-frames.  They roll easiest on hard floors or low-pile carpeting with no padding.  The Persian rug is very thick wool and provides cushion while standing at the easel.

Beautiful oak bookcases had to be replaced with something more space efficient.  We had two vintage 1970’s olive green steel bookcases in a storage room that fit the bill.  You can’t get more compact and sturdy—or ugly.  We shortened one of them.  Together, they contain my much reduced library, as well as framing materials and a compact HEPA filter.

The ceilings are 9’ high.  A tall person could make good use of high wall space with cabinets and shelves, but I am short and have retired from climbing ladders and step-stools.

A four-tube flourescent fixture in the center of the ceiling lights the entire room.  No auxiliary lamps are needed, saving lots of surface space.

This is not the perfect art studio.  Working in a compact setting requires a certain amount of self-discipline:  You must keep art supplies limited to those you actually use.   I finally had to admit to a downside:  By defining myself exclusively as a painter of small works my brushwork and compositions become continually tighter.  I need the expressive space of larger panels, once in a while, to maintain looser brushwork in the small paintings.  I'll find a way to accomodate the occassional larger paintings and frames, but it does introduce a complication into my tidy studio plan.  In designing your studio space, allow yourself to change and improve it as you discover ways in which it constricts you.

Next week:  The coup de grace:  A drying, sorting and storage rack for oil paintings!

There is a little magazine called Entrepreneur that I enjoy digging into every few issues.  Entrepreneur is not about art, but it is very much about creativity needed to make a business thrive.  Artists are by nature entrepreneurs, so why not just read an art magazine or book in which art marketing stuff has already been digested and regurgitated for you?  Because you just might miss a creative opportunity.

When I read Entrepreneur’s articles I don’t think like an oil painter trying to sell some paintings online.  I am open to random ideas, and while those ideas usually relate to art, it is less likely they would occur to me had I been reading an art marketing resource.  For example, because donuts were so successful, someone developed a franchise around cupcakes.  Surely one could do the same around a new type of art business.  That kept my imagination busy until my husband quashed it with, “Sounds like a non-profit organization.”  Ah well, only an hour had been spent on development, and none on research.  I’ll leave it to a young entrepreneur to develop Art IzUs.

Ann Handley's article, “The Customer Capture Contraption” (Entrepreneur, September 2011) didn’t really offer new ideas about blogging, but it put a different spin on old ones.  Handley is CCO of www.marketingprofs.com where you can find an abundance of free articles about marketing in general.

Few successful business people are insular.  They seek ideas from a wide base and can afford ongoing professional advice .  In contrast, artists tend to be insular and few of us can afford a staff of professionals.  There are many good art marketing books and articles available, and you should read them.  You should also reach beyond them to the broader world of marketing ideas for inspiration outside the art box.

Read some of Entrepreneur’s articles online at www.entrepreneur.com