Thursday, August 20, 2009

Art Marketing 101



Ok, so it's been a little longer than a week since my last post. Managing 2 blogs...what the heck was I thinking??? Oh well, you can only do what you can do.

I've been thinking alot about marketing myself lately. I have this book called Art Marketing 101. It's a great book for any artist who really wants to know how to run his or her career as the business it really is.

Now, I know some of you out there will disagree that art is a business. So to you purists, I apologize in advance! I personally want to be able to do what I love and hope to be well rewarded financially! So if you want to paint and never sell a canvas, more power to you! That's just not my style.

Anyways, back to this art marketing thing. This book says the first most important step to fulfilling your dream of being a full-time artist is to create your identity as an artist. When you meet people for the first time and they ask you what you do for a living, what do you say? I say "I'm a freelance illustrator". I may not have made a dime in the last week from selling my illustrations, but by saying it, I become it. Every time I say it, I believe it a little bit more, and gain a little bit more self-confidence as an illustrator! Amazing the power of positive thought!


What's the next step? Well I've got to come up with a "brand" and get serious about this business thing. A business plan, logo, identity, even a mission statement. All this so I can present myself in a consistent, identifiable way. This identity should extend across all platforms...i.e. letterhead, logo, business cards, web site, blog. You know the drill. Some thought about what I want to be doing in 5 years, 10 years. Where I want to be. Then focus, and get to work! If I want to be a children's book illustrator like I've been saying forever, I've got to start doing some kids illos, don't I?

So back to the book to figure out how to do all this stuff, and then figure out some kind of story to use for a picture book dummy. Whew. Ok, deep breath...go for a run, clear my head. More research required! Here's a sketch of some characters I was fooling with a while back. I like the little burrowing owl character. I even did an "emo" version messing around one day. I'm off to run. Later!

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