Seeking opinions and advice

[Burgold]

My sister is due to have her first child in a month. As a gift I produced two paintings for the baby's room. The reaction to these were amazing. Friends of my sister began contacting me and commissioning works. I made prints and sold out on the first day. I'm thinking that this may make a fun sideline. At any rate, I was looking for marketing and sales ideas. More, I was wondering if members of this board wouldn't mind taking a peak at my website and tell me what they think of layout and the work. Is stuff easy to find. Do I need to improve the quality of the photos I scanned, etc. All thoughts would be appreciated.

The website is www.geocities.com/hedrew2

[Phat Hog]

Pretty cool stuff Burgold. Your right about the resolution quality fo the photos, but I liked what I saw.

[Burgold]

Thanks phat hog,

I tried at a lower resolution, because I there is a part of me that worries about people copying and taking (I've had problems with that in the past), however, if I want to use it as a marketing tool more than just a place to show people my stuff I may need to raise the image quality. It's a fight against cynicism, I suppose.

[sippin2020]

Burgold, you can always Photoshop "sample" across the picture in a translucent style. That way you could increase the resolution & picture size, but not worry about copyright infringement.

Other than that the artwork is excellent.

[Burgold]

That's a good idea about the translucent lettering. Shouldn't be too hard to do either.

[Soliloquy]

Very nice artwork. I really like the topmost one on the "Paintings" page.

As far as the website style/layout (keep in mind I'm no graphic artist):

I thought the purple background was distracting.

Make each page consistent with others on the site. In other words, use the same navigation layout on each page (Paintings/Plays/Children's Art/Stories).

Put something in each page's window title bar, other than "page title".

It looked like the children's art images were at a higher resolution than the paintings.

Again, nice artwork. I think you can make a working concern out of this!

[codeorama]

Burgold, nice work. I'm no artist, but obviously you have talent.
I have taken alot of Lighthouse pictures from the east coast and have thought about setting up a site to sell them.

[riggins44]

Burgold, my wife does oil paintings. She usually displays them at couple of shows or festivals during the year. She also joined local art league as avenue to display her work. Art leagues are always looking for new members. I would avoid the consignment shops. Print up some business cards and hand them out...don't forget to put you website on the cards.

[Burgold]

Code,

I was taken to something called the Sugarloaf Crafts festival this year. They displayed all sorts of stuff, but I thought the coolest thing they had was a display by an astronomical photographer. He did incredible stop action photos of the sky. Doing a very slow exposure over a period of times you could really see the Earth's rotation. The stars nearly became concentric circles spiraling around the sky. He also had some awesome moonshots and things of that sort. At any rate, if you have some landscapes or photos and you want to see how people would react that may be a resource for you. Who knows... maybe we and some of the other extrememers could split a table.

[Tom [Giants fan]]

Burgold,

Do you paint nudes? Can you paint nudes just by getting an idea of a person? If so, take a look at code's sig and see what you can do.

[Burgold]

Tom, do I sence a commision

[Phat Hog]

Originally posted by Tom [Giants fan]
Burgold,

Do you paint nudes? Can you paint nudes just by getting an idea of a person? If so, take a look at code's sig and see what you can do.

And once you finish Tom's, I have a ton of work for you

See, now Tom this started out as a civilized conversation about the wonderful art burgold produces – and what happens? “I want a nude Anna” It’s all Bill Clinton’s fault I tell ya!

[Burgold]

Wait a minute... no, mixing politics and art. Please, not on a slightly right leaning board. Please.

[Tom [Giants fan]]

Tom, do I sence a commision

Commision? That isn't quite what I wanted a naked pic of Anna K. for. It is scientific research. Yeah, that's it.

Sorry Phat Hog, I saw a post from code and it "came" to me. :jerkoff:

[Burgold]

Well, I could do one for you for free. If you would pay her modelling fees and get her to my studio.

Don't worry about it, Tom. I knew that the first post was a joke.