River Source thank you Letter

Dear Banding,

I just want to thank you so much for the amazing art work that you did
for the Washington Drug Rehab Centers. We had just opened up the second
Naturopathic rehab, due to a high demand for our holistic services. The
new facility was full of people but it lacked a warm healing vibe
because we had no art work on the walls. You truly came to the rescue.
Within a two week period you finished more than 40 original pieces
that uniquely reflected the 12 Step Principals, which are the
foundation of our treatment program.

The energy in the facility immediately improved the day after you hung
the first round of paintings. The clients, staff, and visitors all
commented on how much they enjoyed your contributions. The owner,
Phill Westbrooks liked your work so much that he bought some of the
paintings off the walls and then asked me to commission you to do
several paintings for his personal collection, including a 5ft x 4ft
family crest.

Banding thank you for being extremely professional and completing a
total of 112 paintings for the River Source facilities. As soon as we
open up another facility we will be calling you again :).

Sandra Simmons
River Source Life Coach

Creating a presence online as a artist.

Creating a presence online as a artist.

I had to make the step into the online world of marketing.  Being a artist that solely wants to sell his work online, I had to learn how to drive more traffic to my personal website.

The first step is creating a personal web page. A web page is important; it is a gallery that anyone can see from any where in the world.  People that see your page can also (if you set it up right) make purchases from where ever they are. This helps in becoming an international artist without even leaving your studio.

I created a website four years ago.  I bought a mac book pro and used the I web program to build the site.  It felt great doing it by myself because I like to be as self sufficient as possible.  After it was built, I sat back and was anxious to have new people come and visit my page.  I passed out 1000s of business cards in hopes that people would check it out.  By this time, I was already on myspace and I directed people to the page.  I began to get hits but nothing serious. So, I sat back and I waited, waited for the number of hits to stack up and the sales to start rolling in.... and waited and waited.  Hmm, something must be missing, I thought after waiting for three years.

Having a website is great and is a necessity.  However, having a website is also like having your own virtual private island that only you know how to get to.  In order to get visitors to this island you have to make road maps so that people can find it.  So lets talk about some of these basic road maps.  

When I speak of road maps, I am speaking of SEO, search engine optimization, blogging, article writing, posting comments on due follow blogs, social media networking, youtube videos and publishing all of your relevant content anywhere and everywhere that you can on the web. You can pay someone to market your website on the web.  They will be an online marketing pro.  If you're like most artists, you're doing your best to just to feed yourself so, it is difficult to pay someone to market your product for you.  The following are a few things you can do that require little or no money to get started.

After creating a web site, the next step is to create a blog.  Blogging is wonderful because it allows other people that are in your field or just lovers of your field to read relevant information about you and what you are doing.  When I started blogging I thought, "What should I blog about?" I started to think about what the people that have bought my art and other artists want and need to know about.  I started with who a biography of I am and why I create.  Then, I started to talk about the styles that I create and my creative process.  Now, I am focussing more about the steps that I am taking to market myself on the web.  I do my best to write 1 to 3 blogs a week.  Every week I pick up at least one new follower.  The going has been a little slow but blogging is a process that should be continued forever.  Blogging is also a great tool to use to look back at what you have done in reflection.  A personal learning map of trial and error. When you blog you want to add a link to your website that will drive people back to it.  You also want to add tag words.  I will talk about tag words in a bit.

After creating a blog, the next thing to do is find a website/service that will publish articles. The one that I use is: http://ezinearticles.com.   Ezinearticles takes your article and it will publish it posting it out to their readers.  Thousands will have access to it.  People read it and you'll get a following of readers.  It will help lead people back to your website by you linking your website in the article.  In order to cut down on my writing, I use the same content from my blog as I do for my article.  I post my article at the same time that I write my blogs. This service is also free.

Make some videos.  I got a youtube account and started to make videos.  I started with videos of me painting live, painting in the studio, painting murals.  Video making is fun because the more I get into it, the process becomes a creative act as well.  Start thinking about filming relevant content on your topic, informational videos and help videos.  Pretty soon you'll get people waiting for your next one.  By making videos, you are marketing your work and sending more people to your site.

After you create your website,  an article, blog and video  it's time to create a few profiles on some social networking sites.  You do this so that you can notify people that you are creating, that you're producing great art, being successful and having fun while doing it.  I am on,Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. I am on art websites as well, Onewithit, Daggerrom, Myartspace and Flicker.  Every time I produce a new art piece, I take a picture of it and I notify all those sites with a link to my new picture and my site.  Every time I write a new blog or do anything that is worth mentioning, I post it up on all the sites.  Now, people are noticing that I am a creative wrecking ball and slowly but surely I am gaining a following online from people all over the world.  I'm selling art to strangers that live across the seas.  The more time you put in the more that you get back.  Be proactive.

Collect emails from the people that are interested in what you are all about.  Every chance I get, I exchange emails with someone and or take their card.  I get to my office and log in their info.  I try not to blast my email list too often.  Perhaps once every three months I will do a mass email to notify people of my new work, new sites, blogs, art shows etc. I don't do it too often because no one likes spam.  Make your information useful, relevant and be tactful.  Spamers are spotted fast now and communities won't put up with them.  It also makes you look cheap.

A little about SEO, search engine optimization.  I can't go too far into detail about this because I am a bit of a noob in this field.  But with the help of a very good friend, I got showed the right direction and more then a few things that I can do by myself to help in the marketing process.  SEO is all about getting google/search engines to recognize your website as a formidable website that is  legitimate that entities use and visit.  One major way search engines do this, is by reading/counting how many legitimate links you have going to your page.  The more links you have in the online world the more google/search engines will respect your website and it will start to place it closer to the top pages. To help make this happen, you have to come up with tag words.  Tag words are words that you put to describe whatever you are doing.  Mine are, abstract art, pop art, stencil art, surrealism, modern wall art, buddha art, mural art.  Every time I write a blog or an article, I put these words somewhere in it.  On my website every page's url address has these words in it. These words also help people find my artwork and me when they are randomly searching for lets say "pop art".  Because I have "pop art" linked to my website on so many pages google is placing me closes to the top.  The more links I create that involve these words, the more google will identify them with my website.  I know, it's complex, I'm barely learning it now. Most of this stuff you have to have someone that is a SEO agent help you out with because they have access to programs that will allow them to analyze the efficiency of the way your website is generating traffic.  From there you can have a better understanding of what you need to do to create more traffic.  Also, they have programs that will analyze the competition for tag words telling you how many people are trying to use the word.  The more people that are using the word the more competition you are going to have linking your specific site to it.  If you're like most artists that don't have the $$$ to go out and get a SEO agent there are more then a few things that you can do yourself to go to make waves and go forward like blogging, social networking  and producing relevant information and publishing it.  Won't happen over night, but the more you put in the more you'll get back.

If you want to learn more about online marketing and SEO youtube and google search it.  There is free information on the subject that will give you a better understanding of it.  I googled and youtubed it for a week straight, watched videos and listed to free online seminars.

Have FUN! Hope some of my experiences has helped.

My thoughts on Mural Art.

Mural art

~Why I like to paint BIG~

Painting a mural is the most gratifying experience that I have had.  Painting at least the size of real life almost makes the mural come to life.   As if I can step and walk into the painting, step or walk into  my mind.  In a sense it is like I am stepping into myself.

I have painted quite a few large murals for clients.  Every one has been super rewarding.  I learn more about painting in one mural then I learn in painting a dozen small paintings.  If i had to pick one size to paint all the time  it would be mural size. 

Doing a mural you can express, abstract art, pop art, stencil art, modern art, surrealism there is no limit to what can be created.  The personal imagination is the only limit to what can be achieved.

~Why I feel people Mural 

Mural Art can define time.  All of our ancestors participated in mural arts.  They used murals to describe history, events, timelines, possible future events, maps to the heavens, sacred rituals etc.  Mural art is empowering, it takes the subject matter to the very edge of bringing it to actual life because of the magnitude of its size.  Murals involve communities and they bring people together. Brings people in the community together because murals usually are a reflection of the community.  Wether the community is a rural town or large inner city they help educate by showing culture, diversity, history and help to beautify the area.

~Using the Grid to mural~

When I execute a mural I like to use the grid method to get my image on the wall.  For those of you that don't know the grid method I will briefly explain,  You draw out the image on a smaller sheet of paper.  After you draw it you use simple math to construct a grid on top.  Example. I will  make 1inch by 1 inch squares on top of the drawing.  Depending on the size of the wall I make a larger grid to scale.  I will make the squares in the larger grid sometimes 1 foot, 2 foot, 3 foot etc.  The size of the grid on the wall depends on the size of the wall.  The bigger the wall the bigger the squares.  The largest mural I have painted was in the scottsdale museum of fine arts, it was 40 feet long by 24 feet tall.  I used 2 foot squares for the grid.  The purpose of the grid is to find where you are in in perspective and proportion giving you guide lines to follow.

~Briefly how to Begin to mural~

My biggest goal is to continue to travel around the world painting murals.  There is a formula to ever success.  In order to get hired to paint murals in your community as well as all around the world you have to start murals.  It is difficult sometimes because as a full time artist you need eat and earn money. You also need to get your name out there and let the community know that you are a muralist.  To get your name exposed a muralist will donate his/her time to the community and does a few murals for little or no pay.   This is done because you need to build a portfolio of murals in order to be sought out by other organizations that need murals to be done.  Once the artist has about half a dozen legitimate murals then the ball starts rolling a bit and you might start to get a few paying gigs.   Because I had a reputation already with the community and I have built a strong cliental of people that buy my art, starting to find mural work  came naturally.

~My First Large Mural~

Before I executed my first mural I had painted large on canvas 5 foot x 10 foot.  My first mural I painted was 40 feet long by 24 feet tall.  I was a little overwhelmed at first.  This was to be executed in the scottsdale museum of the arts.   I was a little nervous because I had never painted this big let alone in a first class museum.  I took control of my anxiety and got to work.  We had scaffolding, ladders, drop cloths, tools and paint, lots of paint , the whole nine yards....  I gridded the whole wall out with 2 foot by 2 foot squares.  After doing the grid I felt way more confident.  I drew my picture  all out.  After I drew it out I started with the color fills.  Before I knew it the mural was taking shape and form and I was feeling not just better about myself but proud of myself.  The point is: You have to have a strategy, a plan of action with well laid out steps for anything to be accomplished.  Now I paint murals all the time, I am known to finish them sometimes in less then a few hours.  But it took hard work, willing to have a open mind to learn and a honest sense of humility.

http://www.Bandinghendrix.com

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