Philthy Conversations with Artists

While Artspan is the oldest provider, there are quite a few other providers of artist template websites. The most prominent are Foliolink, Big Black Bag, SiteWelder, Qfolio, FineArtStudioOnline, and Foliosnap.

Pricing can range up to almost $60/month, but most packages are less. Artspan pricing runs from 13.95 to 19.95 a month (10% less if paid annually). Artspan.com also stands apart from other website packages as it is, in itself, a real community of artists and a major art destination with plenty of content of interest to collectors.

Once on the Artspan site, there are a number of different ways those visitors arrive at the individual member sites: searches by keyword or by drop-down categories and genres and by alphabetical, regional and category/subcategory directories. Visitors also visit the Artspan Portals which focus on specific genres (i.e. Metal Arts or Landscape Painting).

These portals offer articles, events, and many different kinds of artist resources associated with the genre covered. And, of course, member images with links to the individual sites. Interested in becoming a member of Artspan?

It is hard to bring visitors to your website and you will have to work to promote it. Many artists have mixed feelings about promoting their own work, but in today’s art market, artists need to be their own advocates and agents to the art world.

There is no shame in self-promotion, especially when done with professionalism and style. Creating a personalized, templated artist portfolio website is the smart way to do it. Even smarter is to also be part of a larger community attracting the kind of traffic that no individual artist website can.

1. Do-it-yourself website
2. The well-meaning friend website
3. Custom website (professional designer)
4. Template website (ready-made website)

1. No matter how artistically and DIY-inclined you are, creating a website yourself, as a beginner, will almost certainly lead to a woefully unprofessional look. And it will take you away from your art.

2. Asking a web-savvy friend to create your site might seem like a great collaboration at first, but it can take awhile for your friend to get around to actually doing the site. Also, websites need to be updated frequently to keep them fresh for repeat visitors and higher-ranked for search engines. There may soon come a time when your friend can’t prioritize your website as much as you think they should. That can lead to frustration on your part and annoyance on theirs.

3. A custom site is the website that may (nothing guaranteed) give you the look that best reflects your work. Drawbacks are i) initial cost (can easily be $1- 2,000), and ii) you will have a tough time updating the site unless the developer has designed a control panel for you. If you depend on the developer to update the site, you will most likely be paying the developer’s hourly rate. This will cut down on your willingness to update the site and add new images.

*4. Template websites are the best option for artists who want to have a professional website, keep their friendships, and not spend a lot of money.

Most providers of template websites give you a fair number of design options. Artspan, for example, has templates that allow the artist to choose colors, fonts, and font sizes. You can create different galleries for your work and you have an unlimited number of pages and images. Most importantly, these sites are easy to update and manage. They are designed for people who have very little computer expertise.

Who Offers templated websites?

To the right: “The Siren” by Sandra Flood, an Artspan member. Click photo to visit her website.

You Are an Artist, First

You spent years studying the way light falls on the human face, or learning how to sculpt the semblance of motion into motionless clay. You have poured your time, money, and dreams into your art.

You may have discovered the Internet early on and understood how important showcasing and selling your work on a website can be. But most likely, you haven’t. Your focus has been on your work, which is where it should be.

A poorly executed shot of your art can really work against you making a sale online. We’ve noticed that some members’ art photos have glare, have distorted dimensions or other major flaws. This kind of thing really detracts from the visitor’s experience of the artwork.

The good news is that it’s not hard to shoot art well if you follow 7 easy steps:

1. Hang the painting on a vertical surface (wall). Best is gray or off-white background.
2. Put two photofloods at a 45-degree angle from the work so the light falling on the work is evenly dispersed and does not reflect directly back from the surface.
   
3. If the artwork continues to show glare, use polarizing filters in front of the photofloods (you may be able order these and the photofloods from your local camera store or online). Also, if there is glare, use a polarizing filter on your lens.
4. Most of you will use digital cameras. If you use film, best is Ektachrome 64T.
5. Put the camera on a tripod. Position the camera so that it is parallel to the surface of the artwork. If you don’t do this, you will see that the rectangle shape of the artwork is distorted. For example, the top of the work might appear narrower than the bottom. Also, center the artwork in the lens.
6. Use a zoom lens…that cuts down on distortion. You will need to stand back a bit.
7. Use a longer exposure to get more color saturation.

Shoot several times at different exposures. That will make it far more likely you get something that is usable.

*Photos taken by Rick Wright of art by Amber Lauletta.