For Artists

Welcome to the resources place!

I’ve decided to create this page for you, to support you, because I believe in that each and every one of us can uplift the other.
Secondly, I receive a lot of emails from artists asking me for advice in art business, art practice, what tools I use on a daily basis etc.

If you want to deep dive and learn how to successfully grow your art business, please add your email in the contact form below to be notified once the private art club with courses empowering your business, launches. Which is very soon!

Now, let's talk about the important basics of art+biz.

WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION?

NUMERO UNO QUESTION.
Not kidding.

And yet — so not on the top of my "20 most important questions to ask, if you're an artist".

My first advice to you is to shut down the internet. You must learn how to rest your brain. The occupied mind (and by that I mean 'overloaded', because today we all show some kind of dizzy-fuzzy-adhd behaviours) is as creative as a hamster on the wheel. If you need to crack out some creative HIIT like upload bunch of images to your website, state of your mind matters less.

I can't promise you'll like yourself, at first.

Which is a perfect start for discovering the inspiration.

Now, let's take a look at other meaningful components of successful art business.

ATTITUDE. Doesn’t matter which leg lands first on your floor in the morning. If you’re feeling stuck, go for a walk. Literally, move out of limbo. Julia Cameron swears on it. Morning pages might be awesome too; I’m still procrastinating on them though. You must sort yourself out either by drinking a glass of wine (why not..), talking to a friend (you can even email me!), having sex or plainly showing up to work it through.
PERSISTENCE. Art business (yes, you must treat it as a business, if you want to be in business) tends to take more time to build than any service based business. I know it because I owned a very successful design business with a waitlist for 8 months ahead. You need talent, but most importantly you need persistence and know tricks or two regarding how to grow it.
ART TOOLS. I use Arches + Fantastico watercolor paper. It’s expensive and it can intimidate. When I was exhibiting my Lost Genius women series I used only the best paper and mates and frames. For some quicker sketches and studies I use Canson and Strathamore.
Brushes are important as well. I like to use natural hair but also teklons. Each brush has its own mind and you need to learn it before knowing which to reach for. For the paint I love to use M.Graham and W&N, and DICKBLICK has everything online.
Photoshop is my main digital tool for rendering and cleaning up.

STYLE is important. Once I emailed a very successful illustrator and he suggested to take down everything but the watercolors. I used to paint with acrylic and even do some digital work. Within the watercolor you can have hundreds of styles. Paint, paint and paint, the style will emerge.

DONATE. Only if it’s a YES.

COPYCATS. We want to uplift each other but you need to protect yourself against infringements by copyrighting all your work on a regular basis.
How do you know if it's an infringement? Easy — when the purchase creates a confusion on who created it, you know this person (copycat) went too far...

PLAY. Be responsible, fun and hope for the best. But most importantly, work hard and play hard!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES.

SUPPLIES. DICKBLICK for art supplies. Always and foreva.
PRICING. How to price your work by Jessica Hische and Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines book. (aff link)

Here is a couple of necessary tools in my art business

I've been working with all of them for at least 5 years, so it's a pinky-swear!

SHOPIFY. All the way!

I've been a Wordpress preacher (and a designer) for many years (est 2006, baby!). For a couple of years I run a membership website : "Website in a weekend" and I know it helped hundreds of people. I consider Wordpress a fantastic blogging platform.

But, even as a coder myself, I had to constantly tweak my theme, react to Wordpress (WP) changes and, in a result, I drank too much wine to numb my frustration :) Did you hear I was a coder? Still, an unhappy one....

One day, 20 minutes before launching my art collection, WP updated its security (wonky one, btw!) and screwed up my whole checkout page. More wine! NOT a solution.

I moved to Shopify on December 2017 and until today I praise the online Gods to guide me here. This e-commerce platform is worth every penny — when you start adding up cents and dollars that Wordpress kind of needs (plugin for this, plugin for that) then you know the real value of e-commerce like Shopify.

WHY? Security. Data! (did you know I can see you shopping on my website? :) Not the underwear, promise!) Speed. Easy-Peasy. Beautiful.

I'm a Shopify Partner who absolutely can't imagine not using it.

DROPBOX. A member since '06

Dropbox is a creative collaboration space designed to reduce busywork, bring your BIG artwork files together in one central place, and safely sync them across all your devices—so you can access them anytime, anywhere. And sending large files is easy, even to people who don’t have a Dropbox account.

When I started my first website, I signed up for Dropbox to store images and documents for easy access and sharing. Most importantly, Dropbox allows you for sharing links to folders or files on the fly. You could simply give access to the folders and collaborate on it with your favorite partner, client, if you wish. If you'd rather hide the location of the folders and link, all you have to do it send a link it. And it's all secured for you.

WHY? Security. Easiness in sharing files. Your stored mp3 or videos will pick up playing where you left off even after closing the app! Offline access.

I'm a Dropbox Partner user, almost an abuser!

BACKBLAZE. A devotee here!

Backblaze is a pioneer in robust, scalable low cost cloud backup and storage services. It's the best in its area of expertise of cloud of safety. Period.

Personally, I hardly ever store anything on my iMac or laptop. One day I show you how I weave a backup chain on all my devices (local files go to external drive, which goes to a bigger external drive, which goes to the cloud, which I can access from Poland or Russia!)And, I'm not going to lie, their pricing is a huge plus.

Never have I ever lost a file. The Cloud Grandpa hoards it all for me via Backblaze.

WHY? Security. Good sleep — no worries if your laptop blows up or you forget it while traveling to India. Attach unlimited devices < -- Yep!

I'm a Backblaze Partner — happy & relaxed.

GET YOUR 2 WEEKS FREE.

GET YOUR DROPBOX

GET YOUR BACKBLAZE