hi guys Melanie here at vision city
design studio I want to thank you for
listening or watching today and in this
episode I want to talk to you all about
how to sell original artwork online now
for those of you who have never met me
or you don't know who I am again my name
is Melanie and I'm the founder of vision
city and I've been running my own design
service business for over 10 years now
about five years into that process I
also introduced art products which I
sell on Etsy I personally sell
black-and-white illustrations that I
have printed on beautiful papers that
I've been selling to customers all over
the world
now one of the things that have happened
in the process is I've also had the
opportunity to get licensing deals and
wholesale deals so as of now I've had
the opportunity to sell in wayfair.com
walmart.com Ross I've sold in Land of
Nod in their stores across North America
and I've also had wonderful
opportunities to be featured in a
variety of live events like trade shows
and craft fairs and I find that I've
learned a lot of different things in a
whole bunch of different ways and so
that's really why nowadays what I do is
I also teach artists who also want to
sell their art online and I teach them
through things like this through this
video or audio podcast I also teach
through webinar and I have a whole bunch
of awesome courses as well but in this
specific video I want to talk to you
specifically about how to sell your
original artwork to customers all around
the world
now when I say original artwork what I'm
talking about are things that are really
one-of-a-kind so maybe you are a painter
or maybe you do hand lettering on wood
or maybe you paint you know watercolors
on canvas whatever it might be if it's
an original piece that you want to sell
a lot of times people are nervous how do
I do that online you know maybe you're
familiar with people selling their
prints or their greeting cards or other
things that they might make but you
might think but can people do that
online if it's actually an original
piece of art and I just want to say to
you yes you absolutely can and that's
why I want to make sure to really focus
on this too
because a lot of people ask me this
question over my webinar or on my
Facebook group which is called the Etsy
artist dream team by the way if you want
to check that out
so you can actually join my webinar at
vision city dot biz forward slash sell
your art webinar so the first things
first one of the number one things you
need to do when selling original artwork
is to properly photograph it now I know
this seems like an obvious thing but
this might be a the one thing that's
causing people to stumble or to shy away
a lot of people might say yeah but I
don't know how to take photos properly
of art and I'm hoping that I can share a
few tips with you right now
so first things first whenever you're
photographing any artwork you want to
make sure you're using natural daylight
okay now if you're watching this video
I'm literally in a room right now in my
office where I have natural daylight I
have daylight coming in through windows
however above me there's obviously a
roof right and so that's the kind of
lighting you want to use when you're
photographing your own original artwork
I would suggest doing it indoors however
you could also do this in an opened door
garage or another area however you could
also deal with like wind and things like
that so that could actually become a bit
tricky but if you're just photographing
inside of a room like this one I've got
different windows opened but my lighting
over me is even and so for my purposes
right now giving this video or audio if
those of you listening over to the
podcast
there's really even light okay I don't
have any lights on me I don't have any
flashes going off it's just even
lighting that's the kind of light you're
gonna really aim for okay so that's
number one when it comes to photography
number two a lot of people say well I
don't have a professional camera well I
want to let you know that nowadays the
smartphones that we are using a lot of
times they're good enough quality you
basically want to make sure that the
photos that you're taking are going to
be able to be viewed clearly if somebody
zooms in so say if somebody's looking at
your your artwork on their phone you
want them to be able to zoom in to your
artwork to see the quality and the
detail
so as long as you're able to offer that
and depending on where you're selling
online the dimensions may change so
you're gonna want to find out and that's
brings me to my second point which I
won't go there yet but depending on
where you're selling online they may
have different dimensions requirements
for the actual photographs that you're
submitting of your pieces so you're
gonna want to know what those are so
that you can make sure you can produce
that with whatever camera are using now
for those of you who are comfortable
with a digital SLR or a nice you know
professional camera then hey go for it
absolutely use that you're gonna want to
photograph your artwork straight on
basically as though you and your camera
lens are central and your artwork is
straight on that artwork is not tilted
up or down it is as 90 degrees as
humanly possible and you're gonna want
to just align your your-your-your
camera's viewfinder in a way so that
everything's squared on I know this is a
bit challenging but that's the way I
would suggest to do it if it's got a
slight tilt to it I don't think it's
gonna be a huge deal but that's just
something to be aware of if you're
selling a canvas piece then obviously
you're gonna be just using the canvas
maybe you can lean against a wall you
can hang it on a wall on a nail if you
want I would just really suggest keeping
the surrounding areas fairly simplified
maybe having it on a mantle maybe you
could have like a little candle or
something beside it for props I do that
sometimes but I would keep the actual
photograph fairly simple and clean so
that people can really focus on your
artwork and if you are selling say
something that can be framed then I
would suggest that you frame it always
remove glass from frames when you're
photographing things I know it sounds
like oh yeah I've never even thought
about that right it's one of those
things you don't ly think about it until
you're actually doing it but glass is
going to create all kinds of glares that
are going to distract people from your
beautiful artwork so you're gonna want
to just take the glass out pop your art
into the frame and then you're ready to
go so I hope that gives you guys some
ideas when it comes to photographing
your
art in original form obviously be very
careful with it and this is the one
piece that you're selling of this thing
so you're gonna want to make sure that
it's ready to go
okay so let's go on to the next thing
here the next thing on my list when it
comes to selling original art would be
choosing your online selling platform
now there are so many different selling
platforms nowadays you know I began
selling on Etsy I also have expanded to
selling on Shopify which I love you
could sell on Amazon on eBay on all
kinds of different platforms you can
also sell on your own personal website
and there's pros and cons to all of
those one of the pros to selling on a
platform that's already established is
that a lot of times they may have a
built in audience for example on Etsy
they have a whole bunch of people you
know millions people that are already
there shopping and so as you are adding
to that community then you're going to
be kind of organically discovered yes
you do need to still really work hard to
get yourself get awareness of your
actual art through the Etsy system which
I talk about in my courses and all kinds
of different webinars and things however
it's also something to think about
though do you want to be in a place
where there's already a community of
buyers or do you want to really more
establish your own online selling
platform on your website which is
totally cool as well it just means
you're gonna have to do a little bit
more work when it comes to marketing so
that you're not off alone on the
internet in the little corner of the
internet alone okay you don't want to be
have this beautiful website that
nobody's coming to so it just means you
have to work that much harder to get
people to come to your website in order
to go ahead and see the products that
you're offering to buy them now you can
do that a lot of that through online
marketing through social media is
obviously a great great way to bring
awareness to everything that you're
offering Pinterest is awesome
so those are different ways you can do
that but I talked a lot about that in my
other courses in webinars so I won't go
too much into that at this point now the
third thing you're gonna want to think
about is your descriptions as you're
writing descriptions for an original art
piece you're going to want to really
highlight the fact that this is an
original it's a one of a
find there's never gonna be another one
of these you're also gonna want to
highlight the materials you have used
the different types of materials may be
different materials or papers or
canvases may be you hand stretched it
yourself you know you're gonna want to
really highlight how how much how much
value is in this one piece okay so your
description is going to be very very
important when it comes to selling an
original piece of art you obviously the
number one thing you're highlighting is
the fact that this is an original art
piece and so that will just drive the
value up through the roof because
there's never going to be another one of
these originals and so that is something
that's very important obviously in your
description you also want to bring in a
lot of other things that are important
like key words things that are finding
words that are associated with what
you're selling so things that people are
already going to be typing in you're
gonna want to add all those words in
your descriptions but that goes more
into SEO topics so I will leave that as
is for now the next thing you want to
think about is price okay so as I just
mentioned there is so much value in an
original art piece okay you're gonna
want to be unashamed and unabashed about
actually selling this art piece at a
high price now when you're creating an
original art piece you are aware of how
much time and energy and you know
creativity goes into that one piece if
you're selling that one piece and it's
no longer going to be in your possession
you have to be willing to price that
higher obviously than you would if
you're selling prints so I would suggest
research research research find out what
other people are doing and selling their
art pieces for maybe the same sizing the
same materials the same genres maybe the
same themes to the same customer type so
maybe you are wanting to do art pieces
that are music themed for example and
maybe there's a certain crowd of people
that are really into that style and if
that's the case you're gonna want to
really research what are those customers
willing to spend what are they already
spending so that you're not going to
praise way too high or way too low
obviously you're gonna really also price
based on quality so the quality of the
actual art piece the materials paper is
the paints all the different things
you're using so that you know you're
selling a high quality piece you're
gonna want to sell for a higher price
again when you're pricing an original
you have to always have in mind yes you
want to sell so you don't want it to be
like outrageously priced but also number
two you want it to be sold well and to
sell it once so that you're not when
it's gone it's gone it's my point okay
another option when it comes to selling
your original artwork is also to sell
prints now I know people have mixed
feelings about this and I've had people
ask me about this over webinars and I've
offered this suggestion and it really
helped them so I wanted to be sure to
mention this idea maybe you're selling
original watercolor paintings and you
sell those for you know a couple hundred
dollars each but maybe people that love
your style they don't have that price
they don't have that much money to spend
on one piece to hang in their home maybe
they only have you know $30 or $40 so
what you can also do is you can also
create prints as well so maybe you make
a limited edition or supply of prints
from each of your original pieces so
maybe again let's let's say we do
watercolors on beautiful watercolor
paper and those sell for a few hundred
dollars each and I want to also sell
prints what I would do is I would
digitize that original piece now for
those of you who want to know how to
digitize original artwork I have a whole
video all about that so I won't go all
into that again or I also have a podcast
you're listening to this on podcast but
you can listen to that it's on the art
business podcast or it's here on my
youtube channel but it's all about how
to digitize original art I suggest that
you watch that because if you digitize
your original art you bring it in to
your computer then you can you know crop
it maybe edit it if need be and get it
sized for prints
and that way maybe you are doing art
fairs and craft markets for example in
person and you might have some of your
originals there but maybe the people at
that fair you know that maybe the
budgets may be a bit lower and they may
not have you know $300 for example to
spend on one piece maybe they only have
30 to 40 dollars okay so you can offer
people different price points so that
you're really serving more than just one
group or dynamic of customer so this is
something that I find is really helpful
and I don't do personally original
artwork per se
obviously everything I do is my own
however I sell prints but if I did do
you know paintings and originals
I would definitely also offer a print of
that maybe you can also do say numbered
and signed versions of the prints and
that might even increase the value even
more so say you have a very limited
supply maybe only 20 or 15 of each
painting for example and then that way
you can sign them a number of them and
they could still be have a lot of value
to the customer especially if you
already have safe following on Instagram
or Pinterest and you're developing a
really good following of people and this
could be a really good suggestion for
you guys so I hope that you've enjoyed
this episode on how to sell original
artwork online I hope it's really serves
you guys and for those of you who have
not ever watched my webinar I want to
encourage you to check it out vision
city dot biz forward slash sell your art
webinar thanks again guys I'll see you
next time