Mailing List Grows, A step by Step Painting,My favorite Green Beans

I have noticed that my mailing list is growing quite a bit this year. This is always a good thing. I have around 500 names currently on it. This is an area of marketing that many artists overlook. A real mistake. An active mailing list is gold, pure gold!! When you think about it, these are the people in the world who are actually interested in what you do. Many of them are patrons and the rest are people who care enough about you to want to hear from you.

I use mine in a variety of ways. I often use it regionally. Let's say I have a paint out in the Orlando area. I will scroll through and make post cards for the folks who live in the greater Orlando area about the upcoming paint out. I'll tell them where it is and how to find me there, mentioning the opening and so forth. I will use an image of a painting I have done in that area. I do this for the Wekiva River paint out each year. The same for any other event or opening in other parts of the South. I rarely have to send out a postcard for the entire list. That would be very expensive. By using it selectively throughout the year, I am able to keep in touch with most of the people on my list. For general news I will rotate through the list quarterly, a fourth of the list in January, another group in March, another section in June and then the last in November.

I keep my list on a spread sheet on excel. It is very easy and I can make notes about when an individual was contacted last and for what event. It is a very efficient system for me. I know every artist has their own method.

I also have a spread sheet for those patrons who purchase and support me regularly. I like to send them new images fairly frequently because they are very interested in my work. I use this list to send nice little extras too, like tickets to charity auctions and miniature paintings. They deserve these little perks. After all, they are the people who put food on my table :>)

If you don't have a mailing list start one immediately. My research tells me that direct mail is still the best bang for your buck in reaching patrons. Do not depend on email for all your marketing. In fact, the more people are bombarded by email marketing, the less they are inclined to read it. I actually do less email marketing than I used to.

I am constantly receiving the html emails from other artists about their stuff and I rarely even read through them all the way. Yes, I could unsubscribe, but I don't want to miss something of importance from them. What I am suggesting here is that we need to be more selective about what we send out and when. We don't need to hear every week about the new coffee mug design available at Cafe Press and so forth. A once every three months announcement about the artist's store would be appropriate. Better yet, put it on the web site or blog in a link or widget so those who are interested will go there to browse. One artist last week sent me no less than four different announcements about her book and then four or five more announcements about her workshops. It was overwhelming and annoying to say the least. If I want someone to see it, I send it via USPS. They are more likely to read it, saving the pretty pictures to put on the refrigerator :>)

For workshop announcements I like to put them on art forums, blogs, my web site and bulletin boards. This reaches a wide audience and does not clog up individual mailboxes all day long. My rule of thumb is that if the message is not worth sending out by postcard via USPS, then it is probably not worth sending via email. If I am going to send out a post card, I will definitely include my message via email too.

On of the best emails I have received was from my friend Aliye Cullu HERE. She has sidewalk sales for her art at various locations in Gainesville. She sends out an email about the sale and offers the sale items on her web site so that people can purchase the work there without waiting to go to the sale. Very clever and an easy way to build twice the business for the sale.

Use your mailing list often and effectively without annoying people and you will reap the rewards.

A Step by Step painting Demo

A painter asked me to show a step by step process for my mixed media paintings. Some of you may remember them from last summer. At that time I used casein as the under painting but I was never satisfied with the fact that casein does not varnish well. Now I am experimenting with gouache and it seems to be working really well.



Cattle Ranch
12x16 inches
gouache over painted with transparent oils

Stage 1

This was the initial block in. I will skip a couple of stages to show you the finished gouache painting.



Stage 2

Finished gouache session




Stage 3

Oil glazes going on. Modifications will need to be made in color and intensity.




Final Painting


Today's Recipe:


Easy Green Beans

Beans with the ends removed left whole, or snapped. I leave mine whole.
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 small slice of smoked ham ( deli style sliced ham is fine) About 1 or 2 ounces chopped finely
1/2 small onion finely diced, or a few dried onion flakes
salt/cracked black pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in a pan on the stove. Cover with a lid and steam until beans are just tender and still bright green.

Delish!!