Texas Wax Website

Artist and web guru extraordinaire Haley Nagy and I have just completed the design of a new website and blog for all members and fans of Texas Wax, a regional encaustic painting society dedicated to promoting the ancient art of painting with wax.

Haley and I have been members of Texas Wax since the Austin group began in the spring of 2008.  Texas Wax is composed of active encaustic organizations in four Texas cities: Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.  As the four groups have grown and evolved over the past year+, we realized the groups had a need for a central website and blog to showcase all of our work, and to communicate with each other and with our fans.

Haley and I created the site in WordPress from a visual design that I created.  The underlying theme is based on the same theme I used for my fine art website and blog (a theme I created from bits and pieces of many other themes): Marilyn Fenn Studio.

The website features the usual stuff, but we also wanted to give all the artist members of Texas Wax the option of creating and updating their own profiles and gallery pages.  We modified the author page template with the help of several plug-ins (and some blood, sweat, and tears from yours truly), creating an artist directory that pulls their profile information into the author template/artist biography page. There’s also a link to their own gallery page.

We’ve included an events manager that will allow the regional chapter leaders to add events for their regions, and that will automatically move events from “Upcoming” to “Today’s Events” to “Archived” pages as the dates pass.  Featured on the sidebar are a dynamic Upcoming Events list and a rotating gallery of member artwork.

Member artists can add their voices to the blog and talk amongst themselves on a private member discussion list.

Fans of Texas Wax art and artists can sign up to receive blog posts as they are posted, and can sign up for mailing lists for the individual regions or for all of the chapters statewide.  We’ve also provided various contact forms.

Take a look at the brand-spanking new Texas Wax website, while we continue getting our artist members online (which is somewhat harder than herding cats!).

I am thrilled to announce the launch of my completely redesigned artist portfolio website, now including my two previous Art Blogs.  On this site, you will find:

Stuff about me:

• My portfolio of paintings
• Artist information, including statement, bio, and resume
• News, event calendar, newsletter sign-up links, and news archives
• Contact information
• Blog posts about my art openings and events, such as last fall’s Fused Expressions opening
• Posts of my new work, often before I add it to the gallery pages

Stuff not about me:

• Blog posts about museum and galley exhibits, such as “Duchamp Redux” at the Norton Simon Museum
• Information about other artists, both famous and not-yet famous, such as this look at Earthworks Artists and Their Descendents
• Class notes from art school and art classes, such as Start Where You Are – Move On from There from Advanced Drawing with Barbara Rossi at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
• How-to’s and Reviews, such as this review from a series on free online artist portfolio sites
• Interactive Color Exercises – very popular with art schools and artists – try it, it’s fun!
• Quotes on art and much, much more…

Head on over to Marilyn Fenn Studio and have a look around, and then I’d love to hear your reactions.  You can comment below or fill out this very brief survey.

Cross-posted at Marilyn Fenn Studio.

Part Five of a Ten-Part Series on Free Online Artist Portfolios: FineArtAmerica.

Today I will be reviewing the 1st of six of the free online portfolio sites that I have to sign up for.  So follow me through the process.

As I look at the next site on my list, FineArtAmerica, I do feel a bit daunted.  This is one of those online sites where you can not only show your art, but also sell high-resolution prints of your work, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. The first thing I noticed was a map of my state and “Your current location” with my city listed (how did they know?).  Further down the home page, there is an artist spotlight featuring the work of artists from my hometown.  Nice.

They seem to have a lot to offer besides the ability to show your work and sell prints of it.  They have good search tools for finding artwork and artists; a page of brick and mortar galleries located in my area, and more pages of galleries located successively further and further out.  The list doesn’t seem quite complete or accurate, though, so I assume it’s made by people who submit their own info (some important local galleries are missing from the list, and some things that are listed as galleries are mere one-person shops).  They also have a nice events calendar, so I can see that may be useful tool.

They have jobs listings, community links, news, and a tour of their site, which I highly recommend, as it more extensive and more interesting than what I can cover here.  My first impression is that even though the site looks packed with information, art and options, it’s well designed and well-thought out, so I’m intrigued.

They offer two levels of artist portfolios; a free one which does NOT include the print-on-demand feature; or for $30.00 a year, the level with print-on-demand, which actually looks like a great deal, if one is ready for that.  I’m going with the free one for now.

OK, so the Terms of  Use are acceptable; perhaps even better than average.  Adding my artist info was easy, except that I seemed to run out of room for my full bio, statement, and resume upon initial sign-up; though after I was given a password and logged back in, I was able to add the remainder of my info.

Uploading the first piece of art plus info was also easy, and each art piece has it’s own webpage (it’s own link), with places to: recommend, post a comment, add to favorites, submit to Stumble Upon, and share on Facebook. The viewer can also “Add This Artwork to Your Favorites Collection,” and “Add This Artist to Your Watch List.”

Besides including the usual (art, title, medium, dimensions, and price), you can add a description and tags.  Dominant colors and a URL link to the piece are auto-generated.  Very nice.  They also add little boxes onto your piece (on rollover) that the viewer can click to see a small portion of your painting at full-resolution (with a ghosted watermark).  This is a great feature that I will very much appreciate if and when I decide to offer prints for sale.  At present, the resolution  of my online images is too low to print from or to see any more detail.

Like most online portfolio sites, the first piece of artwork shown is the last piece added, but the cool thing is, you can change the position in which they are shown.  Oh, yah!  Plus, they allow you to show up to 100 pieces!  Pretty generous.

You can also add upcoming events to their calendar, view events by location, date, etc., view how many people have looked at your comments, and read comments they’ve left  for you.  While I was uploading my art, almost all of it got viewed by quite a few people , and I already received a nice comment.

Now this may be the coolest thing of all: you can set up your own mailing list right online through them, and mail HTML newsletters to everyone on your list; the newsletters will come through your email address, and you can see who opened them.  I think I will try it out.

FineArtAmerica was designed by artists for artists, and it shows.  They have quickly moved to the top of my list of free online portfolios.  I’m truly wowed!  I suggest you run, don’t walk, over to FineArtAmerica and set up your portfolio.

***It’s been several days since I signed up with FineArtAmerica.  I still love it.  On day2, I was a featured artist on the home page for the Austin area; a number of people have commented on my works there, and I have commented on a number of other artists’ works.  It’s a very friendly community.

Next: Check back next week as I sign up for and review Artist-Listing.

Part Four of a Ten-Part Series on Free Online Artist Portfolios: MyArtSpace.

My Profile Page

I’m back, finally!

I signed up with MyArtSpace in 2006 or 2007.  It’s a lovely space, with a very professional look.  I’m probably more fond of MyArtSpace than I should be, because it’s really buggy.  I’m only today finding out just how buggy it is!  For instance, I can’t login to it through my usual browser (Firefox, probably because I have AdBlock and Flash Block turned on) — but whatever the reason is, the “submit” button is missing from the login section of the page on my browser in FF, and I can’t find an alternative location to login from, so I’m having to use an alternative browser.

Even worse than that, however, is that when I go to view my art in different browsers, it may or may not show up!  First I couldn’t view my own gallery if I was logged in using Opera 9, Google Chrome, and IE 7, but I can’t view my galleries in Safari for Windows whether I’m logged in or not.   That’s not good.

And let me just go ahead and get my final complaint out of the way: MyArtSpace allows artists to add music to their gallery pages.  In my humble opinion, this is a bad idea.  It has nothing to do with viewing art, and the last thing I want when I go to any webpage is for somebody’s else’s choice of music to start auto-playing over the music I’m already listening to, so I will click away faster than you can say “lickety-split.”  Your mileage may vary, but artists — beware; just because you can add something to your web page, doesn’t mean you should.  This is most true for sound and animation — unless you’re a musician or an animator, and even then, you probably want to allow viewers to turn it on; or at least turn it off, but by no means should you offer your viewers no choice — unless you want to lose potential viewers. </off soapbox>

Enough with the complaints; let’s get to the heart of the matter — creating your own gallery.  As with most online portfolios, it’s a good idea to keep your resume, statement and bio in a plain text format, such as in Notepad, and then copy and paste from that into the appropriate little boxes provided for such information.  The little info boxes on MyArtSpace are quite small, so be sure to check that your information got inserted correctly — that your desired content is all there and that undesired line breaks didn’t get inserted.

Account page

Uploading your images to the galleries can be a little more complicated on MyArtSpace than on some other online portfolios; first you need to upload the images, then organize them into portfolios, and then from the portfolios, create your galleries.  Luckily they provide a good tutorial, helpful graphics and a wizard to make things even easier.  In fact, you probably want to use the wizard to upload your work the first time  — or anytime you plan to upload several pieces into a new gallery.

After they’ve been uploaded, your images will be contained in an image library, where you can go to add new work, and edit or make some detailed adjustments to existing work (such as adding a watermark and making the images printable, zoomable, downloadable, and emailable).   Just go to “Edit and Organize My Art.”

In either the wizard or the standard library view, there’s a nifty tag cloud for adding tags chosen from a list.  I used to be able to add my own tags (such as “encaustic,” which is not an option you can choose from), but now attempting to add my own tag just hangs up the browser.

The portfolios are for organizing bodies of work, and you can add a description for each portfolio, choose which piece represents which portfolio and add new pieces to each portfolio.

Finally, the gallery page is where your work gets publicly displayed.  They are displays of your artwork in a Flash-based page; one page per each gallery.  Any image that is not in a portfolio cannot be added to a gallery.  Each gallery contains thumbnails and a large image slideshow, with information for each image.  Here’s where the music would play, if you added it.  Here’s where I would click away from your work, if music plays.  Just sayin.’

One of My Gallery Pages

I haven’t found a way to re-order the order in which your images are displayed, and it seems they are displayed with latest added shown first.  Just keep that in mind as you build your galleries.  Start with the one you want on the left first.

MyArtSpace also offers an online store, but it costs, with various options and price points.  I haven’t added it, as I have my own website.

As with most other online portfolio sites, the artwork on the front page is displayed by most recently added, which quickly falls off the front page.  I added a few things in the past hour or two, and they are now on pages 2 and 3, and I’m sure they will be buried deep by the time I publish this story.  (Amendment: the front page does not show the most recent work, but featured content; however, you can search for “Most Recent” artists, galleries or images.  Several hours after my initial post of this story, my images are on pages 9 & 10, and my latest Gallery addition is on page 4 of “Most Recent” under “Galleries”  For what it’s worth).

My two favorite things about MyArtSpace are the quality of articles about artists (as well as the quality of artists showing there), and the opportunities for community with other artists.  I have met quite a few artists online through MyArtSpace.  You can “friend” other artists, and send them emails when you add new work or have an opening.

They also offer what seem to be some high quality art contests with great opportunities to show your work.

Overall, I view MyArtSpace as an attractive (if flawed) space to show your work, but more importantly, it’s a great place to connect with other artists –  if you use it to it’s fullest potential — and a great place to see and read about some very cutting edge work.  Worth the effort, I think….

Next review: join me in a few a days as I sign up for FineArtAmerica.  (Subscribe to my new posts in the Subscribe box on the right to receive the review when it is published).

Part Three of a Ten-Part Series on Free Online Artist Portfolios.

I signed up with Saatchi Online almost as soon as they started offering free online portfolios in 2006.  At the time, they offered “your own page which you can update as much as you wish. You can post up to eight images…and there is no fee, we have created this to assist artists in raising their profiles.”  OK!  Sounds good.  Where do I sign up?  (here: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/register/)

The Saatchi Online site is a very nice looking site, though I find the little boxes of links surrounding both sides of the main content column a bit overwhelming as a navigation method, and the page can be ridiculously long (see my page at right >).  There are some main navigation links at the top of every page, though I am not sure if those links include everything you can find on their site.  Luckily, they’ve included a very extensive site map.

They have a lot to offer; besides information on the physical Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea, they offer online chat, forums, and critiques; calls to entry, grants and funding; information on art fairs; links to art schools, dealers, galleries, and museums; a daily online magazine, blogs, and news; sections for under 17 students; and — perhaps one of the more interesting perks they offer — a “showdown,” where you can submit your work to be voted on by viewers in competition with other artists.

Over time, they have made a number of improvements to the portfolio pages, including increasing the number of images you can add — it appears to be 25 at present.  They do limit the size of your images to 500 pixels wide and under 2mb, but I find that is generous enough (and larger than they allowed formerly).  They also added an online salesroom, where you can offer your work for sale.  They take no commission and charge no fees for this service; the sales agreement is between artist and buyer.

Creating or updating your own gallery information on the site is quite easy; again, just copy and paste your plain text resume, artists statement, bio, etc. into the appropriate boxes.  There’s also a place for your photo, your email address, a link to your own website, and future shows.  Uploading new images is also very easy, and some of the fields “remember” what you typed into those fields previously, making it even easier.

They do request that you post the sizes of your images in centimeters, which is easy enough using an online conversion calculator (for those of us not thoroughly versed in the metric system). You might want to include the size in feet and inches in the description section, though, for those who don’t visualize in centimeters.

I did have a few technical issues when uploading new work today, which hopefully, they will fix soon.

I also wish they would give the artist some way of setting the order that the pieces appear on your page, especially since each piece is shown rather large, and in vertical succession; it appears that the piece shown at the top of your page will be the first one you uploaded (so potentially your oldest piece) — which is exactly the opposite of how I would order them.  As it is, the only way to fix that is start over every time you refresh your portfolio there.

Now for a few words on the Salesroom — this is the area where you can sell your artwork online — it is a totally different page from your portfolio page.  Unless I’m missing something, there is no direct link from your online gallery to your salesroom (and vice-versa, unless you are logged out), so you have to click on a link in the top drop down navigation to go to the Salesroom, then look yourself up.

Once there, though, it very easy to add your pieces to your Salesroom: with one click, you can add one of your portfolio pieces to the Sales page, and with one more click add the price, and then repeat the process for all your pieces.   One curiosity I discovered is that I was able to upload more than 25 pieces to the Salesroom, though only 25 pieces will show up on your portfolio page.

How your work in the Salesroom is displayed to viewers is disappointing.  One image is served up at a time, and while the “next image” will be yours, it is served up randomly, which means anyone viewing your Salesroom may not see all your work — unless they are obsessively patient — and they may see the same piece over and over again, giving you no control over what they will see or in what order.

Saatchi Online may be another good place to get more eyes on your work, but they show all work randomly, and the only way I’ve been able to find my own work on there is through a direct link or doing a search on my name.  So I do have to wonder how many other eyes have actually landed on my art.  There is certainly a lot of interesting information available to artists on the Saatchi Online site, which probably makes it worth your while to check out — and I have had requests for information on at least one of my pieces through them; maybe I’ll get more now that I’ve refreshed my pages.

The bottom line, however — I would not choose this site as my one and only online portfolio site.  It may be a nice addition to your own personal website or another free online portfolio, and then again, it may not even be worth your time setting it up.  I kind of hate to say this, because there’s much to like about the site, but the limited ways that your work may be found seem to really limit the number of viewers who will get introduced to your work on their site.

Tomorrow: MyArtSpace