Keeping a record of your art
Marketing is a whole article in itself, but as a general rule, I split my time three ways. The first is research. This is the fun part. As a wildlife artist this means going to the wildlife. I’ve written many articles on travel so I won’t go into that but suffice to say, learn about your subject, don’t just copy a photograph. The second part is creating the art - that’s a given. The third is marketing. I would say you should spend at least as much time on marketing your art as you do in creating it, but that is for another time.
In this article I will concentrate on cataloguing, photographing and scanning your art.
Firstly, no matter what your level of development as an artist, it’s a good idea to get into the habit of photographing or scanning your work as you create it, thereby having lots of ‘Work In Progress’ (WIP) images. There are many reasons for this including: being able to look back and chart your progress; putting your work on the internet in forums where you can get critiques; and even writing magazine articles showing how you create your art. I create separate folders on my computer for each series of WIP
