There’s more art online than ever. . .
But increasingly, it’s harder to find good art, by good artists!
That’s because the online art market is an ever-growing collection of pay-to-play internet galleries, art website providers, artist co-ops, free websites (with ads, of course), and countless social networking apps claiming to help artists find buyers.
Every other week it seems like some new service is appearing, with a new gimmick for how to sell art online.
When EmptyEasel first started, almost none of that existed.
At the time, there were a few art blogs, a few social networks, and a few art website hosts. That’s it! Based on my own experience blogging, I knew that any artist with a passion for writing about art could make it as a successful artist online—all you needed was a blog. Which brings me to:
Foliotwist artist websites
I spent a few years researching, and ended up building Foliotwist with my good friend and fellow web designer, Zac. We were (I believe) the first company to integrate a blog with a portfolio website for artists.
Our goal was to make it easier for artists to create blog posts, upload artwork, and manage their entire online presence in one place. Plus, when a visitor finds your blog, they also find your art—and can purchase it instantly—which was a much better solution than nearly anything else that existed at that time.
Blogging is still a powerful way to reach buyers, and Foliotwist is still going strong. If you’re an artist who wants a blog and a website combined, I recommend trying one of our websites for artists along with any other service you’re considering.
But what if you don’t want to blog? What if you don’t even want to manage your own website, but you’d like to get your art in front of buyers outside your local art scene?
Introducing Artwork Reveal
Artwork Reveal is a grassroots art discovery and sharing service I launched early in 2015. Every month I collaborate with 15-30 artists to send out a new email issue of their latest works. Subscribers to Artwork Reveal get to see recent artwork by their favorite artists right in their inbox, and the participating artists get more exposure for their newest work.
It’s a win-win for artists and buyers, and best of all, it’s free. Not every artist can be included at this time, because we don’t want to flood our subscribers with unlimited amounts of art. (The only artists guaranteed to be in every issue are Foliotwist PRO members.)
However, as we grow this service, we’ll be splitting subscribers into different groups, and sending each group the type of artwork those subscribers are most interested in. At that point, we’ll be able to add more and more artists to Artwork Reveal.
I encourage you to to join Artwork Reveal for yourself, see how it works, and then submit your artwork during one of our quarterly calls for art.
And there’s more to come!
As we continue building more services for artists (and we are!) I’ll be sure to add them here. You can also stay up-to-date with the the EmptyEasel newsletter—sign up today to get the latest news and articles right in your inbox every Sunday.