tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377424552008-04-25T08:42:23.728-05:00AislingBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-9330545658739920212008-04-25T08:34:00.002-05:002008-04-25T08:42:23.888-05:00

This past week has taught me a lot about business. I'm realizing the importance of branding, especially online, and what a mistake it was for me to split up my articles into topics. Well, no, let me rephrase that: The mistake was creating the smaller, topic-focused websites that don't very clearly reinforce their connection with me. Now is not the time to overhaul what I'm doing as Aisling

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-86318035706602323482008-04-21T15:47:00.002-05:002008-04-21T16:05:24.361-05:00

Three things are going on right now -- an ebook, a website relaunch, and a move -- and they're all connected. We're moving from Texas to coastal New England next week. This is a 'leap of faith' move, and we're heading out with excitement... but some anxiety, too. I don't like to ask for help, but this is a time when I need it. That's why I've written an ebook, Sites that Soar! It's also

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-10555337861488867372008-04-11T07:49:00.002-05:002008-04-11T08:04:01.644-05:00

As you know, I'm very interested in marketing art. That's why I created my other website, The Business of Art. This morning, I read a great article posted by Barbra Sundquist, called How to Sell Art: The Artist's Guide to Marketing. It's written by Alice Parmalee Rich, who has posted several interesting, business-related articles at her website, as well. I'm thrilled that artists and home

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-65383478845110946312008-04-09T10:11:00.002-05:002008-04-09T10:16:46.693-05:00

My friend Erin (dindrane at LiveJournal) is amazing. She finds the most interesting websites! This morning, she sent me a link to Blessing Bird, to see some fabulous and simple shrines and assemblages. What impressed me the most is the ambiance at that website. It really conveys to me the sacred nature of her shrines. I like that.

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-25942762010003683422008-04-08T08:50:00.004-05:002008-04-08T09:16:09.057-05:00

If you're selling your crafts through eBay, Etsy, and so on, here's a really useful article to help you take better photos. Photojojo - Shoot to Sell: Taking better photos for eBay, Etsy and Instructables I also highly recommend the book,Photographing Arts, Crafts & Collectibles: Take Great Digital Photos for Portfolios, Documentation, or Selling on the Web. Every artist selling online (or

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-35347672513894898942008-04-06T10:27:00.002-05:002008-04-06T10:41:15.511-05:00

These have been huge projects, and I'm running about two weeks late with everything else... but the results have been worth the stress. First, if you've been waiting for me to create the affiliate programs for Sites that Soar!, they're ready. I'm working with E-Junkie and Clickbank. You can earn $6 for every copy of Sites that Soar! that sells to someone you refer to my book (with a discreet

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-29561224567122890122008-03-30T10:52:00.003-05:002008-04-01T10:25:10.683-05:00

If you've wondered whether my Sites that Soar! recommendations work with WordPress 2.5 (the newest WordPress version), the answer is: Yes, they do... in most cases. My Business of Art website is already on WordPress 2.5 and everything looks okay to me, so far. Note: The Cafe Press banner glitch was not a WordPress issue. Cafe Press just shifted their banners with their affiliate program, to

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-34266147962916799492008-03-27T18:24:00.004-05:002008-04-01T10:28:11.894-05:00

Whew! Many people asked me how I transformed my Business of Art website into... well, what it looks like now. So, I wrote a book about it. Okay, the book started as notes to myself, so I wouldn't forget the steps that make the process easy. After all, I'm planning to switch all of my websites to a magazine-style design. Then I realized that this book could help others, especially artists

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-73484166566247403902008-03-14T08:17:00.002-05:002008-03-14T08:23:00.739-05:00

Several people have asked me when I'll change Aisling.net to a format similar to The Business of Art (Arts-Careers.com). I'm so pleased that you're excited about the new, searchable website design! I'm working on Aisling.net, right now, but it probably won't be completed (and launched) until after we move at the end of April. Our move--over 1500 miles--is a big project, but so is

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-8615097693015725752008-03-12T09:33:00.003-05:002008-03-14T08:15:16.580-05:00

Whew! I've totally transformed my website, The Business of Art (Arts-Careers.com) with a new site design. That new design makes it vastly easier to add new articles as they occur to me. So, I've written two new articles this morning. One is about teaching art, and the other adds more tips if--like me--you're converting a website to a WordPress-based content management system. (If you want to

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-89237206809674212982008-03-07T09:06:00.007-06:002008-03-07T10:27:35.353-06:00

First, some geekspeak: PHP is a foreign language for me. I know just enough CSS to be dangerous, but generally sort things out so my websites look okay. So, I feel victorious that I was finally able to place some images in my posts at Arts-Careers.com. In WordPress, it took me forever to understand Custom Fields, and then to find the correct keys and value URLs to fit the Branford Magazine

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-69215144278669967852008-03-06T10:47:00.008-06:002008-03-06T13:01:12.762-06:00

Whew! I've just copied all of the articles at Arts-Careers.com into a new format. I'm using a magazine-style template as a Content Management System (CMS), and it's all based on WordPress. Right now, there are still a few glitches. For examples, the articles aren't illustrated yet. (That's a code issue, and I need to resize some graphics, too.) Some of the links aren't current, and a few

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-74456894532185266242008-02-13T08:09:00.002-06:002008-02-13T08:12:55.356-06:00

This morning, I was doing some research and--by sheer illogic and luck--landed at Jason Miller's website, www.millerstudio.us. His work is witty, tremendously original, and fun. I especially like the simple delight of it. Go look. Before you leave his homepage, run your cursor over the picture and see his comments. Then, click on 'Projects' to see some of his clever art in a variety of media.

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-77453287347409372402008-02-10T11:13:00.000-06:002008-02-10T11:35:27.117-06:00

I'm musing and building an article for the next issue of Astarte's Mega-Zine (use that link for a free issue). The theme is "interior journey," and I'm thinking about the process by which we create unique original art. Sir James Dyson, the inventor best known for his successful vacuum cleaner design, talked about the creative process in the May 2007 issue of Fast Company. He said: "We're

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-49918888351853636692008-02-05T12:25:00.000-06:002008-02-05T12:33:48.145-06:00

Pierre Auguste Renoir, the Impressionist painter, said many great things about art. Here's one that really resonates for me: "Shall I tell you what I think are the two qualities of art? It must be indescribable and inimitable... The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passions; it is the current which he puts

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-25979901403124281592008-01-30T09:59:00.000-06:002008-01-30T10:24:38.432-06:00

For awhile now, I've been working on getting my life organized and back on the fine art track. It's a lot like decluttering: It's taken longer than I expected to see results. This morning, I got up and immediately painted a quick, plein air oil sketch of the sunrise. That's the 8" x 10" sketch, at left. In real life, it's vastly prettier, because the colors are more blended and there are far

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-27533467939478334312008-01-26T09:36:00.001-06:002008-01-26T11:24:06.099-06:00

I'm amazed at how much I've learned in the past week. I've been reading about several art styles, including Luminism and Tonalism. In the process, I began to understand how I can create better art while continuing my plein air studies, and working with photographs for studio reference. Above all, I'm realizing the importance of working with memories to create original art that captures the

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-58698140439266077352008-01-24T07:42:00.000-06:002008-01-24T07:54:06.989-06:00

If you're a working artist (or someone with a home-based business), a town in northwestern PA is ready to help you move into a wonderful old home there... 100% financed plus money to fix up the house. There are gorgeous old Victorian homes in Oil City for less than $50k. There are some for less than $20k. If you don't want a gallery in your home, downtown gallery spaces are $.49 per square

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-79640400256234551632008-01-23T10:58:00.000-06:002008-01-23T11:38:30.873-06:00

For awhile now, I've recommended affiliate programs (Google AdSense, Amazon.com, etc.) if you have a website, and have pages that aren't designed solely to sell your art. ...Obviously, if the entire purpose of a website is to encourage people to buy your art, you don't want them to leave your website without shopping. That's one reason why many artists don't link to other websites, and my fine

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-23078681079256189282008-01-21T13:52:00.000-06:002008-01-21T13:54:04.526-06:00

Talk about yourself. Promote your art. Get a useful link to your own website. Make money. SquidWho!

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-12507801933855005172008-01-16T19:03:00.000-06:002008-01-16T19:08:50.771-06:00

Fun news! Look for my clip art on pages 108 and 109 in the Spring '08 issue of Stampington's yummy magazine, Altered Couture. (Have I mentioned how much I love seeing my art and art-related products in print? I'm dancing around the keyboard!)

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-31224016977756296672008-01-14T09:12:00.002-06:002008-01-14T09:33:21.136-06:00

Whew! I've scanned and posted my first seven ATCs for the 7/30/365 ATC project. There will be more later this week. Here's what happened: To work with my scans, I needed more space on my hard drive. So, I tried to burn some CDs with old & unused files, but my CD burner's error message said to defrag the hard drive first. So, I began a defrag, but I didn't have enough free disk space to do a

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-65118296997912211182008-01-13T08:13:00.000-06:002008-01-13T08:20:03.787-06:00

If you're like me, you have a bazillion files -- especially graphics -- on your hard drive. In some cases, there are duplicates. In many cases, they're simply reference files -- website backups, scans or photos of artwork, etc. -- and they're cluttering up your hard drive. Here are two programs that I'm using to weed out duplicates and create printed lists (hard copy) of what's on the CDs

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-82074608248471809922008-01-09T12:29:00.000-06:002008-01-09T12:43:14.985-06:00

Whew! I've been up since before dawn, recording and tweaking my one-minute audio reviews on the main fiber and fabric art page at Art Books Reviews. All of my reviews on that page have audio, and they all have pictures of the book covers.

Aislingtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37742455.post-39868819038672760612008-01-08T13:28:00.001-06:002008-01-08T14:00:54.957-06:00

I'm trying to remember if I mentioned this; I think that I did, but I'm not sure. Also, this has nothing to do with art... it's just cool. Or maybe it's only cool to me, but anyway: The book, Trickery Treat by Diana G. Gallagher, is finally in bookstores and it's at Amazon. It's in the series of novels based on the TV show, Charmed. In this book, it's Halloween and the girls are dealing

Aisling