Mark E Shellshear.

My friends you will not get this day ever again in all your life, so don't waste it. Paint, e ven if you paint a bad painting it is better than painting no painting at all and we do need to get all the bad paintings painted as well as the good ones. Make this day count for your future, put in a little more effort than you need to, paint some, read some, learn some, meditate, write in your journal and give someone a hug. Y ou will never have the opportunity to live this day again in your life, so live it to the fullest, no time for anger or jealousy or fighting. Reach out and love those around you, you do not know how long you will have them with you, even the difficult ones. Be a role model always , you never know who is watching. M ake every day a positive, productive day for you and your art career and those that you influence.

In an ancient text it says, “ He who tills his land will have plenty of food, But he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty.” Those who work hard on their own land/Art business and not concern themselves with what others are doing, will prosper. Consider your work, “till your ground” do not worry about what others are doing and saying be concerned with your Art business, otherwise you will be distracted from your work, from being diligent in your “field.” It is to easy in the Art business to get caught up with what others are doing and saying and if you are not careful you will be influenced by them to do what they are doing rather than what is best for you and your creative direction. Being like everyone else will not help you to stand out from the crowd and get attention, but it will make you accepted by the crowd. If that is what you want, that is fine but you will only be a reflection of everyone else as they will be of you and your creative indiv...

Living on the edge with your Art, is the safest place to be. Take risks with your painting, be careless, stop worrying what others will think, live in the creative. Do things that maybe you were scared to do with your Art, because of what others might say or think, do it now, be inspired. Paint with freedom and without constraint, even if you are really scared while you do it, it is liberating. Stop worrying if its ok, because as long as you are doing it and giving yourself permission to paint in whatever style you want to, then it is original, its new, it's pure you. G ive yourself permission to be the best Artist you can be. Be different, be exciting, be innovative, be creative, be original . Imagine the Artist that you can be? Now make it happen.

Stop paying attention to the things that you cannot change. You cannot change the government. You cannot change the economy. You cannot change your family. You cannot change your friends. All of these things are out of your control, but you can change you. Pay attention to you, your actions, your habits, your attitudes, your business and do not try and change others, lead by changing yourself. You can choose to be better, happier and friendlier. You can choose to lead instead of follow. You can choose to show people what a friend you can be. You can choose to show your family how caring and loving you can be. Be the Artist who is an example to others, choose to be a leader. Show others what to do, don’t just tell others what to do. Choose to lead by example. The person who is prepared to take responsibility without recognition. The person who is prepared to have principles, not just be a compromiser. The Art world need leaders not followers. ...

Do not let the thief rob you and terrorise you with fear. When you are fearful of doing something, positive action causes the fear to retreat. When the fear, the thief says don’t, you say do, and do it. And do it. And do it. You are more powerful than you think, act accordingly.

Any Artist who thinks they can build a successful career without becoming a personality is naive. I understand you are shy, I understand that you are quiet and timid but you cannot let these things stop you from becoming the Artist you are destined to be. The thing that stops most from stepping forward is fear. What will people say about me? Also shame, “Who are you to think you can do that?” And peer pressure, what will my friends say and think? Peer pressure is not just for school children, I know many older Artists who are so worried about what will their group think and say if they step out and do amazing things. It is easy to agree that we need to promote ourselves, but hard to do because that negative voice inside our head the ‘Thief” will steal your success from you if you let it. It wants safety and security and it does not want to to step out from the crowd and be noticed and it will use shame and peer pressure and fear of failure to stop you from doing i...

You need people to talk about you and your paintings to other people and hope it spreads like the measles. If your paintings are worth talking about, then people will tell other people and create a demand for your work. It is only when strangers begin to talk about your paintings and you to other strangers, that is when sales will come. Word of mouth is still the best marketing strategy. Every time we post on the Internet, we need to be saying, “ Here is my painting I made this and this is the story behind my painting, why I did it and this is what it means to me.” Give people something to talk about to others, that’s how the measles spread, person to person. The stranger wants to know that you love you Art work, if you want her to love it too.

How can we sell paintings to people, if they do not know we exist? If people do not know you they cannot buy from you. Getting people to talk about us and what we create is very important as we need to get their attention and we can do that through social media. The key is, don’t do what everyone else is doing on the different social media platforms, be creative, be different. You are an Artist so be creative with how you market yourself, don’t just put up a photograph of your painting and put title, medium, size and price. What does that say to your potential buyer? Not a lot. Talk about the painting and why you did it, what was your intentions, give people something to talk about. You want people talking about you, you want their attention. Get known so strangers will talk about your paintings also. Every painting you paint is for a strangers wall.

The thing that is hard to do is getting people to understand that you have a painting that is worth buying. So as an Artist how do we convince them that your painting is the painting to buy? Imagine two Artists standing in an opening in a Gallery, both of equal ability and talent with two paintings of equal value and subject matter, holding their paintings and both paintings have a sign on them. One sign says, “Blue Sky” Oil on canvas, 18ins x 24ins., $200. The other sign says, “Please let me tell you the story of my painting.” Who do you think the passing people would talk to and who do you think would have a better chance of selling?

The future is always opportunity mixed with the unpredictable. The opportunity to become all we choose to be and unpredictability of life to get in the way of that opportunity. Life happens to us all and as I said yesterday it is how we respond to life that determines what our futures will be. We cannot change the unpredictability of life, but we can do so much to make sure we benefit from every opportunity that comes our way. So often we do not see or understand the opportunities that are before us and miss them. Never before have Artist had such opportunity as they have today. We have been liberated from the old ways and face the future like there has never been before. The Internet has created a revolution where the old gatekeepers to the Artists success have been removed and every Artist now has the opportunity to put their work and themselves out on the internet for everyone to see, for free. We are now in an Internet Gallery with infinite wall space and it n...

Friends we always talk about the great success, but every now and then things do not go to plan and that is when we see the real “me” how we respond to the situation or how we react to the situation. Reacting and getting upset will prove nothing and only show you that you have areas in your personal life that you need to work on. Responding to the situation will help strengthen you for the next time. The reality is that disappoints come, that's life, its how you respond to them that counts. You can make them a reason to be defeated and depressed or you can make them a reason to be better and make all the personal changes necessary to win next time, it is always a choice. Don't say life is unfair to you only, because it is unfair to everyone, no one promised it would be fair, but you change yourself, improve and become a better person and your world will change with you and you will have more successes than failure. As I say to Artists, “ life is life, it is t...

Do not despise the day of small beginnings. That is such an interesting thought as it certainly relates to the Artist life before you make it into the big time. The small beginnings of showing. The small beginnings of being in a group. The small beginnings of saving money. The small beginnings of marketing and sales, learning all you can about selling and putting it into practice and then having to refine it as you are going along until selling your paintings becomes an easy task and fun to do. Everyone of us no matter at what age, when we start something new it starts small and grows like a seed into a tree. It takes time and patience but it will grow if you give it your best and patiently apply all you know and all you are learning about the challenge before you. No one starts at the top so rejoice at wherever point you are at in your Artistic journey. Remember the giant Oak tree, starts as a seed and when it is only two feet high it rejoices that it is an Oak tree...

Be the Artist that challenges the norm, pushes the boundaries further than others, looks to do your best in every area of your life, be the one who wants to fly higher and shine. It is so easy to be average, mediocre and conform to the establishment.. It takes little effort and no risk to be one of the crowd, an innocent bystander and not stand out. To be inspirational takes courage and you have to learn to walk alone with that fearful inner negative voice, use it as a guide post, so you know what you have to do. Do not let the fear of what others might say and do, stop you from being an extraordinary Artist and person. Be that person that praises and encourages others. Be the one who cares and always has a smile and a kind word. Be the one who lifts others up, not pulls people down. As the Artist whose life inspires others to be better. Make your life an example for others to follow. Be the Artist you were born to be. Do it for yourself. Please feel f...

I was thinking this morning of some Artist friends who are going through a difficult time and I was reminded of an ancient text that said, “ Hope deferred makes the heart sick” and I thought how true that is. Many start out on the Artistic journey with great hopes and plans and yet after walking on the Artistic road for sometime it just seems so hard, so difficult and hope is deferred and discouragement comes in. The rest of the ancient text says “  But when the desire comes it is a tree of life.” The question must be, how do we maintain the hope until the desire is fulfilled? I thought about that, how do we maintain the hope? We all have big dreams and big goals to reach and that is good, but if they are very big and we don’t reach them after a time we begin to get discouraged. The answer is to have small achievable goals along the way. Daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals and yearly goals all leading us to our great big goals. When we see ourselves achieving these small ...

There is no easy way to the top of the Art World, it is hard work. Yes you need talent, but you will also need a ton of self belief and you will need to work harder than everyone else and never give up and you will definitely need to be noticed and get attention. Obscurity is death to Artists. I have been saying this for years now and I would like to add another layer to this, something that I have been thinking about for a while. Why do some equally talented Artists who all work hard, yet one makes it and the others never do, is there something that I am missing? What is the reason why we do what we do? The reason must be more than just earning a living, it has be something that when times get hard and they will, that keeps us motivated and pushing forward towards our goal even when we want to give up. Reasons are powerful. So Artist my question is, “Why are you doing this?” Only you can answer. Because you can? Not a good enough reason. Now think abou...

I received this question on a recent post. “One question, how do you distinguish between the thief [your inner voice] and your intuition?” That is a good question. Intuition. Intuition is more a gut feeling, an instinctive knowing, no reasoning, just knowing that something about this is wrong or right. Dictionary definition. 1. The ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning: ‘we shall allow our intuition to guide us’ 2. A thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning: ‘your insights and intuitions as a native speaker are positively sought’ The thief, Lizard brain, croc brain or the negative inner voice. The thief is that nagging, negative, arguing voice that always wants to keep you from harm. This thief is in charge of fight, fear, food, running away, freezing up and sex and it will over ride your normal brain functions if it feels threatened. It is always wanting you t...

I heard this quote and it really stopped me in my tracks, by Jim Rhone, “ do not worry about the thief who will rob you of your money, worry about the thief in your mind who will rob you of your promise.” That really hit home to me as I reflected on this statement,“ the thief who robs you of your promise” and that thief is within. This negative voice within, the thief that always wants us to stay in our comfort zone because it is safe there. We might be a total failure but it is safe and we will make very few mistakes and never try anything new, but we are safe and if we do want to try new things the thief will talk us out of it, before we do. I had told myself for 20 years that my paintings explained themselves and I didn't need to sell. I was wrong, they don't explain themselves, it was an excuse, I let fear control me as I was worried what others would say about me if I wrote stories about my paintings. I also needed to learn to sell but the thief said no...

To often as Artists we do not recognise the advantages of small gains. We do not even consider them sometimes because we do not think that they are important, but it is the small gains that really count in life. The problem with small gains is that in the short term they seem not to be having any effect, like dieting, its hard because after a few days there seems to be no effect, but it takes time and we give up because it’s hard to do and I am hungry. The lesson here is that small disciplines are very hard to start when we are already convinced in our mind that we can't do it, no matter how easy it would be to do. If you are convinced it is too hard to do, then you are probably right. Do not let wrong thinking stop you from achieving small goals in your life. Consistency is the key, just doing it until it is a habit. Its like cleaning your teeth every day and having a shower, small daily disciplines that you have to do but if you did not do them the long term...

If we are going to accomplish all the things we want to as an Artist then we are going to have to work on our lives and our Art with an attitude of building small daily improvements into it to give us a better future . It will not happen over night and this is the reason why some people give up easily, impatience . It takes time to develop a painting style. It takes time to develop a following. It takes time to develop good sales results. If you want it to happen over night then it will not happen. We must have the attitude that we are in this for the long haul and do what we can each day to build ourselves, our Art and our Art business. To accomplish this we must be d etermined to b ecom e the best person we can be, small discipline s by small discipline s. Determined to b ecom e the best Artist we can be, w ork ing hard at painting and our Art Business . N ever being satisfied with an ok job, but only being satisfied with the best job that you c an d...

The Artistic life is often determined by two things, chance or change. We can live our life and leave it up to chance and allow the “lottery of life” to work without knowing the outcome and hope it will get better. This is not a very positive or constructive way to live and often ends in disappointment and regret. Or we can decide to change and learn positive new small disciplines which will forever change our life for the better. What if you write out your goals so that you know where you are going? What if you then work out a plan, step by step to accomplish these? What if the book you read, holds the key to your success? What if the workshop you attend that is different from your artistic discipline, releases a new vision in you? What if the video you watch, causes you to think in a new positive inspiring way? What if you learn to sell and it changes your Art Business for the better? What if you learn new life skills, so you are comfortable talking to strang...

One of the most important things I do each day for me, is walking to the local sari sari store each evening and taking time to look at the flowers. It makes me realise that achieving a lot is good and necessary, but a moment to focus on and smell the flowers is equally necessary. Allow yourself to be contented in those special moments, and feel the moment, focus on the simple beautiful things of life. What you focus on you feel. Focus on things that make you appreciate life.

I hear so often about Artists who have been painting for a short period of time and begin to question if they are in the right profession and often giving up? Art is a marathon not a sprint. It will take you at least 10 years to get to a place where you are selling well and making money, this is not a quick process. Unfortunately there are no short cuts, unless you can throw a lot of money at marketing yourself. If you believe that you are a good Artist and have what it takes to make it in the Art World, then this is not a question you should be asking until you have been painting for 20years. You must be determined to make it. Its not about having amazing talent, it’s about doing the work, creating a body of work that shows your journey as an Artist. The reason and only reason you are an Artist is to create your original work, your passion and show it to the world and say, “ Here I made this for some of you.” Those who love it, rejoice with them and make more ...

The biggest limitations placed on Artists are the invisible constraints that Artists place on themselves. The only chance of success rests entirely within the Artist themselves We can be out greatest enemy or the major reason for our success. The enemies of success are simply, excuses, procrastination, laziness, complaining, no personal vision, negative self talk and listening to the fear. All these hindrances to our success we can control. If we think we can, we do. If we think we can’t, then we don’t. Every day is a decision to be a successful Artist. Everyday is an opportunity to be get a little better. Everyday we need to quieten the negative self talk and speak positive about ourselves. Everyday we have an opportunity to confront the fear and use it to point us in the right direct. Everyday is a decision to get a little better, work better, act better, the goal is to be the most successful Artist that you can possibly be. Believe in you and do, be the b...