Mark E Shellshear.

What if you were to sit down in your chair and you had a vision of your Art 20 years from now and you can hear your future self speaking to you from the future. The future you speaks and says to you “ You will never sell any of your paintings you are doing, not one over the next 20 years.” What would you do? Be devastated and give up and walk away from Art? Or would you say, “ That’s great to know, because now all the pressure is off me to conform to what others say I should do and their opinions. I can now change and just paint to please myself and enjoy my Art and paint whatever I want, my original Art.” The future has set you free from the tyranny of conforming to what other people say or think, now you are free to just paint you. Maybe now now you will sell, because what have you got to lose?

Why do so many believe in luck more than doing the necessary work to build their Art career. You might win lottery, but there is more probability that you won’t yet people buy lottery tickets every day. A lot of Artists rely on luck to sell their paintings hoping their painting will speak for themselves or someone will see something in their paintings, but what if it doesn’t and they don’t? Luck is an excuse of the thief, fear, to stop people from doing the hard work. “ Oh wait I might get lucky.” “ I hope I get a lucky break.” “ I just need some luck.” Or you can get in and do the hard work necessary to build your Art career and not trust it to luck. The Artist who gets in and turns up and does the hard stuff, painting wonderful original Art works, marketing, selling and promoting their work does not need luck because they used effort. When they achieve their well deserved success through hard work, many will look at them and say, “ Aren't they lucky.” Ef...

First lets establish this that the price an A rtist can ask for a painting has nothing to do with how many hours it took to produce it or all the love and care that is put into it. So l ets look at it this way. Say hypothetically an Artist does exactly the same painting three times in her life time, all look exactly the same, take the same amount of time to produce, they are all identical. When b eginner A rtist paints painting A, it is worth $10 0 . Mid life Artist [ 10 years later ] paints painting A, it is worth $1000 End career Artist paints painting A, it is worth $100,000 Artist dies and painting A, is now worth $500,000 and climbing. It is the same painting and it takes the same amount of time to do, nothing changes but the price, where d id all this value come from? Now as a beginning A rtist you may be 20 or 60 years old, it makes no difference you are a beginner and you cannot expect to get the prices that a mature, well known, popular A rtist can earn. I...

When I would be at shows and Art fairs I would often look at the work of a young Artist and I think, I want to see painting number 200, then we will see what they have in them after the have pushed through all the obstacles of painting. Always it’s the continuous stretching of the creative mind, never seeing one painting as the masterpiece but the whole body of work as the masterpiece and constantly repeating the process day after day. All Artists must get to that place of feeling empty having painted so many paintings and thinking that there is no more within them to give, this is the time to dig deep and push. When your second wind comes you will be amazed at what you can accomplish, if you stop because you feel you are tired, then you will start all over again tomorrow. If you can just push through the empty and paint on, that is where the real magic happens and so much can happen in a short period of time that maybe that breakthrough that you have been looking for w...

It is important to consider why people fail in their Art career and life, rather than why they succeed. Because if we can learn from their failure we can learn what not to do. So what would you have to do that would ruin your Art career and destroy your life? Once you list out all the things and bad habits that you know will destroy your Art career and life, you now know what not to do. Avoid them.

When I spoke about story telling your Art one person’s response was, “ I am an Artist, not a writer.” Stop putting yourself in a box and limiting your creative abilities. You are a creative person and you are an Artist, but that does not stop you from being a writer as well. Or a song writer. Or a sculptor. Or a poet. Or photographer. Or video maker as well. We are creatives and can employ our creativity abilities into every area of our life. Who said your creativity stopped at painting, you can sculpt, carve, write and create in any medium you decide. Your creative ability is only stopped by the story you tell yourself. If you say “ I am an Artist, I am not a writer,” you will be right. But if you say “ I am a creative person who is an Artist and I can write,” you will also be right. Don’t tell yourself stories that limit what you can do, yes you are an Artist and you can also employ all that creative ability and imagination into every area of your li...

Always give people more than they expect. Add more value to your Art works by engaging your customers, being generous with your time and listening to what they have to say. Make a point to always write little stories about your Art works and connect people to them. People are interested in why Artists do what they do and a few sentences can open up your wonderful Art to the viewer . Engage your customer, d on't trust them to connect with your Art open a door for them to see into your Art work with a story.

Have you ever considered that your goals may be to low or maybe you don’t even have any goals ? I believe in goals as they give us focus and direction and they are measurable, if you know where you want to go, you will know when you arrive. Sometimes there is the problem of our goals being to low and that usually comes from past experience, we had goals before and did not achieve them and so now we are slow to have big goals. So our goals are capped by our past experiences. Often our past holds us back, we must get free of the past and use it as a teacher not an anchor. The miracle of the goal is that we work out a plan to accomplish our goals usually small achievable daily steps and then we work hard to accomplish our goals one step at a time. There is no great leap of faith, there is the daily working of our daily plan to accomplish our big goals. Facing big goals can be scary for some because they say how do I do that, yet if you approach your goals as daily st...

With consistent work comes consistent inspiration, it is amazing how inspiration always turns up after you start working on your Art. Your goal can be to become a famous Artist and that is great but you will have to deliberately paint your paintings every day. Maybe you have a day job and can only paint a few hours each night and on the weekends, still the same rule comes into play, painting consistently every opportunity you can. Most Artists I know who have limited time because of a day job seem to achieve as much as those who paint all day, limited time calls for very deliberate effort. The daily process is what achieves the goal. What you do every day is so important in accomplishing your goals because it is the daily achievements that turns into big success. It’s consistency that makes the big difference and sets those Artists apart from being just average. It is easy to make excuses when we don’t commit to consistent daily work, inconsistent effort will not...

Big ideas and big goals are often easier than small ideas and small goals. Success is not based on luck or chance, it is based on people who believe in themselves and are prepared to do what it takes to succeed. You have to get the words “I can’t do that,” out of your mental vocabulary and replace it with, “ I will give it a go,” or “ I will do that,” or “ I will find a way to do that.” When faced with a problem you want to solve or something you want to do, don’t say “ This is to difficult to do,” or “ I can’t see an answer here,” because you won’t see an answer and it will be to difficult to do, because your mind will not argue with you it will confirm what you have said. Better to say to yourself, “ What would I have to do to fix this?” “ What would I have to change to make this happen?” Ask yourself positive inquiring questions and your mind will search out positive ideas for you, then write down the ideas that come to you. This is what I do when faced with s...

A person is a product of their own thoughts, so believe big or believe small, it’s your choice. No one will believe in you until you believe in yourself. Very few will push you forward but many will try and hold you back because they can’t believe that they could do it. Believing in yourself is so important, you believe that you can do it and you then go and do it. The Artist who believes in herself can accomplish all she wants and she deserves all the success she gets. S elf belief is so powerful people can see it in you. Self belief builds self confidence. Don’t be satisfied to be one of the crowd, yes it is safe and comfortable but it is not success, believe in your self and all you can possibly be, work hard and deserve your success. Don’t strive to be just a good Artist, strive hard to be the best Artist that you can be. There are no invitations to success, you have to deserve it.

As in life, carelessness starts with us when we just do a little less work every day . When you don't feel like painting and you tell yourself that you deserve some time off? Stop and think. 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. Carelessness s tarts..... when you begin to do a little less each day and repeat little small mistakes over and over again. Make this day count for your future, put in more effort than you need to and when you turn up to work, work. Do this for you, you are the most important person in your life, you will never have the opportunity to live this day again, make every day a productive Art day for you. To build a strong sustainable Art practice requires us to turn up and work and allow inspiration and motivation to find us working .

Consider your work and do not be concerned with what others are doing, because working hard on your own Art business and not concerning yourself with the business of other Artists will cause you to prosper. If you concern yourself with what others are doing you will be distracted from your work and from being diligent in your calling. If you tell people what to do make sure you are doing it first. There are so many who can tell us what we are doing wrong but so few to show us how to do it right. The best way to help your fellow Artists is to led by example.

“ Mark a ny disciplines you'd recommend the first couple hours of the day?” Yes I really do believe in a set program to start each day with . This might not be for everyone but I do think it is good to have particular starting habits for every day. Building disciplines like this into your life each day prepares you for work and makes positive start to each day . Write out your goals first every day. I would recommend that you read a chapter of a book of wisdom each day because I know I need wisdom. I would then recommend you read a chapter of a motivational book, something that is positive and uplifting. T hen write your ideas and thoughts out that you get from these books into your journal, I find this a wonderful way to collect my thoughts and great ideas. Once you have finish ed with writing your thoughts and ideas out the n write your to do list for the day and then tick of goals and reading and start your day . Start your day with g ood h...