Mark E Shellshear.

When you see another Artist whose work is comparable to yours and you have been painting for a similar length of time but they are succeeding better than you are, you cannot be envious but you need to find out what they are doing. The first question to ask is, “ What are they doing better than I am doing?” “ What are they doing that I am not doing?” Don’t look for the obvious, because immediately our insecurities will go to their painting and usually that is not the answer, the answer will be behind the scenes. Are they doing videos and you are not? Do the have after sales service, do you? Do they story tell their Art, do you? Do they use affirmations and positive self talk? Do they have written down goals and they use visualization? There are so many other things that can cause someone to be more successful, look at other very successful Artists and ask yourself the question, “ What are they doing that I am not doing?” because I have learned this, success leaves a trail. If the A...

Most Artists never contact a customer after they sell a painting to them. Why is this? We don’t want to bother them? Or are we afraid they don’t like the painting now and will want their money back? Imagine if we contacted them and they are very happy with their painting and love having it hang on their wall. You could ask them to send you a photo graph of it on their wall and get them to pose in the photo and then you could post that on your page, another happy customer. You could tell them about your new work and ask them if they would like to see some photos. You would be building trust and relationship with them and that would grow into a friendship in the future. Contacting our former customers is always a good thing to do, it shows we care about them and their Art work more than they we re just another sale. Imagine they will most likely buy from you again as you treated them like a human being, showed respect and consideration for them. Follow up i...

Always be true to your Muse and follow it diligently, listen to it’s soft voice and be always determined to paint your own original Art work, producing work that is yours and defines you. You do not paint for the critics and the unappreciative crowd, you paint for those people who love your work. These are your true followers and this will take time to build as mostly they are strangers right now but as more and more people become your followers then yo ur career will begin to become established.

When the going gets a little hard always remember not to change your goals change your strategies. In the journey I have been on over a life time I know that every good idea might not work out, but it is trying and seeing if it will. If it doesn’t work out that is not the end, it is far better to get another good idea and implement that. Ideas can change but the goal will always be the same. Persistence isn’t using the same strategies and ideas over and over when they are obviously not working. Persistence is always going for that goal. Change your ideas and strategies but don’t change your goals.

With success if you understand how you did it then it can be repeated. It can be reviewed, refined and improved. Now when you sell a painting watch what you say to yourself, most say I got a sale or I sold my painting. Selling a painting is success and we must acknowledge it, say to yourself and others, “ I successfully sold my painting.” If you say it like this it is acknowledging the success and it is positive reinforcement to your self belief. We need to talk to ourselves like it is someone we love, encourage yourself, praise yourself, use positive words that builds self belief. If someone we know sells a painting we often say to them “ congratulations ” but we would never think of saying that to ourselves, yet we should say, “  Congratulations  Mark you successfully sold your painting, I am successful.” We can so quickly criticize ourselves and pull ourselves down and we need to change this and speak positive encouraging words to ourselves. Next time you sell a painting...

A lot of Artists unconsciously set glass ceilings in their lives, they limit their expectations and so achieve less. Something I have learned in life is that most times it’s not others who limit our success it is usually ourselves. Break your glass ceiling, dream bigger.

Artist you know what scares you the most about your Art practice and the thing you constantly put off, that is probably the key to your success. Often the thing we don't want to do, is most likely the thing we need to do, so don’t let the thief rob you of your success. If the thief turns up to stop you, just think to yourself, “ if the thief is trying to stop me and panic me, it must be the right thing to do,” so then just ahead and do it  anyway. Once you know it’s the thief and you do it anyway, it loses power in that area and it becomes easier and easier for you to do next time. Every time you go against the thief you take a little more power from it. Don’t let the thief stop you, panic the thief and do it and gain mastery over it in that area of your life. Tomorrow, do it again. .

There are a lot of Artists who have experienced a limited amount of success yet never fulfilled their entire potential. Success can be what stops some. They get a limited amount of success and stop and hold onto it desperate not to lose it. So they stop innovating and experimenting and never change and hold on as tight as they can to their success. Then the game moves on, yes some die hard collectors stay with them hoping for a renaissance, but the majority of collectors move on because they are looking for the new.

On this mornings video I talked about obscurity being far worse than having no talent. Obscurity means we are invisible, we are out of sight, nobody knows us, so the first step in selling our Art is to get known, people must know who we are and can recognize us. Because if people do not know you how can they buy your Art?

I made the statement in a blog last week that it is not enough to be just a good Artist, there are lots of good Artists out there, you have to be different, exciting and amazing to get our attention. One Artist took exception to my writing and questioned who did I think I am to say that. I found this an interesting reaction to something I thought was quite obvious. Maybe they thought that just being a good Artist was enough and no need to strive for excellence?

When fear strikes us if we don’t immediately and positively act and go against it, it will stop us. Fear generates self limiting assumptions. If I make a video my family and my friends will see it and they will laugh at me and I will look foolish in their eyes, a self limiting assumption. We need to say to fear, I will do it and I will look courageous and brave in my family and friends eyes because everyone I know is to afraid to make videos and then make the video. Fear stops people taking the first step. Fear stops the one thing we need, progress and progress is important. It is so good to look back and see the changes that have taken place in your life and know it happened because you were courageous enough to act against the fear. You made choices that has changed your life and set you on a journey to discover your best self. We truly change our world when we choose to change. We don’t want perfection, we want excellence in our lives through continued pro...

I see so many seriously talented Artists who really believe, because they are talented that everything will work out for them and all they have to do is paint and wait for fame and fortune to come to them. It might work like that in books and the movies but the reality of the Art world is you have to get known by getting the attention of strangers. Success comes to the prepared, if success comes to the unprepared it seldom stays because they are not prepared for it. I know of so many talented Artists who got early success in their career and today they are not painting. Artists need to understand that their success depends on themselves, do not rely on others or expect others to open doors for you because that seldom happens until you are successful and then everyone wants to help you because you are successful. Do not blame the Art Market, or the economy, or the Gallery and you cannot change the attitude of buyers, but you can work on yourself and make yourse...

It is not good just being a good singer, there are lots of good singers. It is not good just being a good actor, there are lots of good actors. It is not good just being a good Artist, there are lots of good Artists out there, you have to be different, interesting and an amazing person to get our atten tion.

Artists you have to convince strangers to buy your Art work. It does not matter what your family and friends think of your work because they care about you and will always give you praise and that’s great but they will not buy all your paintings so you will have to convince strangers to do so. It really does matter what strangers think because they are the ones who will buy your work and strangers will make you famous. Convince them through story telling your Art. When a customer is looking at your Art tell them why you painted it and what it is about, the story leads them into the painting allowing them to see it through their own eyes. Also tell the story about you Art through videos and blogs and make them interesting and engrossing. Educate your customers about why you paint and who you are as a person, explain your vision and what you are trying accomplish, inspire them with your ...

In this mornings video on the Shellshear Art Group I talked about how it takes years to build a reputation and become an established Artist and tomorrow I will talk about tangible things we can do to speed up the process, but now let’s look at things we can do within which will help us get ahead quickly. You must have must do habits. Success is not an accident it is small daily habits that bring lasting change, progress.

I read this great quote today. “Art happens to be one of the things that people don't understand the most. It's also one of the things that people want to understand the most.” Story tell your Art, explain what your intentions are. Help people to understand what you are doing even if it seem super self explanatory, take the time to tell your story of why you did what you did and what it is all about. It could make the difference of sale or no sale.

How you think when things go wrong determines how long it will be until things turn around. Watch out that we don’t fall back into bad thinking habits that allows our old negative self and our old negative thought patterns to arise, they will try and come back they don’t give up easily. Don’t blame others. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t berate yourself. Analyse what has happened and make the necessary changes both internally and externally. Determine to go forward and you must never tell yourself you are a failure, remind yourself of all your past successes and encourage yourself that you have done it before and you can do it again. Work on improving yourself and your thinking habits because we create our own reality, what we think we become.

My vision in the early days was of me being the Artist sitting in my studio creating Art and the collectors were lining up to buy it, but this was far from the case as the collectors were no where to be found. If you want collectors and strangers to buy your Art works, then you are going to have to sell your paintings to them. Artists say to me , “I do not have a gallery or dealer, so how can I sell them?” The honest answer if you want to sell is, learn to sell. I believed that someone would do it for me as if by magic but it never happened, I soon realised to late that I had to sell my own work because no one else would unless I was well known and I wasn’t. The key to selling your paintings is, learning to sell. Selling is building relationships with strangers so that they trust and love your painting and you and believe in what you stand for. Selling is being nice and friendly to people and story telling your paintings to them telling them why you painted it, what y...

What will change the game is us actually changing the game. We want people to like our Art and buy our Art but we also want people to talk about our Art. Because in talking about it they then spread the word about us and this is what we want, people talking about us and our Art. So not only will our Art need to be original and interesting, we will need to tell a story about our Art and it must capture the viewers attention and we also want them to respond to our Art work emotionally and our story opens the door for that. Think about the Art work you create, it is not finished until you have a good story to go with it, don’t rush the story make it interesting and compelling we want it strike an emotional cord so the viewer will connect to it and want to talk about it. A good story will also give the viewer something to talk about when they are showing the Art work to their friends, you have given them a way to spread the story about you. Change the experience about ...

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” This verse from Mathew in the Bible is such an interesting verse, I am not going lecture on the Bible but lets look at this because it has a lot to do with the doors I spoke about this morning. Now most of us would not have a problem with what this ver se says because it is clear, but most would say I tried that and it didn’t work. None of us have a problem with the asking it’s the rec e iving that is the problem. None of us would have a problem with seeking it’s the finding that seems so hard. None of us have a problem with knocking it’s finding the right door seems to be the issue. I have heard so many speak on this and they say things like your asking for the wrong things, but it is not qualified it just says ask. Same with seek, it just says seek. Same with knock, it just says knock. The problem I see here is human nature, instead of sitting down and...

All of us are very different in how we paint and create and how we see Art. Art is very personal and we all experience how we create it differently. Being involved in the 365 days of painting challenge is fun because it is making me think again about making marks with paint. One of the most amazing things I found was how easy it is to drop back into old habits and I found myself saying, I don’t want to do that any more, if I am going to do a painting each day it must be new and experimental and I must be pushing my limitations. I don’t want to paint like I did four years ago I am a different person now and I want new work that expresses how I feel now and what I want to put down in paint. I have never believed in having a set style I have always just wanted to paint and whatever comes is what comes but certain forms appeared regularly. If I had developed a recognisable style it would have pleased galleries and maybe my career would have been more illustrious, but it...

It is good to respect Art leaders and learn from them as they have accomplished a lot and lead the way. But the thing you must do is believe that you surpass them. Believe that you can go beyond what they have accomplished. There is no denying the greats of the past and the wonderful Art that they have created, but they are no different than you. Once they painted their first painting and I am sure that they struggled like we all did. Once they were unknown trying to sell their Art and they were rejected and ignored. Then over time and with perseverance and a strong belief in who they were and who the could become they made it to the top of their field. The big difference from the very successful Artists and the average Artists is that the successful Artists believes that they are among the best before they are. If you believe that you are only second best, then you will preform at second best always. But if you believe that you are among the best then you wil...

One of most difficult things for an Artist to do is to get there head around the idea that you have to be a committed Artist and run a small business. It seems so foreign that this is what an Artist has to do. Money should not be the objective in our Art practice, creating great original Art should be the reason we paint, money is just the result of being successful at creating original Art. This is why it is importance to gain confidence with dealing people especially strangers and being able to converse with them on their level. The great advantage that Artists have over the average salesperson is that you created the Art piece, you know why you did it, you know how you did it, you know the story behind it. you are passionate about your Art, so tell them about these things and be enthusiastic. Just talk about these things with enthusiasm and passion, it will be contagious people love to hear what the Artist is doing as most could not imagine the free...

As with everything in life there is a cost for everything, there are no free lunches. Having long career in the Art Business you will need to concentrate on a few things. Concentrate on the love of painting and painting only because of that and no other motives. If you are painting to make your fortune, you picked the wrong profession. I believe most serious dedicated Artists can make a very good living from their Art, but will they all end up in the auctions and great museums, very few. The love of painting and the need to paint must be your driving force and your belief in your own ability must be resolute, even if everyone says you have no talent. What if Monet had listened to to the Art Market and his friends and family, we would have no beautiful Impressionist paintings today. What if Pollock or Rothko or Gorky had listened to the critics, we would have been deprived of their wonderful paintings. You must dance to the beat of your drum and you must bring change...