Mark E Shellshear.

As artists we will have good days paintings and bad days paintings, that is just life and we are all experiencing it, so concentrate on two things. Concentrate on painting you and what you are seeing and experiencing in your world, paint you. Take the ordinary you are experiencing and feeling and making a wonderful story out of it in paint . Then tell us why you painted it and make us part of your painting we want you to invite us into your world, so we will see the painting as you see the painting and we will understand the painting like you understand the painting. The creator should always tell us their story of the Art otherwise we might misunderstand what you are trying to say. Make us part of your world by telling us why you painted it .

Many Artists spend so much time trying to decide what is the correct price on their paintings. It becomes the subject they are always concerned about and talk about, some even become obsessed about the subject. Wouldn’t it be better to become obsessed about selling, rather than the price of your work? Be obsessed about the sale, be in the moment that someone buys your work, be observant, learn all you can, ask for their email address and get permission to send them your monthly newsletter and thank them for buying your work. The big prices will come later when you are well known, right now we want sales so be obsessed with selling your Art and getting known. You bring great value to yourself and your client when you obsess about that amazing moment when someone decides to buy your Art work. Getting sales and getting know, that is what we must be obsessed about.

If you believe that you can make a difference in this world through your Art, you most likely will because the average person has already given up on the idea of making a difference and does not want to think about it. Instead of searching for pleasures and self gratification lets search for ways to make a difference and change our world. We do not see what we do as work, we have to have the attitude that we are making a difference and that makes it challenging and exciting and a reason to go forward every day. Don’t let people tell you that you can’t make a difference because you can. Even if you only touch one person with your Art and it changes them and they grow through the experience, then you have made a difference. Art is powerful, it can inspire people, it can encourage people, it can bring joy into the hearts of some and it can heal others. Change your world through your original, inspiring Art and make a difference.

M any people find it far easier to bet on lucky and then wonder why they are disappointed by their bad choices. We seem to always look at the outliers, those who win the lottery or get the big payout, but they are not the rule they are the exception. Luck is far more appealing than effort, unfortunately you don’t get to choose luck, but effort is always available to us. We can wait for luck to come and what if it doesn’t, or we can put in the effort and work hard. The more effort we put in the greater change we will bring to our Art business and to our selves. We need to put more effort into three areas of our Art business, creating great original Art, selling our great Art and working on personal development. I f we choose to put more effort into these three areas, we won’t need luck because we will see the fruit of our effort. .

Talent is no guarantee of success in the Art business. Other things come into play that are more important like doing original Art work, learn about sales and marketing, personal improvement and the most important thing you have to do is get known. This must be your priority, you must get known. Most people insist on fretting about and working on stuff that makes no difference at all, but it is safe. Get known, be visible, make videos, write about your Art, story tell your Art, join Art shows and competitions, get involved in local art fairs and be very friendly and talk to strangers. Being unknown is safe but not a successful strategy for an Artist who wants to sell and become famous. What we have to do is perfect the things that really matter, doing original Art work, getting sales and getting known.

Artists who paint wonderful paintings, but doubt themselves and self criticise their work will find it hard to sell their paintings. Artists with ordinary paintings but very confident that they are wonderful paintings will most probably sell them. It’s about believing in yourself and acting on that belief. If you know what you want, then you will have to do the work that is necessary to get it. It won’t be easy and it will probably take longer than you think. It will probably be harder than you think and it will be far more rewarding than you think. It’s a matter of believing in yourself and never giving up.

It is in the moments of discouragement that you have to push harder, because that is what it takes. It’s not about how you feel, it’s about what it takes. Feelings and emotions often fool us, facts are what count. Giving up might feel good at first because you are relieved, but you gave up and got out of the line. So all the time you invested into it is lost, because you gave up. What if you were just about to make it? You can get a cold day in spring but that doesn’t mean summer isn’t coming. Don’t let roadblocks, problems, criticism or people stop you from being all you can be, this is all part of the process of success. When you want to give up, when you have had enough, your just starting, come on get up, paint, create, work, this is your Artistic life and you choose to do this, never give up on you. If you are waiting for your turn to come, it’s always your turn. No one is going to pick you, so pick yourself and go out and make a difference and change you...

Art success is different for everyone, I like to measure success by the people we touch and the impact we have on them for the better. We all need to make money, as we all need to live and money is something we can measure and I agree it’s very important to our lives and lifestyle. I also believe one of the measurements of success is the amount of change for the better that we bring into peoples lives. If our Art changes a person for the better and brings joy into their life, then we have made a difference in this world. Our responsibility is to be the best Artist and best person that we can be and make our Art count and bring positive change into the lives of people, be the Artist that others admire and look up to as a role model. Let your Art bring change into this world, inspire others to appreciate beautiful original Art wo rk and bring joy and happiness into their lives. Be the difference that you want to see in this world.

Art is something that comes from within, it’s designed to move peoples emotions, to touch their inner soul, to change them for the better, that is what great Art does, copying will never capture the true essence of being the original Artist. Copying is for students in Art school, not for professional Artists. Whatever you paint in your original Art, no matter how complex or simple, if it is born out of you, it is Art. Art is personal, it is alive and comes fresh from a real Artist, your vision, your original thought, your feelings, your emotions expressed on paper or canvas or whatever medium that you work in. Great original Art comes from the personal struggle of life and sharing of your personal vision of your world, captured at a certain moment in time.

There is no shortage of collectors in the Art world. There is no shortage of money in the Art world. We know this because paintings and Art works are sold every day. The big shortage in the Art business is attention. That is why it takes so long to become well known, because it’s hard to get peoples attention. That’s why you must get known, you must have face and signature recognition and the quickest way to get attention is through videos. Videos done properly accomplish three things, painting recognition, name recognition and face recognition. You need to get more attention, if you want to get more sales. The shortage we face is getting peoples attention. .

A great gallery will complement the collector on being the kind of buyer they are looking for, a truly special buyer and the gallery is so happy the collector will be owning this particular painting, they want to make the collector believe that they are doing the gallery a favour. They want to tell the collector about the painting and why it is so special and why the Artist created it, there is always a story. They truly care about the buyers experience purchasing the painting as it is the beginning of a long term relationship and they know if the collector has an amazing experience the first time they will come back again in the future. Yes there is a lot of money involved and we know it is a valuable painting, but that is not enough, because it has to be about the discerning buyer, that special group of people who buy paintings like this. The sales person will not ever talk about the price, they know it’s expensive, but price is never a problem when the perceived v...

All the people I work with, we have one goal in mind sales. When we talk about the need to get sales I like to pose questions. How can we sell more paintings? Should we start a sales campaign and market at a specific price point? What are we not doing, that we should be doing? Are you doing videos and story telling your Art yet? Have you contacted all your old customers who have gone cold? This is one of most likely places to get a sale, these people know you and have bought work off you, so reach out to them and reactivate them. The worse that can happen is they won’t get back to you, yet they may and you m ay get a sale. It is always worth the effort to reach out to old customers who haven't bought from you for sometime, renew the friendship and get them back involved in your Art journey buying your new work.

You can only market your Art to those who are willing to hear what you have to say. It will probably not be to thousands at the start, more likely be to 5 or 10 or 50, but they want to hear from you. These are the people that we must get the attention of so they will buy from us and talk about us and spread the word about our wonderful Art work. We need help to be successful, we need buyers for our Art works, people to read our blogs, people to watch our videos, our job is to get their attention. Once we have their attention then they will reward us with sales, nice comments and follow our Art journey. It might not be as fast as you want to grow, but it is growth and that’s amazing. Get the attention of one person and then five and then ten and then one hundred and then more, this kind of growth is sustainable. Then sell to the people who want to hear from you. Attention, generates sales.

Think about solutions, don’t dwell on the overwhelming problem. We can always find a solution to the problem. We may get an answer immediately and the problem is fixed. We may be faced with a major crisis that we will have to ride out, the solution is patience. Also always look for the good that can come out of every problem, the solution might be we needed to learn a particular lesson, so we would not pass that way again. Being over whelmed with a problem is not a solution it will just makes the problem worse. Artists, you are problem solvers in your every day A rt practice. You are very creative people who apply their creativity to each problem they face in their Art practice. Use that same creative problem solving attitude to every area of your life. When you walk out of the studio you do not stop being a highly creative Artist, so apply that same positive creativity to problem solving in your every day life and you will be surprised at the outcomes and your a...

Why don’t people do things that will them prosper? It usually comes down to fear. It is a natural reaction when we get out of our comfort zone and have to do uncomfortable things, make a speech, make a video and talk in it and show my face, talk to that stranger and faced with these things fear comes up and then excuses and then why we shouldn’t do it. People miss so many opportunities because of fear. You can always recognize a missed opportunity because when the fear subsides and you are back in your comfort zone you say to yourself, why didn’t I talk to that person? There is only two ways to get rid of fear. Do nothing and always stay in your comfort zone. Confront the fear and act. Every time you confront fear it gets less and less until it is quiet, because the thing you are doing becomes normal in your life. Making my first video was very scary indeed, now I don’t even think about it, it’s part of my life. Grab every opportunity that comes along and conf...

Most limitations are self imposed, yes we make excuses and blame others and say we were criticised badly or nobody gives me support but nobody promised not to criticise you or to give you support, we must find that strength from deep down inside because we are responsible for what we do. I was once told, it’s always up to you and no one is coming to rescue you, you either climb up this Art mountain or slide back down into the crowd. Some of the most valuable assets you have are your positive mindset, the ability to take massive action, your persistence and your creativity. These assets are like muscles, the more you use them the stronger they get. You cannot use up all your positive mindset, but you can lose it if you don’t use it. As with taking action or persistence and creativity there is no limit to how much of them you can use every minute of every day, they are all renewable. You’ll never lose the ability to come up with new dreams and ideas and to think creative...

One of the most interesting phenomenon of human nature is when a person discovers your Art it is as they are the first to find you. People make there own realities, it’s the story they tell themselves. When people discover you, you begin to exist and when they stop coming back, you become invisible again. When they initially discover you and your painting style it is new and fresh to their fresh eyes, it’s as if this is your first painting and to them it is. They found you, discovered you and now you exist. They don’t know of the twenty years it took you to get to this place in the Art world because they just discovered you and they think they are first. If they go from discovery to true believer then they will talk about you and your Art and show it to their friends, because now they collect you. If they don’t become a true believer you will slowly become invisible again. If we care about this people and allow them to discover more and more of us they will become...

In the beginning whether you are a young Artist or a restarting Artist prices are low but once you start selling and become well known then your prices will rise and keep rising then it is worth all the struggle. Artists complain about their prices being low, I get that but once they become well known they will get very high prices. I have never heard one Artist complain of excess profits, imagine in the beginning you sell a painting for $100 and in ten years time you a very similar painting for $10,000, so where did all that value come from, the celebrity of the Artist, you have sold lots of work and are well known, you are the value proposition. The value is in the Artist, make yourself valuable and you will get high prices. Right now get sales and get known.

The most successful Artists that we see are really doing their own thing they are not in the crowd they are trailblazing their art careers. In the Art business you can focus on the Art path you are making or on all the problems, the road blocks and obstacles, the setbacks and the difficulty of getting sales and that will be all you will see and it can be depressing and it can slow you down and you will doubt yourself and struggle. So focus on your path not on the obstacles. Focus on the people who buy your Art and create work that will please and delight them so they come with you on your Art journey and encourage yourself in that. Focus on what you are doing and the change you are making. Focus on the small successes you have each day, ticking off your daily list and on the long game, your Art career and what that will look like in five years from now. Focus on the path you are blazing and you will be amazed how you will go around many of the obstacles and roadblocks t...