EBSQ Portfolio Best Practices

Part 1: Your personal portfolio

Editor's note: This transcript, originally presented by Kris Jean on July 14th 2008, is of such great length that we've broken it up into a 3-part series

In order to stand out from the casual painter, or hobbyist - you need to have a consistent and polished presentation of your work. Hodge podge galleries that are thrown together are a red flag to serious patrons. You have to remember you are looking for patrons for life, not for the short term. Giving the impression of professionalism in the details is what helps get your work sold.

I'm going to start with some basics about portfolios in general then move to more advanced portfolio strategies. Hopefully this will help you enhance your overall EBSQ image, and help bring in some great patrons for us all (because let's face it - since we all share space on this site- we are all connected).

The impressions someone gets from one artist to another artist's work and presentation could very possibly turn someone off to the whole site. The more of us that put our best foot forward the better (FOR ALL OF US)!!

Your portfolio is comprised of three parts:

I. The individual artwork page
II. Your personal galleries
III. Your work inside the EBSQ galleries

Then we will go over:

IV. HTML tips and tricks
V. Your Profile

We are going to start at the lowest but most important level: the individual artwork page.

I. Individual artwork pages

These pages are designed to highlight your artwork, talent, and brilliance! (And to CYA!)

In this section we are going to cover the top 10 Faux Pas of the Individual Artwork Pages, and why it's considered poor form and how to make it better.

Faux Pas #1: Not filling the art specifics out fully

By not filling out the top portion (title, date of creation, media, dimensions) you are only hurting yourself and your art. This gives some important background information about your work. Try to be as specific and consistent as possible. You have to remember not everyone who comes through this site is a gallery owner, or prolific art purchaser. You might even be the first piece of "real art" they purchase.

Listing the specifics might save you a headache later on down the road - not only for sales on EBSQ but also for those of you who use the templates. ("I thought it was bigger!", "You said this was an oil painting", "I thought this was fresh from the studio! It's 19 years old!!!")

Faux Pas #2: No Descriptions!

Again this is one of those things that is just hurting yourself and your art. I know most of us HATE to talk about our art or what it means to us. We can hide behind - "it's open to interpretation", "I don't want to sway my audience, by my interpretation", "it doesn't matter what I see, what do you see?"," I don't like to define my creations", or "it's too personal" - cut the crap lol!!!. NO ONE likes doing it.

While some people can sit and write a 40000 page essay about a single piece of art, most of the time for the rest of us, it's like pulling teeth!!!!!! Sometimes a flower is just that - a flower. Sooooooooooooooooo how do you find balance?

My new rule of thumb is I try to get my descriptions to be to the bottom of the first detail shot. That gives me a goal, and a cut off. (It’s a general rule for myself I just started implementing) This I find is just enough room to keep me focused and not too much room for blathering!

Keep it focused and to the point. (If you use a generic statement for a series, try to individualize it with a single end sentence at the very least. - I'm guilty of this one with my older work!!!!)

Take your patrons on the journey with you, talk of your inspiration, technique, why you love it - why you hate it, why they need to own it.

A quick example:

Things like, "Hi my name is Kris and this is my painting titled Sassafras #1. It's painted in acrylics. I hope you enjoy," is redundant - they already have that information. (See faux pas #1!)

BUT something more like this, "This painting is titled Sassafras #2. It was inspired by my wanting to find the true meaning of such an odd playful word. My journey took me to an online dictionary, where I learned it is an eastern North American tree (Sassafras albidum) of the laurel family having both ovate and lobed aromatic leaves(direct dictionary quote). The word Sassafras has always, in my mind, meant a great playful explosion of reds.

Armed with knowledge - I took up my brush, and painted a very playful striped tree with lots of oval hot maroon leaves, and other oblong varieties of red leaves. The vibrant green background I choose really gives it a marvelous POP and WOW factor. This painting would be a great focal piece, as it's very bold, bright and vivid.”

Which painting are you more curious to see?

If you are ever stuck for words to use, here is something great I learned from a friend. (I'm a simple gal who uses simple words - I don't dress things up a lot.) Go to http://m-w.com or http://thesaurus.com and type in a generic word. You will have tons of new ways to say the same thing at your fingertips!

Example: the word bright I used in the last example description sentence. Check these other options out:

[link] http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/bright

-Or-

[link] http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bright

NOW the options are endless!

And again these words and phrases you use in your descriptions are picked up by SEARCH ENGINES.

But be warned, there is a difference between dressing up and overdressing...

Faux Pas #3: Overselling/Overdressing your Descriptions

If it reads like an ad for a tractor pull or infomercial - you need to tone it down a bit. This includes oversized colorful fonts.

"SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!!!!!!!

JUST PAINTED THIS FANTASTIC NEW ARTWORK YOU MUST OWN! IT WAS PAINTINED ESPECIALLY FOR YOU AND I DONT KNOW YOU! HOW GREAT AM I? THIS PAINTING IS GONNA BE STYLIN IN YOUR NEW HOUSE - AND OVERPOWER YOUR SPACE - SUPER DUPER WOW FACTOR - SEE THESE REDS IF YOU LOVE RED THIS PAINTING SHOULD HANG IN YOUR HOUSE BECAUSE IM SO BRILLIANT AND I KNEW YOU LOVED RED.

IT'S ONLY 34,000 DOLLARS IF YOU ACT NOW. YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT. I HAVE THREE MORE JUST LIKE IT THAT SOLD FOR DOUBLE THE PRICE - THIS IS THE LAST ONE!

GET IT WHILE YOU CAN. OH AND ILL THROW IN A BLENDER IF YOU CALL IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES!!!! ACT NOW!!!!!

I DONT CARE IF YOU LIKE MY ART OR NOT - YOU HAVE TO BUY IT - EVERYONE ELSE IS - I'M SO GREAT AND WONDERFUL DID I TELL YOU THAT? DID YOU KNOW I HAVE A PAINTING HANGING IN YOUR LOCAL BANK, I DONT KNOW HWERE YOU LIVE BUT I BET I HAVE A PAINTING WITHIN 5 MINS OF YOUR HOUSE ALREADY. PEOPLE LOVE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

That concludes Overkill 101.

Keep it simple - no need to club them. If you have it for sale on Etsy let them know with a simple sentence: "This piece is currently available at Etsy" or a simple image/logo link. You can even do this using color to help it stand out more from the rest of your description - it's all in presentation. Loud/Large colors detract from your art. Choose a color that is prominent in your art for a nice harmony, or even choose a contrasting color - that's up to you. Be careful how you use it!!!!!!!

Overdressing your descriptions with huge words four people in the universe know sounds contrite. Fake. Unreal. If you are well educated you should be able to string a few words together that make you sound intelligent, and yet accessible. Just because you know what the word vernissage means doesn't mean your art with sell any better than the next artist. No one knows who the next Picasso, da Vinci, or Monet is. (I saw you looking that up! LOL)

If you want to mention how wonderful you are (and you are - trust me I know) save that for the last sentence in your description. A simple generic "- by Award winning and internationally collected artist Kris Jean" or simply link to a list of awards you have won - or better yet, "you can learn more about me by reading my profile" link..

If you are truly wonderful they know that already - let your work sell itself to a point. Overkill just makes it seem like you are trying way to hard - or don't have any friends to talk to.

Faux Pas #4: Poor Images

The major things to look for when taking a photo or capturing an image of your artwork:

1. IS IT SCANNED? Oh boy, when I first started, I had a cheesy webcam. It had no white balance and everything was brownish. Let's all face it - it looked like poo.

Here is a Poo-zample. (nudity)

LINK: http://kjwebdesign.com/JULY_LIVE/valerie.jpg

(But even with photos like these I still sold art, yes they sold - but for 13.99 for a 16x20 - that particular one was painted with yellow, orange, white, black and burnt seinna direct from the tube no mixing) p To make a short story longer, my next logical step was to try to scan these pieces in to get rid of the poo factor. That caused a whole new set of problems. Scanning your images can be easy to do; piecing them back together is the challenge. The ones I was doing were 16x20's and on a regular flat bed scanner for 81/2 x 11. Yes, this is what I did for 2 years. Then reassembled them. It didn't always work out well:

LINK: http://kjwebdesign.com/JULY_LIVE/scanned.jpg

(I won’t even tell you how long it took to clean this up)

LINK: http://kjwebdesign.com/JULY_LIVE/fixed.jpg

Depending on your scanner you have to treat each scanned image as an individual image, clean it up etc. then piece meal them back together. Time consuming. Sometimes you can't for the life of you get the images to line up. This can cause a problem later down the road for authentications purposes. (You know - after you are dead) I have seen this done numerous times on EBSQ so I know I'm not the only one who tried it, LOL!

The best advice about scanning images is if it doesn't fit on the scanner don't do it (or have it professionally done).

2. IS THERE GLARE? Glare is the bane of every new artists & established artists existence, no matter the media. I have tried all kinds of wacky things to get non glare photos - especially when I was a newbie. I have found from personal experience aside from hiring a professional (expensive) don’t try to photo it inside. Go outside and find a shady spot (uniformly shady - not so you can see sun shining through the leaves to the ground), hang a nail and there you go - no flash.

If it's another kind of media bring a table. You might have to adjust the blue tones a bit in Photoshop but it's nothing compared to glare on a masterpiece.

This is not the only solution/option. You can find articles in the archives of the EBSQ EBSQ Zine, and many posts in the photography area of the forum. If you still have issues, POST and pick the brains of the photography experts we have at your fingertips on the EBSQ forums! ( http://www.ebsqart.com/forum/Photography_(public)/forumid_31/tt.htm )

3. TIME STAMP ..........................nuff said. Turn the time stamp off you camera before you snap a "professional shot" of your artwork. Dont laugh this has been done.

4. FRAMED or FAUX BACKGROUND This is one of those things that is a matter of preference. For me and many others, showing a piece already framed distracts from the art itself. (Normally art is framed yes.....I know) However, on a website, (especially with a black background) the art is already popping. Adding a frame around it kills the stand out factor the black gives it.

Viewing images of art on black makes the colors more vivid, viewing it on grey can make them drabber sometimes, and on white makes them seem darker. If you insist on having a framed shot of your artwork use it as a detail shot.

Look at this example, and look at each painting while covering the others with some loose paper or your hands.

LINK: http://kjwebdesign.com/JULY_LIVE/frames.jpg

Take a good hard look, which one of these paintings looks the most bright and vivid? Which one would you want to purchase? Which one really allows you to "see" the painting? Look at the brightness/vividness of the purples, look at the shades of the centers, the hue difference in each one, a majority of people will choose the first one (black background) - and I'm sure you guessed they are all the exact same image.

This stands true for the galleries on EBSQ where your artwork is shown in the "mix" with other artists, once they see those bright vivid colors unobstructed, they are more likely to click that link - they go to the details page - though this is on a white background it is not side by side with other "competing" images - and they are there to see you!!!! Half the battle is getting someone in the door!

5. WATERMARKED There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to protect your copyrights as an artist. This is where limiting the distribution of your images on the web comes into play. This can be done by only showing small images, or watermarked images (don't offer up your extremely high resolution photos anywhere). When choosing a watermark one needs to be careful not to watermark over the entire image, in such a manor that makes it impossible to actually SEE the artwork. You can easily get the same effect by using the alpha filter, and fading out your watermark. It will make the image just as useless for scammers. If you choose to watermark your images, I would include your name or your domain information.

LINK: http://kjwebdesign.com/JULY_LIVE/watermarks.jpg

6. OVERALL QUALITY Standard web dpi is 72 (dots per inch) EBSQ is optimized for 72 dpi 800x800 JPG (maximum size on either side - uploading other file formats or larger images will result in an error!) if you are using webcams (see photos.ex.1), disposable cameras, or cell phones - your overall quality just wont be there. They will be discolored and cloudy. Since EBSQ uses the JPG format it is important to set the compression rate when saving these images. (If your image manipulating program doesn't let you and your images don't look cloudy - then don't fret!) The lower the compression rate the less cloudy an image will be. Depending on your program, it should ask you when saving a jpg file. A standard rate of compression for jpg is a scale of 1-100 (1 being ideal on most systems)

EBSQ also resizes these images all over the site automatically (and in some cases these images might be minimally compressed for site speed). Poor photos to start with will be bad photos all the way around. Here is a quick mock up to show you what I mean. Red is one of the biggest offenders of "compression clouds" Meaning your work will seem "cloudy" around the edges. This is a high quality scan (original .TIFF file that I used), that by JPG nature even at 0% compressed is actually still compressed by more than HALF (file size wise)

LINK: http://kjwebdesign.com/JULY_LIVE/compression.jpg

Now I don't want everyone freaking out about JPG's being BAD!!!!!!!! Because they are not. But if JPG is the only way you are saving your original files of your art, look into some better options, this will result in better quality prints. Because every time you open and edit then save a JPG file it compresses it yet again!

NOW, why we SHOULD use JPGs to show are art on EBSQ, you don't want people taking your high res images, and trying to copying you, printing unlicensed prints, using your images on their products, using your images for any reason. It is done this way to help protect your copyrights.

7. DETAIL IMAGES Detail images are NOT required. These are very useful for showing "THE DETAILS" in your work. That’s why they are called "detail images". You have the ability to show 3 more shots of your art, either in close up, hanging on the wall, from an angle, framed, or even in different types of light. You want people to look at your art to be amazed why not dazzle them with extra shots, that show "true size" details, show your brush work, and your quality of work.

This is another thing I'm guilty of is not having details shots with my older work. It's some thing that I have been working on. 8. BAD CROP JOB When photographing your art sometimes it's not always square or dead on to the camera. It can get telescoped and be at a wonky angle. In those cases try to photo again. If that's not an option you can use software to try to telescope it back to square, then crop. Try to remove everything from the outside edge of the painting - no bits of wall, easel, or background should show - for a nice clean image of your art. If your image still does not want to behave, you can always crop as close as you can get to the edges cutting off a small bit of your painting to make it square or even again.

Faux Pas #5: Not Using Keywords!

It's much easier for a person to type in "happy birthday" in a search window, when looking for a work of art they would like to send for a birthday e-card than thumb through countless pages of artwork. You would be surprised how many times you art NOT seen because of not using keywords.

To pick good keywords for your art - look at it, what is the first thing that comes to mind? What color is it? What is the main focus of the painting? Is it bold? Is it done in pastels (the color grouping not the media)? Is it nude? Is it a landscape? Does it have or bring a feeling of sadness? Those are just some simple examples of how to brainstorm keywords for your art. You are more likely to get your work seen if a little thought and effort is put into this.

Faux Pas #6: To Room View or not to Room View?

Room Views where art thou Room Views??? Room Views are mostly lifted images that are taken with out permission, and a painting that is NOT to scale slipped in there. Using these images found on the internet is copyright infringement. If you don't know the source of the image, don’t use it. Nothing would be more embarrassing than a Cease and Desist order, to you and to EBSQ. There is no guarantee that the painting or work of art will be shown to scale - you don't want it returned because it didn't fit over someone’s sofa like the image showed, even if it clearly says "not to scale".

The safest way to use a room view is:

1. Locate a service that offers legit images for this type of use.
2. If you can't find a service find an individual who will let you use the image with a photo credit of sorts or payment.
3. Take your own room view shots and copyright them so they will be exclusive to you.

Swiping images of "modern furniture" from Google image search a room view does not make.

Faux Pas #7: Spell Chix'n

Faux Pas #8: Uploading Non Art Images To Art Case

Faux Pas #9: Bulk Uploads

Faux Pas #10: Separate Detail Images

PHEW! Who knew right????? Imagine fixing any one of those boo-boo's can make a better impression! Not just for you but for US as a whole!!

Join us next month for help with your Personal EBSQ Galleries!

Do More with Your EBSQ Account