This applies to other socials a lot too, like RUclips. I have actually seen a lot of people offering photos recently as reference photos and so many of them are really horrible photos, bad crops, bad light. You're right, no one is going to want to draw of paint it. I think once the person in your example figures that out, their art will get better too. Composition for photograph and painting, has the same basic principles.
That is good advice, Lisa, thank you. I would ad one more tip to this. Don't put your family, holiday, daily habits on Instagram on the same account where you put your art. It is not so that when people like your art they also like to know where you hang out this summer and with who and when you are licking your icecream. For me it is unprofessional if you mix everything on one page. Though scammers can be realy interested in you privetlife😂
As always you have given fantastic advice. I have just ignored the ntf and other fake stuff , but I hadn't realised it used up your algorithms allowance. You are an inspiration so a huge Thank you 😊
It's a blessing in disguise to not have that many followers at first. In ten years, she's going to be looking at what she's doing now and go, "OMG I'm so much better now, what was I thinking?" It's not a bad thing to only have 13 people with their eyes on you while you're still finding your feet.
I'm glad I have just 5 random followers (people who in no way are involved with art, any subject matter I use, or personal accounts where it might be a peripheral interest--they make me wonder if they were trying the follow-unfollow gimmick). I started IG late last year as a challenge to get back into good creative habits. A YTer (Mimimoo Illustration) did one year of 5 days per week illustrations and saw massive skill improvement, which is my goal for now. That, and narrowing my interests since I'm all over. I don't think I'll ever stick to three media or something like that, but I definitely want to actually know what I like most and get more confidence in those. In a way, same with YT, though a much slower process to get used to.
I had that problem last year when I thought I could get a decent following from work I sometimes didn't even finish 😂 I had a big gap from posting till recently cause of illness and moving twice, but it was a blessing, especially from those 'send pic' guys. I also had one comment from a dude who wants to buy something, but I was like I wouldn't buy it and it's mine so I commented I'm not selling anything for now and not a peep from him. Later I saw on his profile he does NFTs so it was a good decision. Now I'm looking at improving my skills, I write down what I like and don't and then think about how to improve. I'm also watching other techniques and try them out once in a while. You never know what you can end up with like that and it keeps me excited to do more. And while I'm still posting, I'm focusing more on how to use tags, does time of day matter and such, so I can learn. Also, I'm writing the posts like I'm talking to the whole world which works like those silly roleplays kids do and makes me have fun and be less worried about how people receive it. Also no-one is reading it so that helps too 😂
Fully agreed with your points! Adding this in case someone finds it useful: the secondary reason why you want to ignore your follow count in the early stages is to avoid wiring your brain to equate success and work quality with follows, likes and so on. Like Lisa said, artistry and technique should be your priority. Socmed metrics are specifically a marketing issue. On comments: a new art account is also an opportunity to learn the differences between legitimate constructive criticism, well-meaning feedback from people without the vocabulary or background to pinpoint what they find great or off about the piece, and griefers who either are having a bad day or have (for one reason or the other) bitter pills stuck to their tongues 24/7. An artist still trying to find their footing may be vulnerable to long term discouragement if they dwell too much on replies from the latter two - again, circling back to why you're better off focusing on your art first before social validation. On artwork composition: watching cinematography breakdowns might also be useful? Films also use a ton of framing, color theory, and so on for story and messaging. There are several channels on yt dedicated to analyzing scenes.
I identify so much with this artist when I was young. At college I started my DeviantArt in the glorious days of DA and I too submited photos of nature and landscapes thinking will be of use to other artits. NOPE, hahahaha. My strong was anime drawing and powerful coloring so after a couple of years I just stop uploading photos, and keep to myself the ones I liked by X reasons (I love to photo leaves: forms, tectures, colors, for inspiring and ideas of what I do, awesome, for others... eh?)
I totally agree, I have no problems in terms of technical skills, rather consistency both in style (I'm not a young artist but I still like to experiment) and in posting regularly (I'm terrible at it 😂). I've been stuck at 50 followers for ages .. initially it disheartened me but I learned not to give it too much importance (thinking about it I don't know if I could manage too many followers, I would be anxious about having to share something every day) .. so in the meantime I'm working on the 2 points written above ..but with less pressure. . I hope I haven't made any mistakes, English is not my language 😅
Tell 'em about the spammers who want you to advertise their dog collars, even when you have nothing relating to pets on your account. Cutting back on reels? GOOD. I can't stand reels. Art reels are almost always time lapse videos that go by too slowly for you to get an impression of the finalised piece, when you're scrolling down through a lot of other stuff; and also go by too quick for you to get a decent idea of the artist's process. One exception I remember is when the artist took the camera and waved it around their finished piece, wobbily showing one area at a time. What a useless and redundant thing to do, all because instagram forces artists to do what it wants, in an effort to be tiktok, instead of facilitating what might benefit the artist.
I blocked “NFT” from all my social media. I kept getting spammed by photographers and artists proclaiming they were paying off their mortgages for selling air or even stolen images via screenshots about 17 months ago to celebrities. I looked into them; the astronomical impact and energy waste for “owning” air isn’t my thing. So even if it’s not technically a scam, I consider them a scam too. 😎 My biggest “fans” on Instagram and Twitter are imitation musician accounts. 😂 They just like everything and send me DMs.
I have a reel showing several of my paintings. This particular reel format has been very popular, and I got 3k likes. I normally get 100 likes if I'm lucky, so I was caught off guard by getting so many likes. But....here's the weird thing. They are all from India, which really isn't my intended audience. I specialize in painting western art for mostly an American audience. There are zero comments on the reel, and only like a tiny 1% of the viewers actually follow me. And none of them engage with my posts
Weird. I don't get a lot of likes from India, but there were times when my suggested posts were full of accounts from India, just doing random things for the camera.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.🙂 One of my biggest struggles is how many the likes and story shares I get for my artwork. I know that I shouldn't let this bother me, as a 47 year old it can be a little daunting. 😐 I'm profecting my skills and another thing that seems to concern me is the way my pictures and videos turns out. My phone takes horrible pictures. It does the art no justice. 😐 I hope someone on here can give me some advice. 😉
Yup, it takes a long time to increase followers. It was only last year i felt my work was good enough to post. My site has mostly been for my art dolls, i only have 3 paintings on that im confident about. My biggest problem is what to post between projects, it can be a month or more between my posts. I feel i can only show the same thing a few times before it gets boring, help x
I am wondering if Derwent Inktense can be used WITH watercolor pencils or watercolor brush pens. The primary question is can Inktense be used as a base, with watercolor on top for effects. I think it would be a great video.
Hi Lisa, I would like to try out Luminance colored pencils. I've been looking at buying say a dozen open stock. I'd like to have the basis of a split primary palette with some specialty colors to round out. What pencils would you recommend? I always find your advice sound and workable. Thank you very much for all you do on your channel, especially with the aim of helping other artists. Belinda
That's going to be a totally personal preference. The colors on blick.com are pretty accurate. The two I use the most are white and burnt sienna 50% :)
Lisa, how would you recommend us to find other artists when looking for people to follow and support? I do follow a few of those art accounts(sorry) and I just like to look through for artists and go follow and interact with the picture on THEIR accounts, am I an outlier? Lol
I follow a ton of Hashtags so random people appear on my feed. Or just search hashtags that interest you so you see everything people upload with that hashtag and you can pick the accounts that you would like to support and whatnot
I also should have pointed out that there is a difference between a real art share account and one that uses multiple fake accounts like I showed here asking you to DM them.
Yes, I created an instagram account a couple of months ago or so to document my progress. I don't really aim to get followers, I just want to share my art with other people. I banned the word nft from my account because of the spam
I don't bother with Instagram. Yeah I have an account, I get these messages. I just ignore them. If I get more than one message from that one account, then I'll take the time to report and block.
OMG i almost fell for the NFT scam on Insta! In my case, my dad has his name on my bank account (for reasons like this) and he caught me before I could do anything dumb! He got in contact with the guy too! I think the guy got scared off Insta after he read my dad’s message 🤣 My dad is a stockbroker so he’s also familiar with crypto and all that stuff.
This applies to other socials a lot too, like RUclips. I have actually seen a lot of people offering photos recently as reference photos and so many of them are really horrible photos, bad crops, bad light. You're right, no one is going to want to draw of paint it. I think once the person in your example figures that out, their art will get better too. Composition for photograph and painting, has the same basic principles.
That is good advice, Lisa, thank you. I would ad one more tip to this. Don't put your family, holiday, daily habits on Instagram on the same account where you put your art. It is not so that when people like your art they also like to know where you hang out this summer and with who and when you are licking your icecream. For me it is unprofessional if you mix everything on one page. Though scammers can be realy interested in you privetlife😂
As always you have given fantastic advice. I have just ignored the ntf and other fake stuff , but I hadn't realised it used up your algorithms allowance. You are an inspiration so a huge Thank you 😊
It's a blessing in disguise to not have that many followers at first. In ten years, she's going to be looking at what she's doing now and go, "OMG I'm so much better now, what was I thinking?" It's not a bad thing to only have 13 people with their eyes on you while you're still finding your feet.
Absolutely!
I'm glad I have just 5 random followers (people who in no way are involved with art, any subject matter I use, or personal accounts where it might be a peripheral interest--they make me wonder if they were trying the follow-unfollow gimmick). I started IG late last year as a challenge to get back into good creative habits. A YTer (Mimimoo Illustration) did one year of 5 days per week illustrations and saw massive skill improvement, which is my goal for now. That, and narrowing my interests since I'm all over. I don't think I'll ever stick to three media or something like that, but I definitely want to actually know what I like most and get more confidence in those. In a way, same with YT, though a much slower process to get used to.
I got the NFT message, too. Block block block!
I had that problem last year when I thought I could get a decent following from work I sometimes didn't even finish 😂 I had a big gap from posting till recently cause of illness and moving twice, but it was a blessing, especially from those 'send pic' guys. I also had one comment from a dude who wants to buy something, but I was like I wouldn't buy it and it's mine so I commented I'm not selling anything for now and not a peep from him. Later I saw on his profile he does NFTs so it was a good decision. Now I'm looking at improving my skills, I write down what I like and don't and then think about how to improve. I'm also watching other techniques and try them out once in a while. You never know what you can end up with like that and it keeps me excited to do more. And while I'm still posting, I'm focusing more on how to use tags, does time of day matter and such, so I can learn. Also, I'm writing the posts like I'm talking to the whole world which works like those silly roleplays kids do and makes me have fun and be less worried about how people receive it. Also no-one is reading it so that helps too 😂
Thank you Lisa, now i know what NFT is, i’ ve got a lot of those on my instagram, blocked them to and reported them
Fully agreed with your points! Adding this in case someone finds it useful: the secondary reason why you want to ignore your follow count in the early stages is to avoid wiring your brain to equate success and work quality with follows, likes and so on. Like Lisa said, artistry and technique should be your priority. Socmed metrics are specifically a marketing issue.
On comments: a new art account is also an opportunity to learn the differences between legitimate constructive criticism, well-meaning feedback from people without the vocabulary or background to pinpoint what they find great or off about the piece, and griefers who either are having a bad day or have (for one reason or the other) bitter pills stuck to their tongues 24/7. An artist still trying to find their footing may be vulnerable to long term discouragement if they dwell too much on replies from the latter two - again, circling back to why you're better off focusing on your art first before social validation.
On artwork composition: watching cinematography breakdowns might also be useful? Films also use a ton of framing, color theory, and so on for story and messaging. There are several channels on yt dedicated to analyzing scenes.
Thanks Lisa, great advise!
😁
I identify so much with this artist when I was young. At college I started my DeviantArt in the glorious days of DA and I too submited photos of nature and landscapes thinking will be of use to other artits. NOPE, hahahaha. My strong was anime drawing and powerful coloring so after a couple of years I just stop uploading photos, and keep to myself the ones I liked by X reasons (I love to photo leaves: forms, tectures, colors, for inspiring and ideas of what I do, awesome, for others... eh?)
I totally agree, I have no problems in terms of technical skills, rather consistency both in style (I'm not a young artist but I still like to experiment) and in posting regularly (I'm terrible at it 😂). I've been stuck at 50 followers for ages .. initially it disheartened me but I learned not to give it too much importance (thinking about it I don't know if I could manage too many followers, I would be anxious about having to share something every day) .. so in the meantime I'm working on the 2 points written above ..but with less pressure.
.
I hope I haven't made any mistakes, English is not my language 😅
Tell 'em about the spammers who want you to advertise their dog collars, even when you have nothing relating to pets on your account.
Cutting back on reels? GOOD. I can't stand reels. Art reels are almost always time lapse videos that go by too slowly for you to get an impression of the finalised piece, when you're scrolling down through a lot of other stuff; and also go by too quick for you to get a decent idea of the artist's process.
One exception I remember is when the artist took the camera and waved it around their finished piece, wobbily showing one area at a time. What a useless and redundant thing to do, all because instagram forces artists to do what it wants, in an effort to be tiktok, instead of facilitating what might benefit the artist.
I blocked “NFT” from all my social media. I kept getting spammed by photographers and artists proclaiming they were paying off their mortgages for selling air or even stolen images via screenshots about 17 months ago to celebrities. I looked into them; the astronomical impact and energy waste for “owning” air isn’t my thing. So even if it’s not technically a scam, I consider them a scam too. 😎
My biggest “fans” on Instagram and Twitter are imitation musician accounts. 😂 They just like everything and send me DMs.
I have a reel showing several of my paintings. This particular reel format has been very popular, and I got 3k likes. I normally get 100 likes if I'm lucky, so I was caught off guard by getting so many likes. But....here's the weird thing. They are all from India, which really isn't my intended audience. I specialize in painting western art for mostly an American audience. There are zero comments on the reel, and only like a tiny 1% of the viewers actually follow me. And none of them engage with my posts
Weird. I don't get a lot of likes from India, but there were times when my suggested posts were full of accounts from India, just doing random things for the camera.
I googled NFT. Kind of understand it now!
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.🙂 One of my biggest struggles is how many the likes and story shares I get for my artwork. I know that I shouldn't let this bother me, as a 47 year old it can be a little daunting. 😐 I'm profecting my skills and another thing that seems to concern me is the way my pictures and videos turns out. My phone takes horrible pictures. It does the art no justice. 😐 I hope someone on here can give me some advice. 😉
I take photos of my art with my dslr. I normally only use my phone camera for video and pet photos.
Yup, it takes a long time to increase followers. It was only last year i felt my work was good enough to post. My site has mostly been for my art dolls, i only have 3 paintings on that im confident about. My biggest problem is what to post between projects, it can be a month or more between my posts. I feel i can only show the same thing a few times before it gets boring, help x
That would make for a great video topic! I will work on it!
@@Lachri That would be great if you can. I'm not very good at photography either and struggle getting reasonable images.
@@Lachri I would love to see that too. What can we post while we work on those bigger pieces that draw people in?
I am wondering if Derwent Inktense can be used WITH watercolor pencils or watercolor brush pens. The primary question is can Inktense be used as a base, with watercolor on top for effects. I think it would be a great video.
Technically yes, but I can't think of a case where i feel it would be beneficial.
Hi Lisa, I would like to try out Luminance colored pencils. I've been looking at buying say a dozen open stock. I'd like to have the basis of a split primary palette with some specialty colors to round out. What pencils would you recommend? I always find your advice sound and workable. Thank you very much for all you do on your channel, especially with the aim of helping other artists. Belinda
That's going to be a totally personal preference. The colors on blick.com are pretty accurate. The two I use the most are white and burnt sienna 50% :)
Lisa, how would you recommend us to find other artists when looking for people to follow and support? I do follow a few of those art accounts(sorry) and I just like to look through for artists and go follow and interact with the picture on THEIR accounts, am I an outlier? Lol
I follow a ton of Hashtags so random people appear on my feed. Or just search hashtags that interest you so you see everything people upload with that hashtag and you can pick the accounts that you would like to support and whatnot
I follow hashtags for #painting #coloredpencil etc
I also should have pointed out that there is a difference between a real art share account and one that uses multiple fake accounts like I showed here asking you to DM them.
i hate all those NFTs and follow scams,so annoying to have to report and block them all
Yes, I created an instagram account a couple of months ago or so to document my progress. I don't really aim to get followers, I just want to share my art with other people. I banned the word nft from my account because of the spam
Good thinking!
If a beginner artist is asked by a stranger to do a commission, should they do it for free?
What does NFT mean?
Short for scam lol.
I don't bother with Instagram. Yeah I have an account, I get these messages. I just ignore them. If I get more than one message from that one account, then I'll take the time to report and block.
OMG i almost fell for the NFT scam on Insta! In my case, my dad has his name on my bank account (for reasons like this) and he caught me before I could do anything dumb! He got in contact with the guy too! I think the guy got scared off Insta after he read my dad’s message 🤣 My dad is a stockbroker so he’s also familiar with crypto and all that stuff.