I'm featured in International Artist Magazine!

What a pleasure to open today's mail! This is volume 129, the October/November issue, 2019. The magazine is available in hard copy, as well as online.

I'll tell you what I know about selling art online

I have been on Etsy for a long time and have sold a lot of work there (it’s over 2600 items now) , but it will be different for everyone.  The reasons it works for me are the following: 

 

1) My prices are very low.

2) I list daily, and make paintings daily, in one sitting.

3) The work is small, often on paper, and very easy and inexpensive to ship.

4) I’m very prompt with customer service and ship the same day or the next day.

5) I use a number of social media sites and post there daily to direct people to my etsy page. I post on Twitter, a personal Facebook page, a business Facebook page, Instagram, and Pinterest,....but I am MOST active on FB and Instagram, and I enjoy spending time on both sites, aside from business reasons.

6) I keep a very full store, and also relist 3 pieces daily, so there are always new things for people to see (each of your listings will last for 4 months). New listings also take priority in search, so it is important to relist items every day.

 

…..and …this last point is perhaps the most important.  I always treated online selling of art as an experiment. I made my living from teaching, so I did not need to rely on the money I made at Etsy. So the whole thing was fun, and I never worried about sales…they just came! It still is fun today. My activity selling art online was always completely stress-free. This freed me up to try things.

Models of success on etsy and online sales in general will vary from person to person. It has been so successful for me that I no longer show in galleries at all…it’s too much fuss and too much of a headache. I also enjoy dealing with people online and when I promote on my social media sites I’m also there to socialize and see other people’s art….so it’s not just a hard sell of the work.

You can research a lot of etsy shops. You can see how many sales they have overall. I keep all that information public. I think some people keep it hidden (there is that option) but it’s possible to actually see how many shops do financially. That is an excellent way to see success firsthand and to research other people's methods.

 

A number of years back, I made a website where I list ALL my available work. It's important that the prices are listed because people really do not wish to be bothered inquiring about prices. The work can be purchased directly from my website   harrystooshinoff.com using PayPal.    It is important to have your own platform, as well as any site like Etsy, because a company can change their rules at any point, making it unattractive for you to be there. So....you need a place to  immediately redirect traffic in that eventuality!


 

 

 

 

I'm on Instagram!

 

Well, I'm on Instagram.....and I like my tablet very much. Just search for Harry Stooshinoff......I post very regularly there.

 

Visit me here:

paintbox.etsy.com

www.harrystooshinoff.com

My Brushes

These are the brushes I use every day. They are not special, and they are not expensive, and they are not new (for the most part). I'm used to them and they do a great job. If one gets loose and wobbly, I wrap a bit of masking tape around it, so that it's right again (maybe just like my uncle used to tape his eyelid to his brow when he got old and his lid didn't work quite right any more). Well, maybe not exactly like that, but you get my drift. It's really only the last 6 brushes or so that I use every day, and the small house painting brush is used only to spread my left-over paints onto thin papers for collages later. It's not necessary to spend a lot of money on brushes. I can't recall the last time I bought a brush, and when I do buy a new brush, it's usually just a tiny sable brush for little details. Don't feel that an old, gnarly, messed up brush should be thrown out...it will work just fine for a number of things. You just have to watch what it will do...and what it will not do....

Visit me here:
paintbox.etsy.com
www.harrystooshinoff.com 

Harry Stooshinoff Exhibit at Buckhorn Arts Festival 2017

It was a lot of work putting all this into place, but I enjoyed the overall effect. The festival fills the Community Center and many outbuilding galleries with artist displays in late August. I love the setup of this gallery campus; it's unique and very appealing. The town should think of making even more use of their valuable and rare asset.

Visit me here:
paintbox.etsy.com
www.harrystooshinoff.com   

Framing Masonite Paintings in Float Frames

I am also making float frames for many of my small panels and am using 100% silicone adhesive (5 small dots...one in each corner, and the center of the panel) to firmly glue the panel to the frame support beneath.  The process is completely reversible...the painted panel can be safely removed without damaging the work. You never know when someone down the line may want to rework the presentation. Made with clear pine,  painted satin white, wired at back, and ready to hang. The reveal on each side is 1/8 inch, and I chose to keep everything white for a simple, clean look. I will also be finishing some with just clear minwax, which leaves the pine very pale. I used Jon Peters' excellent video to guide me in making this.     https://youtu.be/AB-L65xO0Pg    I used  a thin nail set to counter-sink nails and filled with wood filler.

Visit me here:
paintbox.etsy.com
www.harrystooshinoff.com

Colour Notes

 

Here is list of some of the main colours I use: ultramarine blue, permanent blue light, cadmium red middle (sparingly, and good for mixing), cadmium yellow middle (sparingly, and good for mixing), naples yellow, titanium buff light, or unbleached titanium, titanium white, prussian blue, chromium oxide green, hookers green, sap green, viridian green, ultramarine violet (great for cutting the saturation of greens, and for achieving more variety with blues), burnt umber, raw umber, I also use a variety of mixed colours,packaged in tubes, often not expensive...like light portrait pink, greyish blue, light blue violet, neutral grey...(they are great for tinting other colours). carbon black (great for mixing greys and allows to you easily achieve both warm and cool greys). The dark blues and greens are great for mixing the equivalents of black when mixed with the umbers.

 

I use the carbon black mostly to mix greys, but for a variety of extreme darks in the painting I use my darkest blues and greens mixed with the relaltive complementary....I love mixing darks! So for dark green masses I might use hookers green + prussian blue + burnt umber.

 

Visit me here:

paintbox.etsy.com

www.harrystooshinoff.com

Country Living

 

I love walking these roads in the evenings.The roadsides are well treed...I hear the wind move through the foliage and all kinds of little animal life in the hedges. The crows are always squacking about something or other. The light seems to change by the minute, and there are open views as well as more crowded-in areas where there's less breeze....you can smell the summer growth. And I love being away from everything, and still hearing human life on the edge. I'm far up in the hills, and I can hear single cars winding down the road miles away. It makes me happy knowing they're there. I can hear cars coming from either direction for 15 seconds before I see them...tractors, ATVs and motorbikes I can hear for way longer before they pass. Often, on weekends, I can hear the rock band practicing, next to the horse farm and chickabiddy's....it's nice hearing them from this distance, but I wonder what Boris the horse farmer thinks...they are right across the road from him. I like stopping and talking to Sally the pretty young mare with the star on her forehead...she likes me and always looks up and approaches the fence when I get close....her horse buddies follow her. I keep meaning to bring them cut up apple bits. Recently I've seen a pair of coyotes ranging in the fields, close to the hedgerows, crossing at 10....they like being out the same time I am....getting close to dark...but not quite....

Visit me here:
paintbox.etsy.com
www.harrystooshinoff.com