May Issue Digital Paint Magazine

May 2011

Painting a Scene from Venice Cassatt’s Powerful Woman Contemporary: Berthe Morisot Painter 12’s Enhanced Dynamic Brush Adjuster

As always there are a bunch of new things happening in the painter world.

The biggest news of course is the release we have all been waiting for from Corel. Corel Painter 12. Yay! Also we have been able to get access to student pricing for Digital Art Academy. You can access Corel’s Academic pricing at DAA Corel Student Pricing. You will be asked to prove you are a student at Digital Art Academy. We have had a tough time getting this put back together as the person we initially set it up with is no longer with the company but it is now good to go.

You can see courses that are available at Digital Art Academy here. At the Academy we are adding a new type of class. They will be self paced classes that are roughly 2 hours of video in a variety of topics. It will be very nice as the person taking the class wont have to wait for a session to start, they can download the class any time they want. It will also open up opportunities for new material and instructors.

Another new software release of note is Topaz Lens Effects plugin. Here is a bit of into from Topaz, “Topaz Lens Effects simulates realistic lens, filter & specialty camera effects. With new interface features and a simple method of creating effective depth maps, Lens Effects makes it easy to emphasize your focal point, create beautiful bokeh effects and have creative control of your image after the shot.

Easily create things like: • bokeh • vignette • miniatures • motion • old school style • color balance, color enhancement and color subtraction

This magazine is free to distribute by any medium.

You can print it, email it, upload it on your web server. You may however not edit any part of this PDF, copy the content, or split the pages. This PDF must remain whole at all times, the content of which belongs to Digital Paint Magazine. All art and trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Digital Paint Magazine - May 2011

• and much more...”

There will be a contest at Digital Painting Forum in June. The information will be posted on the forum after the weekend. Participants will be given the chance to win a free copy of the new Topaz lens effects plugin.

So I hope you enjoy this month’s issue. If you have an artist’s work you would like to see, an idea for a feature, a class to suggest or other communication please let us know. You can send a post to Tim@digitalpaintmagazine.com Live well, love much & laugh often Tim 2

In This Issue True Colours

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Painting a Scene from Venice

by Joan A. Hamilton

Cartoon

by Victor Lunn-Rockliffe

The Old Masters

Cassatt’s Powerful Woman Contemporary: Berthe Morisot

By Nadia Lim

Digital Watercolors

by Robbie Brieske Right Click

12 15 18 20 21 24

Painter 12’s Enhanced Dynamic Brush Adjuster

by Skip Allen

Art Theft: Most Famous Cases in History

by Tim O’Neill A Blast From The Past Surrealist Paintings of Flowers Cover

Burano Reflections

By Joan A. Hamilton

Digital Paint Magazine - May 2011

by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

Marketing Buzz:

by Tim O’Neill

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Image 3: There are many different watercolour brushes available to paint the simple brushstrokes needed to suggest a little grainy texture on the building’s surface. I used DWC as the bottom basic colour and

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some of Skip Allen’s Splashing Water brushes on top to actually paint this building’s background. Painter 12 ‘s new Real Watercolour brushes are able to accomplish this much faster.

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Image 4: The first layer of blue on this building is done with Skip Allen’s Soft Wash. Further on in the painting, more texture and colour was added by digital and wet washes and splats. Some of the paint was also removed with Eraser Splats (made with the Method changed to Wet and the Subcategory to Wet Remove Density.) This was done in Painter 11.

There is a recent tutorial on my website on Watercolour Bleaches and Erasers – how to use them and how to make some different ones.

Image 5: Using a DWC eg: pointed simple water with a slight wet fringe paint the gold detail on the window frames and the blue shadows. Keep the edges sharp because this is in bright sunlight and that’s how real shadow edges look in that light.

Image 6: There a number of ways to make a sharp tiny line. I used a sharp chalk turned into a digital watercolour here to get a nice dry line.

Why make it complicated? I often do my sketch with it too, in case it ends up dropped into the mix.

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Image 9 and 10 show different ways to show texture and colour gradations in a building’s surface. In Image 9, the texture was painted with Splashing Water Digital Closed Splat, Open Splat and some erased by changing the Method and subcategory to Digital Wet Remove Density.

Image 7: Inside the windows in this painting I used a simple water wash in blue, then blended in some green with a custom DWC Soft blender that I restaurated with green. Sometimes it’s better to resaturate your blender and keep strokes to a minimum. There are only 3 brushstrokes in this area.

Image 8: Some soft wet colour mixing with Painter 12.

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In Image 10 the same type of area in a painting can be painted a different way. The canvas layer was a DWC layer dried and lifted to a WC layer. Then I used the new Real Watercolour Fractal Dry (which doesn’t diffuse on you) to put some blue on, then the Fractal Erase to remove some of the paint.

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Image 12: Brushes and Techniques Used for Water Most of the water is painted using Digital Watercolours. The level of detail had to be the same as in the buildings because the water is so still, that it is a mirror image. Distant unseen parts of the scene, eg. the second row of windows, must be included in the water reflections to give the illusion of perspective.

Fine Detail DWC brushes and the DWC Flat Grainy Blender were used to move tiny amounts of paint around.

Very light WC washes and glazes were used on the green window reflections to darken them and give them a watery look.

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Image 15: Many brushes can be simply ‘unsaturated’ in the Brush Control Well (by changing to 0%), and used as Blenders. It works best when you do it in very small areas. You can pull the paint that is already there around and end up with a very different edge than you started with.

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Image 16: A very light glaze with some bristle marks showing in it was used on top of the underlying digital watercolour layer. It was Skip’s Splashing Water Square Damp Brush.

It was really a lot of fun doing this kind of painting and can imagine loosening up on these strokes in areas would give it a wetter painterly look. I wanted to remain faithful to the original photo reference though.

It was taken by Barbara Brown of Red Bubble and is called “Burano Reflections.” She gave me her permission to use this photo.

So there you go…a successful collaboration!

Happy Painting!

Joan JoanAHamilton.com

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“A love of Nature is a consolation against failure� Quote from Berthe Morisot http: //cargocollective.com/victorlunnroc Digital Paint Magazine - May 2011

Victor Lunn-Rockliffe 11

The Old Masters Cassatt’s Powerful Woman Contemporary: Berthe Morisot

by Nadia Lim’s Berthe Morisot was one of the two women contemporaries with Mary Cassatt at the time of the Impressionist Movement.

Morisot was born on January 14, 1841 in Bourges, France. Her grandfather was the figure who may have spearheaded Morisot’s venture into art. Morisot’s grandfather was Rococo painter Jean-Honore Fragonard. Her father as well was an enthusiastic amateur painter

Woman at her toilette, 1875

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In a Park, 1874

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despite holding a high position in government. Born into an artistic family, she and sister Edma began training at an early age. There was a lot of suppression for women painters back then. They were not allowed to attend most prestigious schools in Paris and furthermore, they could not attend several art functions and even hangout in places where most artists hung out.

Like Cassatt, the Morisot sisters went to Paris to copy the Old Masters at the Louvre as part of their training. Despite being a woman, she was able to showcase her works for a decade at the prestigious Paris Salon. Among her contemporaries apart from Cassatt, Morisot was able to maintain a very close friendship with fellow Impressionist Edouard Manet. They met in 1868 when Morisot modeled for the artist and eventually became his student. Manet also held the most influence on her art. Instead of her formal rigid training on detailed landscapes, Morisot began to experiment with more unconventional approaches.

Although she showcased many of her works at the Paris Salon for a good decade, Morisot held her ground with the other Impressionists including Degas and Bazille in 1874 in rebellion to the strict, traditional ways of the exhibition as well as social commentary to the changing Parisian landscape. She refused to exhibit at the Salon and went with the other Impressionists to exhibit their works in the first Impressionist exhibit which incuded works of Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Monet and Cassatt.

Morisot became Manet’s sister-in-law in 1874 when she married his younger brother, Eugene, another struggling painter. Because Manet came from an elite and prominent family, Morisot was able to continue her craft without being burdened by financial woes. She continued to support the Impressionist movement and worked closely with them on exhibitions except in 1877 when she was pregnant with her daughter.

Her daughter, Julie, became one of Morisot’s favorite subjects soon after.

She experimented with a lot of different subjects such as seascapes, domestic scenes and portraits similar to Cassatt’s as well as still lifes and landscapes. Her paintings were considered very delicate, using pale colors and subjects. Like the other Impressionists, she also experimented with pastels and watercolors as primary medium.

Unfortunately, she never really became a commercial success until after she died. Critics often accuse her of being too controlled, lacking the Digital Paint Magazine - May 2011

The Cheval Glass, 1876

needed spontaneity to make her pieces stand out. A particular critic accused her of being ‘victim of the system of painting that she adopted’.

Today, she is considered as one of the greatest women artists in the 19th century.

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Digital Watercolors

by Robbie Brieske These unique designs were created by combining hand-painted mixed media with the Macintosh computer. Using an everyday “sweep-broom� as a paint brush, a spectrum of watercolor paint is swept up from a palette and brushed onto illustration board placed on the ground. Twisting and turning as I make contact with the white surface enables me to be fluid with each pass of Right: El Corazon Below: Mira

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the broom. Each new layer is a different spectrum of watercolor flowing inside and out on the flat surface. When the broom-painted watercolor layers are dry, the detail left by the broom is then patiently outlined by hand with pen and ink. This unique technique has opened a Left: Dawn Above: Myan Rising Right: One World Far Right: Dusk

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door into a world of fluid, colorful, abstract images.

While these abstract watercolor paintings were of some interest, I soon realized the potential of manipulating them on the Macintosh computer. Once the paintings were brought into Photoshop and combined with a kaleidoscope software, each painting yields an infinite amount of color patterns. These designs are then converted into vector-based art in Illustrator and harvested for their unpredictable, fluid patterns.

The power of the Mac has enabled me to combine original hand painted art with the digital world.

The blending of broom-painted watercolors and the computer has uncovered a myriad of designs into what I call “the cellular structure of color and form.�

For more information contact Robbie Brieske at 770-595-8418 or by email at robbiebrieske@bellsouth.net

Above: Tree Huggers Upper Right: New York City Lower RIght: Lennon-art

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Painter 12’s Enhanced Dynamic Brush Adjuster Painter 12 has been released, and my review is in; it is FANTASTIC! It is a solid update to Painter 11. Painter 12 has tons of new features and unbelievable enhancements. I feel like I am in a different program; one that is more versatile and powerful. In my opinion it really is that good.

One of the new enhancements and the subject of this article is the Dynamic Brush Adjuster. This little jewel allows you to change a brush’s size, opacity, squeeze, and angle on the fly without having to go to the property bar or the brush controls. Older shortcut keys like the bracket keys will still resize a brush, but with the Dynamic Brush Adjuster you do not need anything else. I have even programmed it to two of my keys on my tablet.

I know it sounds odd to use two keys, but it is a two step operation. To

Right Click Skip Allen

call the Dynamic Brush Adjuster (DBA) you use Ctrl + Alt on a PC and Cmd + Opt on a MAC. A cross appears on the screen. When you touch your tablet, the cross turns to a green circle or oval. And above that is a gray rectangular pop-up containing Radius: Number, which indicates size. Once you touch the tablet with your stylus, you do not need to continue to hold down the keys, but do not lift your stylus from the tablet, yet.

See figure 1 lower left.

Once the two figures are showing on screen you can drag your stylus to get the size that you want. But that is not all. Here is what you have done so far: 1. Held down the Ctrl + Alt for the PC or Cmd + Opt for the Mac. 2. A cross appears on the screen 3. Touch the stylus to the tablet and let go of the keys 4. Keep the stylus connected to the tablet and drag until you get the size brush you want.

5. Still keep the stylus connected to the tablet Now press and release the Ctrl key for the PC and the Cmd key for the Mac. This key acts as a toggle and will toggle you through size, then opacity, then squeeze, then angle and back to size. Once you lift the stylus from the tablet, the settings are established. Of course you do not have to change all four settings, but have the option of setting any one of them on the fly. Check out the next three figures to see Opacity, Squeeze and Angle.

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As you can see, this can increase workflow dramatically. Now don’t get me wrong, it takes a little practice to get the hang of it, but pretty soon you will be up and running.

I mentioned earlier that I programmed my tablet for these shortcuts. I use a Wacom Intuos 4, which combined with Painter makes a powerful painting package. One express key is programmed to Ctrl + Alt and the express key directly below is programmed to Ctrl. That helped me get up to speed with this shortcut.

This article shows just one enhancement. I haven’t begun to touch on all the enhancements plus the new features. I really like Painter 12; it is amazing. You can find a lot of videos on the Corel Painter site plus you can download a free 30 day trial. You will also be able to see my videos at my blog www.skipallenpaints.com.

Have fun, Skip Digital Paint Magazine - May 2011

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Art Theft: Most Famous Cases in History Art theft is an ancient and complicated crime. When you look at the some of the most famous cases of art thefts in history, you see thoroughly planned operations that involve art dealers, art fakers, mobsters, ransoms, and millions of dollars. Here you can read about some of the most famous cases of art theft in the history.

The First Theft: The first documented case of art theft was in 1473, when two panels of altarpiece of the Last Judgment by the Dutch painter Hans Memling were stolen. While the triptych was being transported by ship from the Netherlands to Florence, the ship was attacked by pirates who took it to the Gdansk cathedral in Poland. Nowadays, the piece is shown at the National Museum in Gdansk where it was recently moved from the Basilica of the Assumption.

The Most Famous Theft: The most famous story of art theft involves one of the most famous paintings in the world and one of the most famous artists in history as a suspect. In the night of August 21, 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen out of the Louver. Soon after, Pablo Picasso was arrested and questioned by the police, but was released quickly.

It took about two years until the mystery was solved by the Parisian police. It turned out that the 30×21 inch painting was taken by one of the museum employees by the name of Vincenzo Peruggia, who simply carried it hidden under his coat. Nevertheless, Peruggia did not work alone. The crime was carefully conducted by a notorious con man, Eduardo de Valfierno, who was sent by an art faker who intended to make copies and sell them as if they were the original painting.

While Yves Chaudron, the art faker, was busy creating copies for the famous masterpiece, Mona Lisa was still hidden at Peruggias apartment.

After two years in which Peruggia did not hear from Chaudron, he tried to make the best out of his stolen good. Eventually, Peruggia was caught by the police while trying to sell the painting to an art dealer from Florence, Italy. The Mona Lisa was returned to the Louvre in 1913.

Digital Paint Magazine - May 2011

The Biggest Theft in the USA: The biggest art theft in United States took place at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. On the night of March 18, 1990, a group of thieves wearing police uniforms broke into the museum and took thirteen paintings whose collective value was estimated at around 300 million dollars. The thieves took two paintings and one print by Rembrandt, and works of Vermeer, Manet, Degas, Govaert Flinck, as well as a French and a Chinese artifact.

As of yet, none of the paintings have been found and the case is still unsolved. According to recent rumors, the FBI are investigating the possibility that the Boston Mob along with French art dealers are connected to the crime.

The Scream: The painting by Edvard Munch, The Scream, is probably the most sought after painting by art thieves in history. It has been stolen twice and was only recently recovered. In 1994, during the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, The Scream was stolen from an Oslo gallery by two thieves who broke through an open window, set off the alarm and left a note saying: thanks for the poor security.

Three months later, the holders of the painting approached the Norwegian Government with an offer: 1 million dollars ransom for Edvard Munch’s The Scream. The Government turned down the offer, but the Norwegian police collaborated with the British Police and the Getty Museum to organize a sting operation that brought back the painting to where it belongs.

Ten years later, The Scream was stolen again from the Munch Museum.

This time, the robbers used a gun and took another of Munch’s painting with them. While Museum officials waited for the thieves to request ransom money, rumors claimed that both paintings were burned to conceal evidence. Eventually, the Norwegian police discovered the two paintings on August 31, 2006 but the facts on how they were recovered are not known yet.

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Surrealist Paintings of Flowers

By Cher Threinen-Pendarvis Floating Orchid 2 is one in a series of surrealist paintings of flowers hovering over land and sea.

The flower was painted from life, while the simple seascape was painted from a memory of beautifully lit clouds over the sea in the early morning.

This project uses Chalk and Blenders brushes that incorporate Hard Media capabilities, which means the brushes are very sensitive to the nuances of your hand, for instance, whether the stylus is held upright or at a tilt while drawing. We love painting with the Chalk brushes because they interact with Painter’s textures in such a unique and natural way!

1 Setting up and making practice strokes. The first step is to set up the still life. We placed the blooming orchid under a full spectrum light on the desk. Then we planned a composition with plenty

Digital Paint Magazine - May 2011

of space around the flower because we planned to paint a seascape behind it.

It’s important to set Brush Tracking before you work with the sensitive Hard Media brushes. Brush Tracking allows you to customize how Painter interprets the input of your stylus, including parameters such as pressure and speed. Choose Edit, Preferences, Brush Tracking (Mac OS X users, choose Corel Painter 11, Preferences, Brush Tracking) and then make a typical brushstroke in the window. For a broader range of sensitivity, we recommend making a stroke in the Preview window that reflects using light and heavy pressure while painting quickly and then slowly.

It’s a good idea to get acquainted with the brushes by making some practice strokes.

In this project you will use the Real Fat Chalk, Real Hard Chalk and Real Soft Chalk variant of Chalk and the Real Stubby Blender and Real Pointy Blender variants of Blenders.

2 Planning a color palette using the Mixer. We used the Mixer palette to build basic colors for the painting. If the Mixer is not visible, choose Window, Color Palettes, Mixer. It’s a good idea to have both the Colors palette and the Mixer open while you work. Apply color to the Mixer with the Apply Color tool (at the bottom of the Mixer Pad, second from

A Blast from the Past

left). The Dirty Brush mode is active by default.

Deselect the Dirty Brush by clicking on it. The Dirty Brush mode retains color that was previously used.

For this painting, we preferred to apply puddles of pure, clean color to the Mixer and then mix them using the Mix Color tool (third from left).

3 Sketching with Chalk. Now, it’s time to sketch. To create a file for your painting, choose File, New 21

and set up a file that measures 10 x 12 inches at 150 ppi. In the Paper Selector located in the Toolbox, choose a natural texture (we chose Basic Paper). In the Colors palette, choose a color that will complement the colors you plan to use in your painting. We created a drawing in Painter from direct observation, by sketching with one of our favorite Hard Media brushes, the Real Soft Chalk using a blue-gray color over Basic Paper. For this sketch, you can work directly on the Canvas. While drawing, carefully observe the shapes of the forms in your subject and pay careful attention to the lighting on the forms.

4 Building an underpainting. We envisioned a background sky with soft cloud shapes. The darker values behind the white orchid will help the background to recede and allow the flower to come forward in the composition. The Real Fat Chalk is a sensitive, grainy, Hard Media brush that is ideal Digital Paint Magazine - May 2011

for laying in large areas quickly. Choose the Real Fat Chalk variant of Chalk. Use the Sample Color tool from the Mixer to pick up color and then lay color onto the clouds and sky. Notice how the width of the stroke changes with the tilt of the stylus.

When you are ready to add color to the center of interest, switch to the Real Soft Chalk. Be loose and expressive with your brush work. While carefully observing the forms and lighting, we blocked in the shapes and values, resizing the brush as we worked.

5 Sculpting forms and modulating color. Now that the basic colors are established, begin to layer chalk strokes that will build color complexity. As you work, continue to use the Mixer palette as a paint palette to pick up color and the Real Soft Chalk to apply paint to the Canvas. Directional

brushstrokes will add dynamic energy to the image.

Layer color over color, and let your strokes follow the direction of the forms. Next, use a wider range of values to further establish the light on the forms.

We also added brighter colors to the sky and then blended large areas of color with the Real Stubby Blender.

Now that your painting is nearly completed, zoom in to 100% and take a careful look at your composition. In our painting, the center of interest needed brighter highlights and deeper shadows.

The petals in the center of the flower needed to be brightened and refined. To paint crisper edges and brighter color on these petals, we used a small Real Soft Chalk, and to add textured details to shadowed areas on the petals, we used a small Real Hard Chalk. Then, to blend small areas, we reduced 22

the size of the Real Pointy Blender to about 7–10 pixels and brushed carefully, allowing the strokes to follow the forms. Next, to layer more texture onto the sky, we sampled color from the image using the Dropper tool, switched to the Real Fat Chalk and then loosely brushed back and forth over the cloud shapes, sampling a different color with every few strokes.

6 Refining and adding details. As with the modeling and sculpting work in step 5, when painting the

smaller details, keep in mind the shapes of the forms, and apply the strokes in the direction of the forms. To add final touches to the center of the flower, we used a small Real Soft Chalk (try 7–10 pixels). First, we added strokes of varied gold, orange and brown onto the center of the flower. Then we added deeper tones to the interior to help bring the overlapping lip forward. The final brushwork can be seen in the completed illustration.

This article is excerpted from the Painter 11 Wow! Book by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis. Copyright 2010. Used with permission of Pearson Education, Inc. and Peachpit Press. You can see more of Cher’s work by visiting her websites at pendarvis-studios. com and pendo.com.

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Marketing Buzz

By Tim O’Neill

If you plan to sell your art online with your own unique website, my advice is simple: Be Different! There are hundreds of artist websites online today that are all making the same mistakes.

The first problem I would like to note is the use of long multimedia presentations that many artists incorporate into their websites. I don’t think there is anything more frustrating then arriving at a website and waiting for this huge multimedia presentation to download and play.

The artist may think it’s cool or adds something to their work, but in all actuality it only frustrates impatient surfers. Not all Internet users have super fast cable or DSL connections. Many are still using dial-up modems and if they have to wait for something to download, they will simply leave and visit your competition. I have mentioned it repeatedly but flash sites are a killer in terms of search engine traffic. They look cool but they just don’t work for organic traffic. Make your index page, that is your first page, an html page. If you would like to use flash link to it in galleries.

There are also sites that insist on putting unrelated banner ads or other unrelated advertising on their websites. Just the other day I was doing a search for original watercolor art. The first website I arrived at had a big banner at the top of the website advertising a dating site. What? I am not sure how dating is related to watercolors? This is simply a distraction and you are immediately sending visitors off your website. If you are going to advertise on your website make sure it’s related to the theme of your website and is helpful to your visitors. Do not make it the very first thing they see when they arrive at your home page.

You need to catch your visitor’s attention right away. This means putting your most important information near the top of your website in plain view. Your goal is to draw your visitor into your site immediately with a compelling headline so that they stay long enough to check out what you have to offer. Once you draw them in with a good headline you must then direct them to take an action. That could be to subscribe to your newsletter, or to check out your latest prints or original painting(s).

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Keep your site navigation consistent throughout your entire site. This means having the same navigation links in the same order on every page of your website. Your goal is to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to get from one place to the next, not to confuse them.

Make sure your visitors can easily contact you. Put a link to a contact page on every page of your site.

If you have testimonials, use them. Testimonials are awesome sales tools. People love to hear good reviews about a product or products they are about to purchase. It really does boost sales. If you have ever received testimonials from customers, highlight a few of them on your home page in clear view. If you do not have testimonials yet, contact people that have purchased from you in the past and ask if they could provide feedback on the product they purchased for inclusion on your website. Make sure they know how you plan to use their testimonial, and ask if you can cite their name with the testimonial.

Start an opt-in newsletter. If you do not already have a method for collecting your visitor’s email addresses, then you may be losing sales.

Many people who first come to your site will usually leave without making a purchase. It is important therefore to collect as many email addresses as possible so that you can follow up with your visitors. You could send out an announcement to your list of subscribers whenever you have a new piece for sale. If you regularly attend art or craft shows, you could send out an email and let your subscribers know when and where. You could also send out surveys or questionnaires to your list to get a better idea as to the type of products they are interested in purchasing.

Make certain that you have a variety of different payment options for your customers, especially payment by credit card. Studies have shown that sites which accept credit card payments, have significantly more sales. Use a service like PayPal to accept credit cards from your website.

It’s free and easy to setup.

Make sure you have detailed purchasing and shipping instructions in 24

place.

Have a good refund policy. When your customer receives your product, it may not be exactly what they anticipated. By having a good refund policy upfront, you will gain your customer’s trust and they will be more comfortable making a purchase, especially if they are parting with a lot of money. Keep in mind that it takes time to develop relationships with people. Often times I have people who purchase a small inexpensive print commission a painting, sometimes years later. Position yourself to serve your new clients long term and not just a ‘quick sale’.

Include a ‘Privacy Policy’. We internet users are a paranoid bunch. People are still somewhat reluctant to part with personal information, so it is your job to make them feel at ease when they use your website. In a nutshell, a privacy policy clearly states what you do with user’s personal information. What kind of information do you collect from your visitors?

What do you do with that information? Do you share it with anyone?

If you are not sure how to create a privacy policy, visit the following website to access an easy to use Privacy Policy Generator: http://www. the-dma.org/privacy/creating.shtml Include a ‘Terms of Use’ section. This section outlines the terms and conditions for using your website. For instance, you probably want to restrict visitors from copying or reproducing the images from your website. You would put that in your Terms of Use section.

When adding images of your products, always use thumbnails that can be clicked to show a larger image, so that your pages download quickly. If the larger image is a big file, let the visitor know that they may have to wait for the picture to load.

Avoid putting traffic counters on your site. Counters make your site appear amateurish. If your site is fairly new, and your traffic is not yet established, you are broadcasting this to everyone that arrives at your site. If you need to track your website statistics, check with your hosting company. You may already have a good website statistics program included.

Choose a basic color scheme and only one or two different fonts. If you go overboard on color and use too many different fonts, your site will look out of balance and amateurish. Your website does not have to be a work of art. You are trying to sell your art, not your website. Use Digital Paint Magazine - May 2011

a light background, preferably white, with dark text, preferably black.

Don’t use images or textures for your background. This makes it difficult for your visitor to read the text on your site. You will note that the majority of Art and Photography websites are just the opposite, they have lots of black and the text is white. It is a tough call because our images obviously view much better with a black background. Trouble is no one will read your text. One solution is to have galleries use black background for showcasing your work, everything else could have a white background. We have played with this a bunch, still are. What I have found though is that sales are still higher with an all-white site.

Avoid adding music to your site. You may think it sounds nice to include your favorite songs when your page loads, but not everyone will agree.

If they find the music annoying, they will leave. If you choose to have music at the very least don’t have it autoplay. One nice way to use music is have a slide show area that you can utilize sound with.

Don’t make your visitor have to scroll horizontally to view information on your website. Web surfers are lazy. Most hate to even scroll up and down let alone left and right.

Avoid animated graphics and scrolling or flashing text. This only distracts your visitors.

Put prices on your products. If people have to contact you to find out the price of something, they will more often than not leave and look elsewhere. *I would qualify this statement by saying this is very specific to a fine art site selling prints. I want the opportunity to talk with people as often as I can so I can sell the benefits via conversation. For a photography studio site I would not put session fees or print prices up.

Make sure your site works in all the major browsers. The most popular browser today is Internet Explorer, but there are a good amount of surfers who use Netscape, Opera, and Firefox. Check out http://www. anybrowser.com/siteviewer.html. They have a great tool that enables you to see what your site looks like in various browsers.

Finally make your website personal. Speak to your visitors. Let them know who you are and what your art or craft is all about. Educate and enlighten. Include a step-by-step article or demonstration on how your work is created. If people have more of a connection with you and your art, they will be more comfortable buying from you.

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