Madeleine Rees is madwildart

Hi I’m new to folksy and etsy I am an artist I do large paintings mostly, and I find it really difficult to promote myself so any advice would be greatly appreciated pls

hi there -

maybe you could add some info. in your ‘meet the maker’ section so people can find out a little about you.

Do you have twitter/facebook accounts ? Most people on here promote via these and you could add links to these on your folksy shop also.

hope this helps a bit.

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Nice to see you, Madeleine, and I like your paintings.

I think it would be good to have a little more about the inspiiration behind each pice - why did flamingos catch your eye? What sort of room would they suit? etc The more (relevant) the merrier as this is what will make your items come up in the Search function.

You say that each each one is Custom Made (made-to-order) - that to me means that when you get an order, you paint the picture for that customer. I’m not sure that’s what you mean.

I’ve learned lots from these forums, everyone here is most friendly and helpful! this might be a good place to start…

Good luck
Helen

2 Likes

Hi, Madeleine. I’ve tried selling large paintings online without success (that may be because they’re not very good! I think they’re OK, of course). It’s very difficult to get a good photograph. Your photos are pretty clear but if I were looking as a prospective buyer I would want to know if what you show is the whole painting or a detail- so I would like to see the whole painting face on, showing the edges, on a wall or an easel with a plain background.
Your descriptions and tags seem to be a bit basic, you could add so much more to get your work noticed. I agree with Sally @SallyandtheFreckles.
Your paintings are lovely, your shop deserves to be successful but you have to put lots of extra work in…

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Hi,
If you have a facebook account you can link it to your shop, I’d also think that if you find and get chatting to wildlife groups on facebook and forums that might help get people interested in your work (make sure you actually interact with them not just plug your work). As a prospective buyer I would definately want to see more photos, especially something to give a sense of scale of the work, something like


We all know roughly what size the orange is so we get a feeling how big the print is, I know you give dimensions but my brain is currently struggling to visualise how big 1m square is. (the zebra doesn’t even have dimensions) You could also improve on your tags, for the birds of paradise painting tags like ‘jungle’, ‘bird’, ‘tropical’ would also apply and help you be found in more searches (separating out the ‘bright’ and ‘colourful’ tags from the ‘bird of paradise’ would also help).
Hopefully some of that is useful.
Good luck
Sasha

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Hi and welcome :smile:
I’ve just looked at your harvest mice and it doesn’t show or say if there’s a boarder space around the painting.

I presume it comes just as the canvas ie not framed if I’m correct I’d want to see how much of a unpainted boarder there was so I could think about framing it.

Also you tags need a lot of work. Try one word and two word tags, at the moment it all comes up as one long tag and I don’t think potential customers would type in the whole sentence when looking for a painting. You have at least 11 tags to use. Write a one word tag then click ‘enter’ that will split them up for you, and try some 2 word tags as well. Think about what words a potential customer might use in a search box. Also try to use the words in your titles plus other words.

Promotion here is the key you have to drive as traffic to your shop. So I would such pinterest, facebook twitter, google plus, join craft juice and then you can join in the craftjuice monthly promotion thread.

Join in with the forum as well
Are you on any forums if so ask if you are allowed to have your shop url in your signature, and post on any forums you are a member on. Talk and show some of your work but don’t spam.

I hope that helps and all the best.

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Thankyou everyone all your advice is very helpful, and I will have to re jig my account as my work isn’t custom made, their my own pieces thanks for the info and advice :slight_smile: x

I have a suggestion!

I really like your paintings but I notice that they are quite impressionistic in style and there is a lot of suggestion of line, etc. going on in there (which I love and would buy). However, the close up photos do not show them in their best light. I would advise additional photographs shot at an appropriate distance so that people can see what they look like on the wall. You could combine this with a magazine “lifestyle” type shot that would give people a better idea as to how they would work in a room with furniture etc.

Love Sam x

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Ive done my bit for some promotion for you by liking and Tweeting your gorgeous hare and mice. :slight_smile:

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Hi Madeleine and welcome, your art is beautiful!

I have some suggestions:
Use as many photos as you can. One of the whole painting up on a wall (aka a ‘lifestyle’ shot) gives potential customers an idea of how it would look in a home setting. You can then do close ups, also one of you painting (a work in progress shot), or even some sketches you may have done as prep work.

If the paintings are custom/made-to-order then I’d put in a line about not all paintings are exactly alike, and maybe consider emailing a photo of the completed order for the customer to sign off on before postage?

What postage you send the paintings by - courier, Royal Mail Signed For, etc. This gives customers an idea of how long delivery will take.

When it comes to filling out your Meet the Maker bit and describing your item and inspiration for your pieces, it’s your chance to sell with words. Your customers can’t see your work in real-life so you could describe the Field Mice painting as “A cute pair of field mice, sitting at the top of a couple of ears of wheat, on a warm summers day. This painting is acrylic on canvas and is 50cm wide by 40 height and the frame depth of the canvas is ?cm. It is ready to be hung on a wall using xxx”.

Hope that helps.

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Thankyou x

Everyone has been extremely helpful and I will get to work on it at the weekend, once again thankyou everyone x

welcome to Folksy.
Come and join us on the weekly art chat thread where you can make friends with your fellow artists…!!