I've been really busy!

I've had one of those weeks with lots of different things going on - all of which have contrived to keep me from writing a 'normal' blog post on Making A Mark

However I've learned a few lessons on the way and you can find them below under headings which loosely describe what they are about.

Art Societies in the UK

The new website/blog for Art Societies in the UK
http://www.artsocietiesuk.com

I've published a new blog - called Art Societies in the UK

A comprehensive compendium of art societies in the UK - including information and advice about art society exhibitions, blogs and other activities

but I need to work out why, as yet, it won't produce a feed for Facebook or Feedburner!

It's the first time I've used a "proper" domain name (did you know you can do that in Blogger) as opposed to just having a blogspot one.  I think I've got to go and check all the CNAME settings to make sure I've done them properly!

Anyway - this site resurrects one I originally set up in 2009. However, by putting it on a blog it means I can:

• profile individual art societies
• announce exhibitions around the country
• advice specifically for art societies

You can read what I'm trying to do in Introducing Art Societies in the UK. Esssentially the Pages will hold the static data and the blog posts will communicate new events and information.

I'll be adding in information about the art societies with a geograpical bias outside London as soon as I get a minute.

Do tell me what you think about the NEW way I've presented information about the art societies in Greater London.

Marketing - What do you say about you and your art on your website?

I've started - but not yet finished a blog post about the ING Discerning Eye selected artists. I'm about two thirds way through finding the website links to the artists selected for the ING Discerning Eye - but there's only so much of that task I can do without going cross-eyed! Hence it needs to be done in concentrated bursts!

What I did learn is that there are an amazing number of artists who can't or won't say what they do in one sentence or a couple of lines.

This is a BIG marketing lesson for those who write loads of words but don't provide a succinct summary.

In effect imagine you get in a lift and are getting off at the next floor - that's the amount of time you have for your "elevator pitch" - short and snappy, attractive and accurate - and all about what you do or what your art is or whichever way you want to get people interested in your art.

I ended up writing against one artist's name

lots of words on her website but lacks a succinct summary

So go to your website and imagine you are me and ask your self this question.....

Can you quickly find a neat summary of who you are and what your art is about?

Art Group Exhibitions

I've been fairly preoccupied this week with the preparations for the upcoming exhibition by London Urban Sketchers at the newest branch of the awardwinning Timberyard company - between 2nd November 2015 - 30th April 2016.  See:

• London Urban Sketchers 2015 Exhibition + sketchcrawl
• Call for Entries: Urban Sketchers Exhibition 2015

The biggest challenge has been working out how many pictures you can get on a wall of a specified size - and hence what needs to be the upper limited on the dimensions of framed artwork!

Today I've been drafting the Entry Form and Terms and Conditions which has been 'fun' (!) and trying to strike the right balance between making it short and accessible and at the same time protecting the interests of all parties.

It's been a few years since I last drafted an entry form and terms and conditions page (and interetingly I look each year and it's still in use!). This time I decided to model it on the Mall Galleries Terms and Conditions - which are very informative as to the things to watch out for. Bear in mind every disaster known to art exhibitions will at one time or another have happened  to them - or been headed off by their T&C.

I know I spotted a few new things which are worth having a think about.

I'll be writing a longer post about this on the new art societies blog in due course!

A new way of blogging

I guess the big change I've made in 2015 is I now tending towards having more dedicated blogs. Which is a bit of a risk as it can become easy to neglect them.

I've just posted to Making A Mark Reviews after months of no posts (while I sorted lots of other sites out) - but this was an important one - see Winsor & Newton change watercolour paint tubes - again!

However I'm not finding it all difficult to come up with a post every week to 10 days on Botanical Art and Artists - and this was the quickie I posted this morning Mally Francis is "Remembering Heligan".

There's a lot to be said for quick and informational posts which take no more than 15 minutes to put together.