How to lose your website's domain name

There's a very easy way to lose your Website's presence on the internet AND all its followers.

Just FORGET TO RENEW YOUR DOMAIN NAME

Your website still exists - but nobody can see it. That's all. It's really very, very simple.

I've lost count of the number of artists and art societies / groups / organisations who have fallen foul of thinking somebody else would remember to remind them that the licence for the domain name needs renewal.

This morning I came across another to add to the list.

Things you must remember

1. You do NOT own your domain name
2. When you pay for a domain name, you license it for a specific period of time
3. If you do NOT renew the licence in time you risk losing your website's presence on the internet i.e. your website ceases to exist
4. If you are unable to re-register the domain name, all the effort you have made to get the domain name recognised is wasted

More VERY IMPORTANT TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS TIP at the end - and the last two are critical!

Why are domain names important

Domain names provide a unique way of referencing a single unique site on the internet.

Hence they are very precious. They are that important. 

Quite often people buy their domain names before they've even worked out how they are going to build their website.

Speaking personally, I own far more domain names than I do websites. That's because I've got a bunch of them which were bought for defensive reasons i.e. I didn't want anybody else having the name.

How domain names work

Portrait Artist of the Year starts tomorrow - and the Series 11 sitters are...

Tomorrow is the first episode of the eleventh series of Portrait Artist of the Year on Sky. I shall, of course be reviewing each episode as I have been doing for the past few years - since Series 4.

We've yet to find out who the artists are - although some are making themselves known on social media. It's allowed now - just so long as they nothing about the outcome of their heat!

PAOTY 2024: The Format

Artists enter with a self-portrait created within the last 5 years. They are selected on merit by our panel of expert judges. At the heats they are given four hours to paint a surprise celebrity sitter. The heat winners get to compete at the Semi-Final. Three of the Semi-Finalists go through to the Final but just one is the selected as the overall winner. PAOTY Website

I'm guessing the format will be the same as always - with:

• 72 artists were selected to participate in Series 11 of Portrait Artist of the Year (according to the rejection letter)
• all episodes were filmed at the Battersea Arts Centre
• there are eight heats followed by a semi-final and a final 
• each heat has three sitters
• each heat has three artists 
• each artist has four hours to draw or paint a portrait of each sitter.
• the three Judges (from the beginning) are Kate Bryan, Kathleen Soriano and Tai-Shan Schierenberg judge the competition, by assessing the artists’ progress and choosing who will advance to the semi-final and the final before selecting the overall winner who will the £10,000 Commission (see below for who they are painting this year)

Setting Up at Battersea for the Heats - in April 2024

Joan Bakewell dropped out of the programme after Series 9 - and had her portrait painted in Series 10. She's wasn't replaced and since there has been no hints or marketing I'm assuming the series will continue with Stephen Mangan as the presenter.  

I personally think this is a pity as Joan was one of the best bits of the programme - especially in relation to highlighting when she thought the Judges were being silly. 

PAOTY 2024: The Sitters

The sitters for Episode 1 are Hannah Waddingham, Richard Madeley, and Saskia Reeves.

Overall, the sitters for the series as a whole are, as always, a range of some well known and rather less well known people who have some sort of public profile.

Analysis of Sales at the RSMA Annual Exhibition 2024

This post about the number of sales and the prices they sold for is specific to the Royal Society of Marine Artists. However it has a number of useful lessons for:

• more than one art society
• members and associates of the RSMA
• ALL those who enter open exhibitions by national art societies in London - and most especially those who exhibit at the Mall Galleries.

The reason I'm writing this post is because I'd like to see:

• more artists do better
• more artists make sales
• more artists improve their annual income from their artwork
• THROUGH more intelligent pricing of their artwork

Bottom line, the most realistic price for your artwork is the price which enables a sale. Otherwise, why bother pricing at all?

So far as I'm aware, I'm the only person who provides detailed analysis across various national art societies and comments on the lessons that can learned - which all can benefit from.

I've no objection to changes to "the rules" being made over time - but I do know that those which are grounded in real numbers and real life are much more likely to be successful over time.

I've established in the past that there's a strong trend which generates lots of sales in the £350-£500 price range. 

The rule which I think curtailed sales in this exhibition was the one which required a minimum sale price of £600 - when there are a lot of people buying art priced below £500.

Read on to find out why....

General commentary on Sales of Artwork

These days art sales are typically generated via

• the associated online website for the artwork - and the fact this goes online before the exhibition in the gallery opens
• sales at the Private View - where it's a common expectation that a goodly proportion of artwork will be sold given this is an opportunity to be nice to collectors!
• sales during the time the exhibition is open to the public.

Sales in the last couple of years have been less than usual due to the constraints on people's budgets.

Number of Sales by Price Range

By the time the RSMA Annual Exhibition closed on 28 September 2024, there had been 57 sales in total (out of 452 artworks in the exhibition) i.e. 12% of artworks "hung" sold.

The analysis in this post is based on those sales.  See my review post for the explanation of how I arrived at these numbers

The remaining unsold artwork remains available for sale on the online art sales pages website

The chart below is based on an analysis of the 57 sales - splitting them by

• the artist as follows:
• RSMA - a full or associate member of the RSMA 
• Open - an artist selected via the Open Entry
• different price ranges - based on prevailing price hurdle (eg 1,000) demonstrated at the Mall Galleries in the past

Analysis of the 57 art sales at the RSMA Annual Exhibition 2024

You can compare 2024 performance to a previous chart from 2020 

Click to see a larger version

NOTE that just 4 years ago:

• there were 56 sales in total of which:
• 17 sales were below £500 
• 48 sales were below £1,500 - and only 40 now in 2024.
• how few sales there were above £2,000 (during the pandemic)
• how the number of open artists selling has improved since 2020

In this context 

• sales in the upper price ranges have improved  since 2020 - but not by much. 
• While the bottom price range (£350-£500) has been completely eliminated by the requirement for a minimum price of £600.

I'm still completely mystified as to the metric evidence which suggested this was a good idea.

RSMA Sales Metrics 2024

I've split my comments between:

• ones related to how one can categorise the artists eg members vs Open; men vs women
• ones related to the price ranges 

Call for Entries: Royal Institute of Oil Painters

You've got less than a week left to submit an entry to the Annual Exhibition 2024  of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters at the Mall Galleries which opens on 28th November 2024.
I'd normally writing about this in August - but as regular readers will know I was on a lengthy break for various reasons.

So the first thing I need to tell you is that the deadline for online entries - to to submit your digital image of your artwork / form / fees ONLINE only - is Friday 4 October, 12 noon 

The ROI Annual Exhibition typically exhibits around 300 artworks by both members and those selected via the open entry. 

The ROI is the only major British art society that promotes and exhibits work of the highest standard exclusively in oil paint.

This blog post covers this Open Exhibition - and:

• who can enter
• what you can enter
• how to enter

Call for Entries - ROI Annual Exhibition 2023

You can find the official and FULL Call for Entries here on

• the Mall Galleries website
• the ROI website
• the portal to the entry screen

Plus this is the link to the Full Details, Entry Terms & Conditions

Below is a Summary of the different aspects of the Call for Entry - plus MY COMMENTARY.

I would love to see more artists having the chance to exhibit alongside us at this prestigious event. When I had my first chance, I was over the moon and just being associated with this society has really boosted my career in the most positive ways.
Adebanji Alade - President

WHO can Enter

Artists are invited to submit work for exhibition alongside members of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters at the ROI Annual Exhibition 2023. ROI Exhibition Page

• The competition is open to all artists over the age of 18
• It is also open to international entries - you don't even have to be live or work in the UK. 
• However International Artists need to make sure they read the Mall Galleries/FBA Notice about the need to register for VAT to get your artwork through Customs and into the UK!  
• You might also find my webpage about International Art Shipping: How to ship / export art to other countries useful.

What you can enter

Portraits of people in oils
at the ROI Annual Exhibition 2023 (East Gallery)

SUBJECT MATTER

Artists may submit work on any subject matter.

ORIGINAL ARTWORK NOT PREVIOUSLY SEEN

Basically NEW to the Mall Galleries and less than 3 years old.

ALL artwork submitted MUST

• have been completed within the last three years and 
• must NOT have been previously exhibited at the Mall Galleries (i.e. if you've submitted it to one of the other art societies that exhibits at the Mall Galleries - and it was selected for exhibition you cannot submit it to this exhibition)

ACCEPTABLE MEDIA

I declare victory for common sense!  Last year and the year before in my Call for entries posts, I had a go at the ROI and the Mall Galleries for what was clearly confusing advice as to eligible media - which IMO bordered on being in conflict with mandatory regulations re marketing - and this year it has been sorted!!

I'm really pleased to acknowledge that the ROI is truly exclusive to entries in oil paint.

The definition of acceptable media is now as follows (with my choice of highlighting for what is now EXCLUDED!)

Oils. The ROI promotes and exhibits work of the highest standard in oil paint.

Water-soluble oil paint is acceptable if framed as an oil, so as not to spoil the general appearance of the exhibition.

Acrylic is no longer accepted

Most of the selected works have always been in oil paint i.e. high 90% so this shouldn't be an issue for the look of the exhibition

However this change may well affect all those artists submitting via the open entry in acrylic who will now need to find alternative exhibitions to enter - or start painting in oils.

NUMBER OF ENTRIES

Taking pot shots at Van Gogh at the National Gallery

Earlier this year two young women each threw a can of tomato soup at Van Gogh's painting of sunflowers at the National Gallery

Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland

throwing two cans of tomato soup at

Van Gogh's Sunflowers in the National Gallery

The video below shows what they did. They apparently caused criminal damage exceeding £10k

They pleaded 'not guilty' when their case was tried at London's Southwark Crown Court.

During the hearing, the defendants said they “couldn’t have cared less” if the painting had been damaged.

On Friday, they both received significant prison sentences.

• Phoebe Plummer, 23, was sentenced to two years in prison for causing an estimated £10,000 of damage to the frame of Sunflowers 1888. Wikipedia now describes as a British climate change activist and convicted criminal
• Anna Holland, 22, received 20 months for the same offence.

Prior to this, it seems very likely the two women charged had been told there was a good chance they'd go to prison for causing criminal damage. Hence they had others pleading their case and why they should not go to jail. 

Artists plead for activists who threw soup on a Van Gogh to be spared jail
More than 100 artists, curators and academics said Just Stop Oil action was in keeping with ethos of the arts

These are the Sentencing Guidelines for Criminal Damage

Note that if damage is valued at over £10,000, the case is tried at a Crown Court and a prison sentence is more than likely. Which is what happened. So those pleading on their behalf were effectively "performance art".

Of which there was more in the trial. Why do you plead” not guilty” when the whole thing is on video - unless you want to pursue further political protest eg the 20 minute statement in court by one of the protestors as to why it should be regarded as protest.

The Judge said

“You two simply had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers, and your arrogance in thinking otherwise deserves the strongest condemnation.

“The pair of you came within the thickness of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying this priceless treasure, and that must be reflected in the sentences I pass.”

and

“Section 63 of the sentencing code requires me, in assessing the seriousness of your offending, to consider not only the harm your offence caused, but also the harm it might foreseeably have caused. For the reasons I have explained, that foreseeable harm is incalculable. Your offending is so serious that only custodial sentences are appropriate.”

Other protestors from the same organisation had obviously anticipated a prison sentence was likely and had planned ahead.

Which is why a little time after the sentence was announced, three more protestors were involved in the same painting being the target of their protest yet again. This time, they threw tomato soup again at TWO paintings of sunflowers by Van Gogh.