Annelise Jordan.

I’m enjoying a number of stunning portrait artists because of the way they create such deep and complex emotions.

V Del Rey.

Dani Maupin.

Lewis Isaac Testa.

Rob Rey.

Sarah Intemann.

Expressions in Portraiture is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

How the Souls Rose Upwards by Nicole Margaretten. Painting.

Sometimes it isn’t sunshine. Sometimes it’s darkness. Sometimes we just break down.

Getting out of a breakdown, revealing the light in your life once again, is a two-step process. Simple to explain, not as simple to enact.

First, wallow for a while. It depends on how deeply you’ve dropped into this darkness whether it’s wallowing for five minutes or six weeks. But take some time. You’ll know instinctively when it’s time for the second step.

Then, return to your creative home. Where is it that you first discovered your creativity? What medium or material set off your inspiration? Who taught you that one little thing about your work that changed you forever? Whatever moments in your creative past have seriously shaped you… those are where you go when you’re down. For me, it’s the ballet barre, preferably with pointe shoes in tow. Instantly, my soul feels full.

This is not a speedy process.
It takes time. It takes a gentle touch. It takes understanding. And it takes forgiving yourself fervently.
But if you can treat yourself softly and give yourself time, there will be a slow transition back to a joyful, enlivened you.

When It’s All Breaking Down is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

I’m in love with the simple elegance of gold and grey. Exquisite, glamorous… but down to earth. I made this Etsy treasury to reflect my current color combo crush (say that five times fast!).

Antique Gold Garland – … ArtsDelight $20	14k solid gold crown ri… LUNATICART $129	Vintage 18 Skewers Bras… HouseofSeance $65	Modern Wedding Invitati… Bdesignsinvita… $4.05
Crescent Plate Necklace JessieHarrisLo… $65	Golden Edition Single M… ZukrBoutique $8.5	Eleanor Custom Calligra… TheCreativePar… $200	golden twig pencils – h… inkkit $13
Geode – Geode necklace … laurenhandlerd… $75	Deer Charm Necklace. A… LeChaim $18	Bulk- itty metallic ant… inkkit $12	Articulating Industrial… LongMadeCo $225
Karnataka in metallic i… melongings $70	Herkimer Diamond Bracel… theprize $160	Arm candy – Half and Ha… Brinkle $20	Gold embroidery hoop ar… makenziandmadi… $42

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Pretty Palette: Gold and Grey is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

Angry Girl by Naran Jalidad. Illustration.

Most of you have never learned much about sales. Some of it comes naturally or is simple common sense, but when emotions get high you really start to struggle to fill in those knowledge gaps and navigate the situation with grace.

One such situation is when you have to deal with an angry customer.

1. Remind yourself that this isn’t personal. Your customer just wants you to understand their side of the situation and make things right. They don’t want to feel misunderstood or cheated.

2. Stay calm. As soon as your emotions rise, you’re going to say something that hurts your customer or elevates the situation even more. If you’re having trouble staying calm, step away from the situation and do something else for a while. It will wait. And it’s better that you come to it with a clear head and calm demeanor.

3. Listen to everything your customer says. Really listen. Sometimes their complaint is just a cover for something else. Perhaps they aren’t angry that you charged them shipping, but rather they don’t realize you used that money to insure the package. Not to mention, this gives you a really good sense of how your customers experience a transaction with you. In that same instance, you didn’t make it clear enough to your customer prior to handing her the bill that she would be charged for shipping in addition to your agreed upon price.

4. Assess the situation and address their situation with the facts. It’s much better to say, “I charged you shipping because I insure the package through the postal carrier to make sure it gets to you safely.” than to get defensive about it.

5. Apologize. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

6. Offer up at least one reasonable solution, but no more than three. Make sure you’ve thought through them and that they’re thorough when you explain them. You are the one in control of the situation and your customer will feel a lot less helpless if you act like you’re in charge and have a plan to fix things for them.

7. Always remember that this is a big deal for your customer. Even if this is just one of many orders you’re juggling right now, this might be the biggest thing going on for your customer. So it’s really important to them that it gets resolved fairly.

8. I can’t emphasize it enough – stay calm. Keeping your cool can help you think clearly, identify solutions that make both you and your customer happy, and usually solve the issue more quickly.

I know it’s a lot, but when you get at the heart of it, you’re just backing the emotions off and handling the situation from a place of caring, thoughtfulness, and understanding. That’s all any customer wants from you.

How to Handle Angry Customers is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

Fox Run by Mariann Johansen-Ellis. Linocut.

I’ve been adding art to my Etsy Favorites list like crazy. I love clicking that little heart… So I thought it would be fun to show you a few of the artists I’ve been crushing on over the past few days. These are the printmakers. You can view the photographers and painters here. And I may do some sculptors, jewelers, mixed media, etc. at a later date.

Angel Wings by Sonia Romero. Linocut.

Juvenile Crows by Maggie Wheelock. Etching.

After the Swim by Lisa Toth. Woodcut.

Tribute to Fig Ivy and Inland Seaoats by Kelly Tankersley. Monoprint.

Current Crushes: Etsy Printmakers is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

Twenty Euro Bill by The Emulsion Projekt. Photograph.

Everyone has their own experience with money. Some grew up with lots of monetary wealth, and some with hardly any. I’ve met people who were fine with money until they set off on their own as a young adult and money slapped them in the face.

A lot of you come to me with major money issues.

Healing those is the only way you’re ever going to begin bringing in money. There’s something about the way our world works that doesn’t allow you to break through to a new income level until you’ve settled some of the yucky mindsets you’ve got around money. There are tons of reasons you could be messed up with money – like acting based on scarcity or fear, or believing that you can only get money by working hard (the dirty, ugly kind of work), or thinking your skills aren’t worth much.

No matter what your blocks are, they are just that – blocks. And they are getting in the way.

If you want to make enough from your art that it’s a business, not a hobby, then you’ve got to get over these blocks. It all starts with one little step. If you commit to taking one step, you’ll be that much closer to the income you want from your art and that much further from all those money issues. Here are some examples of steps you can take. Pick one or make up your own. Commit to doing it by commenting below to let us know exactly what you’ll be doing.

• Raise your price on one of your pieces to something that just barely makes you uncomfortable. Would you never charge $100 for the piece you’ve priced at $75? Try pricing it at $90 and see what happens. Sit with it for a while.

• Raise the prices on all of your pieces by a couple dollars each.

• Pay for something “unnecessary” like a really pretty material, a tool you’ve been coveting, or a course that could help you grow in your art or business knowledge.

• Start selling prints if you’re a 2D artist. Your originals can be priced high and the prints much lower, allowing you to feel confident that you aren’t making your work unaffordable. If you work in 3D, you can also scale your work by using less-intricate designs or less-expensive materials to make similar work. This makes your products affordable to people at multiple socioeconomic levels.

• Use Resonate Pricing to just meditate about $ a little.  Baby steps.

• Decide that your business is a business and make sure all your legal paperwork is filed and that you’ve got a business bank account that all your sales and expenses run through.

• Draw up a profit/loss statement for last year or the last 6 months and see, by the numbers, how your pricing affects your business income.

• If you aren’t already, start tracking how much you spend on materials so you can be more informed when you price your work.

• Start putting away $5 or $10 each month that you can do a little something fun with at the end of the year. If you start today, you could have $80 by the new year!

• Sign up for a financial tool like Outright or Wave so you can start taking control over your business finances.

Just pick one and take that first step toward freeing yourself of your money issues. Let us know in the comments what you’re going to do to take that first step today!

Money Issues is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

I’ve got a new resource for you today! CustomMade is a fabulous website for makers, and really for you to use as a consumer as well. Here’s how it works:

1. Customers describe their idea in words or by uploading a picture right from the homepage, which currently features a gorgeous picture of a leatherworker in the midst of painting a piece.

Then they’re prompted to sign up or sign in. They can use Facebook or just an email address.

Once they’re signed in, there’s a step by step process for finding a maker to create their custom piece for them. Step 1 is briefly explaining what they want. Step 2 is how much they want to spend. Step 3 is a one-word answer of what they want made (table, shoes, necklace, etc) and their zip code. Step 4 asks them how they would like to find makers: either with the CustomMade Concierge who gives them a list of a few perfect makers or with a contact system that has all the makers contact them directly to bid on the project and work out details. Both methods let the customer pick the final maker of their piece and appears that there’s no commitment until they’ve settled on a maker.

Then they’re sent to a page letting them know the project is in process and they should hear from interested makers within 1 day. The page has an activity tracker that summarizes their project request too.

2. Alternatively, that customer can click over to categories of popular projects like rings, bookcases, or cabinets. And they’re confronted with lots of cool projects that have been completed and look great!

3. As a maker, you click the Maker Signup button in the top right.

The page gives you the option to join right away or to read more about CustomMade. The video outlines the reason behind the site and what it can do to help you build relationships with your customers and create beautiful art and objects for a living.

500,000 visitors come to the site monthly. As a maker, you get notified when new project requests are posted so you can contact the customer and see if you can help them fulfill their dream. You keep an unlimited portfolio of projects so customers can see what you’ve made before and decide to work with you based on your portfolio. These customers can contact you directly to work out a custom project.

The payment system is pretty open, allowing you to take payments via check, credit card, or Paypal. And their policy is “we only make money when you get work.” So your membership is free. Posting work and contacting potential customers about their projects is free. And when you make a sale, they simply get a 10% commission, high but not outrageous and probably worth it for most handmade businesses.

Overall, the site is just a really great place to connect makers with people who value one-of-a-kind and enjoy the ability to customize their needs. It’s a long overdue resource that I can see becoming a really great aspect of many artists’ businesses. Pop on over and let me know what you think in the comments!

New Resource: Custom Made is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

The Flash by Jellyfish Princess.

Seriously. Don’t use Flash. Flash is a type of coding language used on some websites. You might find out it’s used on yours if your site is hosted on certain platforms or you are using particular themes that incorporate Flash.

If your site is running on Flash, it’s time to change things up! Here’s why:

• They really annoy site visitors. There are usually a lot of moving parts and sounds on a Flash-based website. This can be too much for people. The sound can be the worst because  you never know what that person might be doing that sound can interrupt. Maybe they’re in a meeting, their baby is sleeping in the bassinet next to them, or they’re just in a quiet place like a library.

• They’re confusing. When you try to find your way around a Flash-based website, you can never figure out where you are because the pages change without changing the url. That makes it really hard to go backward and look at the previous page. And it makes things even harder when they want to share a particular page on social media. You want to make it easy for your site visitors to share your art!

• Google gets lost. This plays off the confusing-ness, really. Search engines have trouble figuring out your site and “indexing” pages when your product listings don’t have a different url from your homepage. And that’s really bad for SEO.

• It makes your site slow. Like really slow. Full-on turtle slow. That causes a lot of visitors to leave your page before it finishes loading because they get bored.

• It makes your site slow. Yep, just said that. But a slow site also messes up your SEO since most search engines take into account how quickly your site loads as part of your ranking.

• Mobile devices can’t use it. Anyone who tries to pop open any page on your site with their cellphone or tablet won’t be able to open it. That’s a big chunk of potential site visitors, totally lost.

• It’s totally unpopular. This isn’t a very good reason to make decisions for your business. But you’ll notice people have a poor impression of your site just because you use Flash. There’s something about the vibe of a Flash-based site that feels outdated.

So now what?
Go figure out if your site runs on Flash! And if it does, head over to my recommendations page to find out what I recommend for building a new site.

Don’t Use Flash is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

Honey Bee by Tamara Phillips. Watercolor.

I’ve been adding art to my Etsy Favorites list like crazy. I love clicking that little heart… So I thought it would be fun to show you a few of the artists I’ve been crushing on over the past few days. These are just painters and photographers. I may do some sculptors, jewelers, mixed media, etc… at a later date, though.

Pemaquid 10 by Kathleen Daughan. Oil painting.

Raining White by Ora Birenbaum. Acrylic painting.

Autumn Flame by Lily Antoniu. Photograph.

Searching by Jennifer Paul. Photograph.

Current Crushes: Etsy Painters and Photographers is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

Hour (more like 10 seconds) Glass Necklace by Maximilian Carrillo.

When a new person visits your website or shop, you have to make a good first impression right away. That’s why I taught you The Website Squint Test a while back. But today I want to teach you another great tool for evaluating your website’s efficacy so you can avoid having visitors hit the X, leaving your site for good.

Today’s tool is called the 10 Second Test. Grab a friend, family member, stranger… seriously, just ask the person next to you at a coffee shop to give up 30 seconds of their time.

1. Pop open your site and set a timer for 10 seconds. Have the person look at your homepage for just 10 seconds, trying to take in as much as they can.

2. When the 10 seconds are up, close the website and ask them what they know about it.

If they can tell you what you sell and describe who it might appeal to, you’re in good shape. But they might not be able to do that, which can give you really great information about where your site is ineffective.

For instance, if you sell hand-painted silk scarves alongside watercolor portraits and the person you tested says, “I think you sell scarves.” you know instantly that you haven’t given them enough information. They couldn’t discern that the there was something special about the scarves. And they had no idea that you also sell watercolor portraits.

So to improve your site, you might feature a watercolor portrait next to the picture of scarves and you might have some large text saying something like, “the personal touch of a hand-painted scarf takes every outfit to the next level of chic”.

Action Step:
Go find someone who hasn’t seen your site before and doesn’t know what you do. You can find people in relaxed settings like a church gathering, a park, a coffee shop, or even catching your neighbor as they get their mail. Then give them the 10 Second Test. Write down the results and what you can do to fix any problem areas. Then add those to your work calendar so you get them done!

10 Second Test is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

William by Sherri Ohler. Painting.

Sherri Ohler’s paintings are beautifully textured with layers of interesting color and shading. I really love her darker, more mysterious pieces like William, above.

Just Breathe by Sherri Ohler. Painting.

Her use of text is also employed quite well. I’m not normally one to like text in art, but I think sherri’s use is very successful.

Uttermost by Sherri Ohler. Painting.

A lot of her work has spiritual tones, like Uttermost (above) which features text from a Psalm.

Comfy Chair by Sherri Ohler. Painting.

Sherri also sells her work on iPhone cases and teaches a workshop on art journaling. Busy woman!But the best part of her site is the inspiration gallery with pictures of how people have used her work in their homes and at events and even on HGTV!

Crushing On: Painter Sherri Ohler is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura

Paper Money, Extreme Macro by Kevin Dooley. Photograph.

We’ve talked before about pricing your art, even going into good formulas. But I haven’t really delved into the concept of charging for your time.

It’s a hotly-debated issue in the art world. Think about it. You might spend 100 hours knitting that shawl. If you charge a mere $10/hr, that shawl costs $1000! And that doesn’t include materials, overhead, or a markup for retail vs. wholesale. Ridiculous.

But in “regular jobs”, you get paid by the hour. You earn based on the time you put in. That’s a concept we developed during the Industrial Era. I don’t want to sound preachy, but things used to be based on the value of the product. First we traded… maybe 4 chickens for a donkey. Then we started using currency (we never stopped trading, for the record – still do it today) but still based things on the value of the product, not the value of the labor.

But ignoring all of that, the bigger problem comes in when you think about skill. How long does it take a knitter with 20 years experience to make that shawl? Potentially half the time it takes a new knitter to make the same shawl. But if they are both using time as a factor in their pricing, the unskilled knitter would make way more than the knitter with 20 years of experience.

And that just doesn’t make sense.

As customers in the art world, we want the artist or craftsman to be skilled. It might not matter in some instances, but innately we hope that the artist is talented. And even better if they can create quickly and get the art to us faster!

So why would we reward that unskilled knitter for possessing qualities that are the opposite of what we are looking for?

I will clarify here, anticipating some strongly-worded emails, that I totally support people learning new skills and selling their work. Many of my clients are actually new to their medium and there’s nothing wrong with that. But they should have room to raise their prices because their work isn’t ready to be sold at the same prices as an established artist in their medium. They should start out lower, taking the time to improve their work until it’s worth the higher prices.

There’s a whole different blog post about to come pouring out of my mouth (fingers?) here about undercharging and how it hurts the art market as a whole. But perhaps I’ll leave that for another time. Instead, I think I’d like to leave you with some direction. Would you like that? Yeah, I thought so.

People don’t care about how long it took you to make their new necklace (unless it takes longer to get to them, which makes them angry). They care that it’s gorgeous and well-constructed and made of quality beads where the enamel won’t wear off in a week. So when you go to price your work, stop adding time into your formula. Instead, focus on quality.

Most of the time your materials will take care of themselves in your formula because more expensive materials are usually better quality. Done. But beauty and construction. Those are things you’ll have to start establishing benchmarks for. Perhaps you look at shape and color and use those as main determinates. Whatever it is, make sure you pay attention to quality of material, beauty, and construction when finalizing a price on any piece.

And one last thing! Never be so scared to price “incorrectly” that you don’t put your piece up for sale. You can always change a price unless the piece sells. You can always rework your pricing formula. You can always revisit how you feel about pricing. Don’t let it be an excuse for not getting your work out there and into the hands of that one person whose life it could change.

Charging for Your Time is a post from: Laura C George. Thank you for subscribing to my feed! If you'd like to connect further, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. You can also find more posts like this on my blog. Or you can get a summary of this content weekly, every Sunday, by signing up for my newsletter. Inspiring thoughts, Laura