The internet offers a lot of opportunities to get your art online. This lens will cover some of the best and most interesting avenues for sharing your art with the world, as well as selling.
A caution - if you're new to sharing your art online, you might want to remember that any image that's online CAN be stolen/borrowed by whomever is viewing it - that's the nature of the beast right now. If you are concerned with this, only upload smaller and lower resolution images if you're sharing your art, or add a digital watermark with your copyright information using a graphics program like photoshop. If you're going to be selling prints online and have to upload your large, high-resolution images, make sure that only you and the printing service will have access to them, unless you deliberately want to share them.
Contents at a Glance
Sharing Your Art Online
Various sites where you can share your art online, including art-focused email lists. Many of these places may also offer selling opportunities.
- DeviantArt
- DeviantArt is an art sharing community with a young and informal tone. Sign up for a free account and start posting your images immediately, whether you draw, take photos, make digital art, sculpt, or even make browser skins. It's easy to find others with similar interests too. They also have a Prints Service with a one-time sign up fee ($24.95 at last check) where you can offer archival quality prints of your art, as well as other products.
- Art Wanted
- ArtWanted has a nice art community. Their free account limits you to uploading three images a month, but gives other perks like being able to send those images as ecards. Their premium service ($39/year at last check) allows unlimited uploads, plus enhanced organizational abilities for your images. Also, you can sell your art through artwanted as well, and premium members can use their Prints service.
- Wet Canvas
- Wet Canvas is a community of artists ranging from novice to expert, in many different mediums. You can post your art in the forums just to share, or to get specific feedback. They also offer many great articles and other resources. Highly recommended.
- EBSQart
- This site started out primarily for artists who were selling their own art on eBay.com, but have expanded to self-representing artist in general. Basic membership is free. There are chats and message boards and lots of good advice, especially for selling art online. Subscriptions are available for added features.
- Flickr
- A terrific and quite popular site for sharing photos and art images as well. Good integration with lots of blogging software too. Also offers the ability to let people make prints of your photos if you want to.
- Creative Commons
- Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that offers flexible copyright licenses for creative works. So if you're sharing your art online, Creative Commons can help you communicate how you wish to share them. If you don't want 'all rights reserved' but don't want to give it all away, they offer some good alternatives. Here's an overview of their licenses.
- ArtWorkBooks Email List
- The list focus: "Do you use your art journal or sketchbook to do field sketches, value studies, or test paints, pens or work out creative solutions to other projects? Is your journal your practical, hands-on workshop for painting design, textile, fiber art, jewelry making, sculpture or book design? Does it include watercolor tests and color experiments or explorations of new calligraphic styles? Do you work out ideas for landscape or fashion design?" Etc.
- Online Visual Artists Forum
- A forum for artists to swap information about sharing and selling their art in various venues online. Compares popular sites and services and personal experiences with them.
Selling Your Art Online
Sites where you can sell your art or prints, and buy too!
- Etsy
- Set up as an alternative to Ebay, their free membership gives you your own store page for selling your own hand-made arts and crafts (prints are allowed as well.) It's only ten cents to list and a small percentage of the final selling price as well. As of this writing, the site is still in Beta, but has quite a following. Also has a very clean layout and fun flash tools for browsing.
- Yessy
- Sell your paintings, jewelry, crafts, ceramics, photographs, even the furniture you've made! Sign up gives you a 14-day free trial and then it's about $59/year to sell there. They also have an affiliate program for promoting and selling other people's art that's on yessy.
- Art By Us
- "The premier online auction market exclusively for real art by real artists." You can post all kinds of arts and crafts for auction, but they do not allow the listing of mass produced artwork, unless the artist is selling their own high-quality, fine-art prints.
- CafePress
- Cafepress lets you sell your artwork on any of their 70+ products, on demand, so there's no up front fees or bulk-purchasing required on your end. Basic membership gives you a free shop with one of each product (you can open as many free shops as you want though), while a Premium Shop is $6.95/month for unlimited products, plus significant shop customization. You can set whatever price you want to charge for each product, above CafePress's base price. Jillian Renner has assembled a fantastic squidoo page on CafePress, so for more information, just Click here for the CafePress Resource. For an example of a premium shop with lots of designs and products, as well as a high degree of custom html, check out my Art of FoxVox Shop.
- Zazzle
- Similar to CafePress - you can sell your art on posters, prints, or various t-shirts. It's also print-on-demand, so no up-front money is required. You get a percentage of every sale at Zazzle's set prices.
- eBay
- eBay is the probably the most well known auction site on the web, and many artists use eBay to auction their art. If you're new to the game, you might want to visit EBSQart for newbie help, templates, and good advice, and check out the eBay Sellers Resource lens here at Squidoo.
- ImageKind
- Imagekind is a prints business based in Seattle, Washington. They offer limited free accounts or premium accounts and can set your own markup. You can upload images for selling on prints and also select default 'suggestion' settings for matting and framing, which is great fun to play around with. (You can see my imagekind gallery as an example - click here.)
- Printfection
- Also similar to CafePress - you can sell your art on various t-shirts, totebags, and even things like aprons and cutting boards. It's also print-on-demand, so no up-front money is required, and you can set your own prices. (Some printfection shop examples: Funny State T-shirts, Art of Mind.)
ATCs/ACEOs
Artist Trading Cards/Art Cards - Editions, Originals
Art Cards are gaining such popularity so quickly that they need their own section. Art Cards are art on a 2.5"x3.5" format, which is standard trading card size, like baseball cards. Some people only trade their cards, some people sell them, and more and more people are starting to collect them. Here are a number of sites that deal with art cards in one form or another.
- Art Cards Wanted
- A relatively new website that allows you to trade cards, or buy and sell original cards or reproductions, whether you make your own prints or have them do it. (This site is an offshoot of the artwanted.com site - same people.)
- Artist Trading Card Forums
- They say it best: "A dedicated discussion board for artist trading card enthusiasts. Join us in the forums to discuss artist trading cards, meet and trade with great people who share a similar interest, upload pictures of your art in our photo gallery, chat with other members, find information on personal trading sessions in your area or trade online via mail."
- Art In Your Pocket
- One of the definitive sites for understanding what ATCs are, their history, as well as all different kinds of techniques for making ATCs. Run by a gifted artist and ATCer.
- Artist Trading Cards
- Often heralded as the original site for Artist Trading Cards, where it all started to catch on. They have forums, galleries, and list events like trading sessions, etc.
- ATC Squidoo Lens
- If you're looking for even more links about Artist Trading Cards, visit this lens - more ATC links than you can shake a stick at.
Art Challenges
Sites that host weekly (or regularly scheduled in some way) art challenges you can participate in.
- Illustration Friday
- Every Friday the people at Illustration Friday post a theme, and if you create a work of art along that theme (sketch, painting, digital art, photo, etc.), you post your image online and then add your link to their site. You'll need your own weblog (or perhaps even just a flickr.com account) where you can post your image.
- Photo Friday
- Similar to Illustration Friday (above) but with photos. The Photo Friday people post a theme, and you must do your best to take a photo that expresses that theme. Then, post it online and submit the link at their site.
- Everyday Matters
- This is the link to Danny Gregory's weblog. He hosts a busy email list that includes a weekly drawing challenge. They also coordinate art meetups in real life.
- Studio Friday
- "Every Monday a new topic will be announced which gives you a new challenge to explore your own studio space and go on an adventurous treasure hunt discovering your own space with a new view, in a new light, from a new angle."
- Self-Portrait Tuesday
- "Each tuesday you post a self portrait on your blog, give a brief explanation of the picture - you may include your state of mind, what you were trying to do, technical information about the image etc. Link back to the list of other SPT people - thus enabling everyone to share and explore each others self portrait experience."
- Inspire Me Thursday
- "A weekly dose of inspiration to be creative, try new techniques and explore new mediums. We challenge all artists to get out their art supplies, experiment and CREATE!" Only new art allowed for this challenge - nothing from the archives.
- Daily Drawing List
- "This is a group for people who want to develop their art skills by attempting to draw something every day. There will be daily drawing prompts that people are encouraged to try as well as the freedom to post anything you've created. Participation is key! Come on in. Simple art talk is welcome too. Discuss techniques, share cool sites you've found, let people in on various art communities you're a part of."
Blogging Your Art
Sharing your art through your own weblog.
Blogging is a terrific way to share your art online, and perhaps a little about the artist as well. Many artists post images of their art in progress and finished pieces, stories of their trials and tribulations, as well as links to where people can buy too.
There are a lot of good places to get your own weblog, often hosted for free. Here are some links to get you started.
There are a lot of good places to get your own weblog, often hosted for free. Here are some links to get you started.
- Blogger
- You can get a free blog at blogger.com, host it for free automatically through their blogspot.com service, and even upload images to post in your blog for free. They have a lot of cool templates so your blog can look the way you want it. (You can also create your own template if you know enough html.) You can also use blogger to post your blog on your own domain if you don't want or need to use their free hosting service.
- LiveJournal
- Another free blogging service with paid upgrade for additional features. Easy to find people with similar interests too.
- TypePad
- Not free, but very reasonable pricing levels for a pretty powerful set of blogging tools!
- Wordpress
- Wordpress will give you a free weblog hosted at their site, or you can download the scripts and host your weblog on your own domain if you want to do that.
- MySpace
- You can get a free MySpace blog and use their service to connect to lots of other artists as well. The website has a younger audience and a concentration on independent music and bands. They also have classified ads and other features.
- Facebook is more of a social networking site than just a blogging site, but you can network AND post notes about your art, photos, etc. And it's also free.
FoxVox Weblog
Blogging Art & Life
These are the latest posts from my own weblog at FoxVox.org - a pretty good example of blogging about art and life.
Art Squared Art
Square Art - A Celebration
Art - Paintings
Art Images from Flickr.com that are tagged with 'painting'
Terrific Art Books at Amazon
Art of Ebay
Many artists make a good living selling their art on ebay.com
This module searches ebay for auctions tagged with the 'art squared' keyword - this refers to art with squared proportions and is rather popular form right now.
by foxvox
I'm a self-taught artist specializing in Celtic Art, Watercolor, and Digital Photography (among other things.) My online shop is Art of FoxVox (t-shirts,... more »
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