How to promote drawings? Ideas?

[cc-rider]

I have a friend that is very talented at taking a digital photo of your pet and turning it into an amazing caricature...and just a talent, in general, at drawing cats and dogs. We've been trying to figure some way to turn that talent into an income stream. We've thought about maybe greeting cards, coloring books, children's books/illustrations, but have no idea where to find out more information. Help??!

First thing to get started would be to go to a local printing house and make some samples on nice paper. Be sure to have the work registered with the copyright office. It used to be about twenty bucks but I don't know now. It can be done on-line. You will need this in case people use your work without your permission, especially if they are profitting more from it than you are. Then, if you start local, you can make some money designing work for shops and shows. Perhaps you could do some label design for the farm produce people here. Just a thought to get you started.

[MoonRiver]

How long does it take to complete a drawing? And "it depends" should not be part of the answer, just an average time.

[clovis]

I can't help with the promotion parts, but I can lend a hand if you ever take the work to print. I've been in the printing biz for years.

[cc-rider]

If someone can tell me (easy for idiots) how to upload a photo here, I'll show you one that she did for me. I sent her a picture of my yorkie/poodle mix, and this is what she sent back. It looks SO amazingly like him, in a cartoonish sort of way.

Does this do it??



Nope. Sigh. http://www.flickr.com/photos/27287819@N05/4310220654/ is where it is stored.

[cc-rider]

I think she said it took her 2 or 2-1/2 hours to do that one. She draws entirely on the computer with a mouse!

[MoonRiver]

The 2+ hours makes this idea a little harder to pull off, or maybe not. I'm thinking you might have a pricing problem to do just one copy. I'm guessing you would have to sell them at $50+ for a single.

My first thought was art shows and craft fairs and even farmer's markets. Anyplace people show up with their pets. Have several samples on easels or hanging to get attention. Then take picture of pet with the print available within a week. Would have to get deposit or full payment at order.

What if you had a cartoon strip for different types of pets. Then you could substitute the person's pet into the strip and have something really unique to sell.

You could also try to get people to send you a digital photo online and work from that. Create a web site with samples and a procedure for accepting digital photos.

Go to animal shelters and see if they would like a drawing of one of the animals. In return, you get to leave some smaller copies of the drawing with your marketing info on it.

Talk to zoos, petting zoos, etc about creating some drawings they can use for advertising. Either for pay or for marketing space.

Any major universities around? Draw the mascot in a unique way that would appeal to alumni that show up for football and basketball games and sell through shops close to campus. (Are mascots copyrighted?)

A dog's eye tour of the city. Drawing of dog in various settings as it tours the city (town, village).

A drawing of owl you can sell to optometrists.

Brainstorm businesses that could use a mascot. Find appropriate animal, picture, drawing, etc.

Your friend should have many standards done that can be tweeked to match the pets unique features. This would make the shows easier, and faster.

[painterswife]

Have her join wetcanvas.com and spend some time in the business section( including internet).

Lots of good basic art business info. Everything from pricing to printing and marketing.

Her work is great and she could easily make a business from it.

I should add she should join this yahoo group TheArtofLicensing@yahoogroups.com, she could licence her work as well.

[lharvey]

CC.

This lady, her name is Tracy, does all her drawings in pencil.

Cookai.com

If you contact her, she is very helpful with other artists trying to get noticed.

She is constantly changing her site around but there are a couple of samples on the front page. Her work is incredible.



L

[SFM in KY]

I definitely second the WetCanvas site. Lots of excellent information on the business section of that site.

Another place for her work might be designing website logos. The logo could go on the website and be used for business cards, etc. as well ... a very individualized logo to pull everything together. Dogs, cats, horses, cattle, goats, rabbits?

One of the first things she may want to look at is a website, possibly linked to a blog or "sales site" of some kind as well. Again, WetCanvas may give her a lot of ideas.

[klickitat]

Here is an idea for what it is worth.

Build a small counter display that can be set on the counter or hung on the wall with brochures with the same information. Then work a deal out with pet stores and farm/feed stores, farm auctions, pet groomers, 4H groups as fund raisers, giving them 10% of every sale. You could also set up at farmers markets, flea markets, adds at the local stores on their outside bulletin boards, set up at local dog shows and trials. How about a kiosk in a mall starting in October for the Christmas season, the county fair, horse shows.

I know you expressly mentioned dogs and cats, but why limit yourself and your market.

As for a product, you could build custom books. Memory books with photos of the animal, you could have pictures of the animal and leave spaces blank at the bottom for the owner to write in, use one of any inexpensive programs to turn photos into coloring book drawings and make a child's coloring book, memorial books for people who have lost pets, promotional books for live stock (you might even find a website that has people who raise animals ) You can find book binding supplies online to do this at home.

Just a few ideas that popped into my head.

[PulpFaction]

T-Shirts are a good option too. Look at Skreened.com, you upload the image and choose your commission and set up a store front and they print on demand for you and you have your own shop and address to put on marketing materials with NO start-up.

Here's my suggestion:

Do one or two designs of each dog breed, print them on note cards, t-shirts, coffee mugs, key chains bumper stickers, christmas ornaments, etc and start reserving a booth at every dog show in the region. As an aside, do a display with samples of custom work. There are ways to have her line drawings blown up and put on any size canvas, or on blankets, etc, or she can just offer the standard size drawing. These should be for a pretty good commission, otherwise she'll be TOO busy! People that go to dog shows buy the heck out of this stuff. (Believe me, I'm one of them.)

There are lots of pet portrait artists out there that make their entire living doing this.

Wish I had her talent!

There is also a site that I use called deviantART that you can use to promote your drawings. They offer a printing service where you can choose what product your drawings go on. They pay a royalty for the use of the image, and handle all of the orders and shipping themselves.

[bergere]

Wet Canvas is a great place to learn the ropes.

You can also sell at online shops but you will have to "Target Marget" to bring folks to your shops.
There are millions of talented Artists out there.

If you want to sell through a POD ...
For wear-able Use-able Art.
Zazzle is a great place to start.
For Fine Prints and offers the most mats and Frames... Image Kind

These are just two. If you have any questions, please let me know. VBG
I can tell you what I do to bring in sales and the other quality online shops out there.

[Nomad]

We now have a Skreened.com account. As soon as I figure out how to upload some drawings, we'll be in business. The drawings are all .png which I wouldn't use, but I'm not the artist.

Nomad

[bergere]

Only problem with Skreened.com, is they don't support PNG with transparent back grounds.
Even with my paintings turn up dark on darker shirts. Do not have this issue at Redbubble, Zazzle or CP.

This could prove to be a problem.

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by bergere

Only problem with Skreened.com, is they don't support PNG with transparent back grounds.
Even with my paintings turn up dark on darker shirts. Do not have this issue at Redbubble, Zazzle or CP.

This could prove to be a problem.

You might as well be speaking Greek. I just do the marketing and card printing. The artist is in charge of the drawings and I don't know anything except they are .png. I'll have to find out what she thinks and maybe try something different. Do those other places you mention operate the same way as Skreened? I'll have to look into them. Thanks.

Nomad

[bergere]

Cafe Press, has excellent Sweat Shirts.

Zazzle has very nice shirts and Sweat shirts and has the most flexible program, its great to work with.

Red Bubble also offers very nice shirts.

None of them have Skreened's issues.

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by bergere

Cafe Press, has excellent Sweat Shirts.

Zazzle has very nice shirts and Sweat shirts and has the most flexible program, its great to work with.

Red Bubble also offers very nice shirts.

None of them have Skreened's issues.

Thanks, I'll check them out. Does Skreened have any problem with .jpg?

Nomad