The artist as a marketeer #2

I have always been drawn to trying my luck abroad. Not only because Holland is a small country with a small art market, but mostly because of the excitement. And that's what you get, though not always the kind you hope for. A few years back I showed my work at a Greek gallery. Getting the work there was no problem, getting it back was a different story. It turned out that for every art work you want to ship out of Greece you have to get permission from a Greek state committee. In the past the Greeks have been robbed of their art treasures, so I don't blame them. I got my paintings back in the end, but my shipper's bill was a bit higher than expected. The committee is seated in Athens and I had to pay for the detour. Of course I should've known this beforehand, but if I did, I probably wouldn't have bothered and missed all the excitement.

The funny thing is that, whenever I approach a foreign gallery directly I'm never successful. I get a rejection mail at best. Successful exhibition opportunities come from galleries that get in touch with me. Thanks to the world wide web.

Misty Passage, oil on panel, 19.7" x 59.1"

Let me tell you about my cyber empire. It has four interacting elements. Sounds like I'm an expert, eh? In reality it slowly grew by trial and error. By regularly posting a new article on my blog or a new clip on my YouTube channel I hope to draw visitors to my website (www.paintingskies.com), where they can find information about my work, buy a video or even a painting.

In the previous article about the artist as a marketeer (September 5, 2016) I mentioned the importance of collecting email addresses and sending a newsletter. Every time I want people to know I posted a new video on YouTube, or new paintings on my website I send out a newsletter. Because I've been collecting email addresses for years it reaches thousands of subscribers. A newsletter always generates traffic on either the YouTube channel, the blog or the website. (By the way: if you want to subscribe to my newsletter, please send me an email at info@janhendrikdolsma.nl.)

Let me emphasize this is not some sort of standard recipe for success. It's just how I've done it and it works. It didn't make me a millionaire, but it sure helps keeping the ship afloat. And it connects me to people all over the world, who respond to my videos, ask me questions or just want to compliment me on my painting. Love it.

Painting a seascape

I just finished working on a seascape. I must admit I'm not a specialist, but every now and then I give it a try. In this case the reason was a commission. Though I was quite content with the result, the buyer rejected it. Turned out after all he wanted a beachscape. I should've made an oil sketch, like I usually do...

Evening Surf, oil on panel, 13.8 x 39.4"

Painting waves is a real joy. The best part is painting the foam. You can let the paint do the work. The painting technique I use always depends on what I'm painting and when painting foam I can go all the way in using impasto techniques. No need to smooth out my brush strokes (like in for example the blue of the sky). The texture only adds to the dynamic of the wave rolling over.


Because this is an evening scene I get to paint lovely warm accents with lots of paint on my brush. Still, it's not all impasto. Glazing can be very useful here as well. For the shadow part of this wave I used a glaze of transparent white mixed with ultramarine and a bit of sepia. Works great.


But like I said, I'm not a specialist. Maybe you should take a look at the work of a real seascape painter like David Smith (http://davidlyttletonsmith.com).

North Sea Beach

Quite a few people presume that when you're a professional painter you always know exactly what you're doing and that you control the outcome of each painting. Sorry to break the news, but even when you paint for a living the whole process can be downright frustrating and sometimes you run into a really stubborn painting that drives you nuts. Sounds familiar?

Last week I uploaded a 5 min. video on YouTube that tells the story of 'North Sea Beach' (oil on panel, 33.5 x 59"). Let me know if you have a similar story!