10 Dec Website shopping in the Covid year
I had mixed feeling initially about having a website, but was persuaded that I really needed one, to increase the profile and ‘reach’ of my work.
I was introduced to a really skilled, affordable website designer, Kimberley Hatch.
She took great pains to make sure the ‘look’ of the website meshed with the works on offer, and I was very pleased with the result.
We get about 150 people a month clicking on the site, mostly from the UK, but some in Europe the USA and Middle East. Of these, about 5-10 people a month make a commission approach, and of these, around half turn out to be ‘time wasters’ and just stop responding. It’s always hard to distinguish the genuine clients from the time-wasters at the outset. Fortunately about half of the , enquiries DO end up as clients asking for serious commissions. This year, with almost all other sales avenues closed to professional artists, the website has come up trumps, and has been a real life-line.
One recent example was a lady who asked if we had any paintings of Punchestown Racecourse in Ireland, as she and her husband loved the course and were regulars at the festival. She wanted it as a birthday present for her husband. We didn’t have anything suitable, and initially she seemed a little wary of requesting a commission, in case she didn’t like the result.I assured her that if that, as with all my commissions, if this was the case, she wouldn’t be forced to buy. We went ahead.
The people who administer my website sales like to keep clients ‘in the loop’ as the painting progresses, so we sent the start point (a tonal sketch) and then all the intermediate stages of the painting for approval as we went. Finally, the painting was ready, and the client loved it. More importantly, her husband loved it too !
The picture shows our client, (wife) and the lucky recipient (husband) with the final painting.
Thank goodness for Websites!
Underpainting
