Linear perspective revolutionized the way artists perceived and incorporated spatial depth in their work.  Devised in solid, mathematical terms in the 15^th century, linear perspective creates the illusion of three-dimensional space on a tow –dimensional surface.

To create effective linear perspective, artists establish a horizon line, a vanishing point on that line, and multiple orthogonal, or vanishing lines.  The horizon line is a horizontal line that runs across the paper or canvas to represent the viewer’s eye level and delineates the sky meeting the ground.  The orthogonal lines, which distort objects by foreshortening them, create the optical illusion that objects grow smaller and closer together as they grow farther away.  These imaginary lines grow smaller and closer together as they get farther away.  These imaginary lines recede on the paper to meet at one point on the horizon called the vanishing point.

The difference between one point perspective and two-point perspective is how many vanishing points there are and where they are placed on the horizon line. For more basics consider coming into Ogden Blue and take a class with one of our very fine instructor’s.

Many of us become artists for different reasons. Some of the most common reasons include the need to express oneself; and, the desire to reproduce memories of people and places that we have experienced.  It is freeing to be able too stop what you are doing anywhere and sketch a scene or put a new idea onto paper while it is fresh in your mind.  While painting is satisfying, carrying all the supplies that you need on a daily basis can be cumbersome and takes planning. If you prefer simplicity, colored pencils are an attractive option.  Paper, pencils, a sharpener, and an eraser are the general basics; all of which can easily fit into a backpack or satchel.

Color pencils are relatively inexpensive and the palette is extensive.  The color is pure, clean and bright.  The medium is permanent, and color pencil drawings do not require elaborate storage or care.  Along with hard and soft color pencils and oil based color pencils offer more options for beginning and advanced artists.

Whatever medium you like to work with, color pencils are a fun addition that offers rewards of both drawing and painting.

Ogden Blue offers Premier Prisma colors, Verithin, and Prisma watercolor pencils.  We also have Derwent Aquatone, and Derwent watercolor pencils.

How do you define success?  Having a lot of money is an obvious answer,

but what about satisfaction in knowing that you absolutely tried your best?

When someone interviewed me recently, she asked how I define success. I

surprised myself a bit when I referred to several material things; perhaps

because they're tangible. But I added that the ability to feel joyful everyday

is a sign of success for me, a statement that is true today as it was back in

college when I only had about $10 extra to spend each week and lived on

noodles and coffee. Money, I realized has little to do with it.

I hope that as an artist, you feel successful when you have taken some time

to dedicate to your art.  It could be sketching for practices, painting what you

hope to be a masterpiece, reading about other artists, taking an art class,

browsing an art supply store or visiting a gallery.  All of these things will in

some way will push you a step forward, and help the momentum of your

desire to create.  In my humble opinion, we're each successful as long as

we don't stop.

While you may not feel inspired to actually paint or draw everyday (although

I hope you do), when you need a little push, one resource you can always

rely on is one of your family of fine art magazines, including American Art

Collector, International Artist, Art of the West, or Watercolor Artist.

The prints that you rely on to sell your business really start out in the design process.  Many times, in an effort to save money, we have business owners bring in self-designed promotional materials.  As a note on marketing and design, a graphic designer will be trained in layout, typography, and many other aspects of pleasing design.  These skills are developed over years of practice and critique.  

Having started a small-business with very little start-up capital, I understand the temptation to shortcut this cost in favor of "something that will work for now."  However, this can be very detrimental to your purpose, which is to gain new business.  Presentation is everything to a potential client.  If a brochure or printed product looks "cheap," you open the door to all kinds of assumptions about your business, including your potential customer assuming that you will deliver a substandard product or service.

When I started my first business, I tried to shortcut many of the typical processes, including designing my logo myself, my first brochures, and my first web site.  The result?  The result was a year and a half of shortcutting in almost every area and a subsequent struggle to make ends meet.  I tried to price my service "affordably," which was almost a third of the typical market-price for my service.  Instead of a shortcut, I found myself shortchanging myself.  Why?  Because I thought that by limiting expenses, I would do better in the long run.  I thought of this as being "conservative," when in fact, I was simply being cheap.

I priced myself out of the market the other way... I valued myself too little and so did my customers.  I seemed to get the cheapest customers, who struggled to pay me, who would want discounts on all kinds of services, and who would didn't value my services or what I did for them. 

Real conservatism is running a business that is "sane" versus "overly exuberant".  There is a big difference in conservatism and cheapness as well.  The difference lies in how you think of yourself, your business, and your service.  Are you valuable?  Is your business valuable?  Then you need to teach yourself and your customers about the value of the product or service you offer.  Cheap marketing materials do not show value; they show a desire to shortchange yourself, your business, and your customers.  Don't spend exorbitant amounts on things, but do value yourself and your business enough to make it look good.

It was funny that when I stopped shortcutting in my own business, my income increased 400%.  I was then able to afford to pay the amounts that were fair and reasonable for business services I contracted.  It was interesting that I began to truly value what I did and the service I provided, and all of a sudden, so did my customers. 

At Ogden Blue, we understand that you are cognizant of your budget and run your business conservatively, and we have designers who have four-year degrees from good universities.  We also price their services at $45/hour to ensure that you can afford these services.  We also adjust the pricing of our print materials regularly to ensure that you are getting a good value.  Our prints and design do not look cheap.  In fact, we'll put our quality on the line to be compared with any design and print company out there.  Come in and compare the great value we have for you.

What are deceptive business practices?  We can deliberately, or inadvertently, be practicing them because they seem normal, socially acceptable, everyday, and necessary to making it DECEPTIVE.

So what are some of these deceptive practices?

Most things in life are not black and white and are not easy to identify.  So for any specific practice I might label as being deceptive, there can be an honest side..  The trick is knowing our motivation behind what we are doing, and being honest with ourselves in why we are doing what we are doing.

For example; red slashed sale practices.

We have all been in stores where there are two prices on the tag, the first one is in black for $25, but there is a slash through the number and below, in red, it says, SALE--$13.50!  Since the price tags are pre-printed, it’s obvious that the price was never $25 and was always $13.50, but the whole black/red thing is a play on our psyche to make us think we are getting a deal when we are not.  That’s deceptive.  But it doesn’t seem so, because it is so much a part of our daily existence that it’s normal.

On your website, where you have 10 paintings for $350 each, and you’re wanting to get them moving.  So you reduce the price by 20% to $280.That’s not deceptive, because you did reduce the price.

However, if you never intended to sell them for $350, and always thought that $280 was the right price, and set up the page that way, that’s deceptive.

Sure it is smart to figure out how people think, but when you use that knowledge to manipulate people into doing what is best for you and not necessarily best for them, this becomes questionable.  And when people find out that they have been used, and the truth does come out, and usually at the most inopportune times, the feel stupid, and that ultimately is not good for your business.

Ask yourself some of these specific questions when we plan what we are going to sell, and how:

“Am I scheming?”

“Am I pushing or prodding someone into a particular way of thinking or behaving?”

“How would I feel if this technique were being used on me?”

“Do I think I’m being remarkably clever and smarter than the average person in doing what I am doing?”

Anytime we start being overly impressed by our intelligence is a good time to stop and do some good, hard thinking.

So always be 100 percent transparently honest, right?

Well that’s another one of those not-quite-black and not-quite-white things and we’ll look at that next time.

This is the testing phase of the marketing process and redefining your process itself so that your process is continually improving in effectiveness.  So now that you have identified your product and come up with a few ways to market that product, “What worked and what didn’t?” is the next question.  If you properly found a way to track your results, you should have a pretty good idea about what worked and what didn’t.  Those items that you got back as coupons, email clicks, web site traffic, or whatever, are the items that you need to focus on. 

What worked about the advertising?  What look did the advertising have or what feel?  Did it have a short message that seemed to sell well?  Are people commenting on the tagline, or are they telling you what a great deal that was?  Focus on that aspect of the marketing message.  Eliminate other aspects of your marketing plan that didn’t work so well.  You want to focus on what works to the exclusion of what doesn’t work.  Remove what doesn’t work from your marketing plan.

An Example would be that you ran two individual ads, one in a newspaper and the other in a local coupon magazine.  The coupon magazine returned 2 coupons to you, while the newspaper returned 20.  That is ten times the return out of newspaper.  That sounds like it is working better than the magazine, correct?  As weird as it sounds, sometimes companies will continue to market using ineffective tools.  Now, there is brand recognition to think about; however, a small business cannot usually afford to throw away money on brand recognition, unless, and it is a big “unless”, that is part of the key to people buying your product.

For most small retail businesses, brand recognition is simply not necessary.  Your business will typically center on the product and price of what you carry.  Differentiation happens in this case over service and feel of the store (emotional factors).  A restaurant lives and breathes by brand recognition, service, and food quality (which should definitely be part of your marketing efforts – put money into improving your product continually). 

Now, look at the two ads that you ran in the magazine and the newspaper.  Did they differ from one another in placement, size, or any other factor?  If the answer is no then toss out the magazine and focus your dollars on the newspaper the next time.  You have now refined a bit of the process down to “Newspapers work for my business,” and “Coupon magazines don’t work for me as well as newspapers.”  If those ads did differ, run the ad that did work in the media that didn’t work.  In this example, you would take the newspaper ad and placement, and run it in the coupon magazine to see how it would work.  This does take some money to test, but it can yield great results.

Again, the process for marketing the business is best described as:

1.       Identify your product, how it’s sold, and your market.

2.       Build your business identity around that market and around your customers.

3.       Test, Test, Test.

I have been painting seriously for about 8 years.  Painting every day no excepations at least four hours hopefully more. This is an average as I am working a full time job as well.

I have had several group shows.  My first show was in a gallery that I worked part time as a framer. We framed the paintings with the gallery frames and asked other artists from the area to also show on a First Friday.  These were very nice frames and yes framing does matter. It is very imprtant to show off your work as professional as possible.

It is important that you understand the publicity and announcements policy of the gallery that you show in. Some gallerys send out information, invitations announcing your work as well as other artists in their gallery at the same time.  It is important that you have a clear understanding of what in the announcements and or invitations so you can share infromation with your clients, friends and family.

Make a detailed list of the paintings you are leaving with the gallery including support, dimensions, and price and be sure that it is signed by the person receiving the works.  Label the back of each painting to insure the painting on the wall will match the Gallery Label.  When you pick up your work check each piece of the inventory list as you get it and mark accordingly any work sold.

 Stay positive.  I not sure anything is much harder than exposing onself, working this hard and awaiting feedback.  Most people do appreciate your effort even if they do not buy yet.  Stay with it.  Keep showing. 

When small businesses first start marketing, I have noticed that they will sometimes just throw a bunch of different items out there from business cards to brochures to direct mail to web sites... and they may get quite a bit of business off these efforts to tell their customers who they are.  However, soon afterwards, they begin wondering, whether for cost or effectiveness, what exactly is working and what isn't.  The biggest problem is tracking and testing.

When you throw an array of different marketing messages out there, some will "hit" more than others.  Whether it is the message or whether or not the person designing the marketing had a "good" or a "bad" hair day, some messages will simply be more effective than others.  How do you know what works if it hasn't been tested or tracked?  So, here are some simple keys to ensuring that you are actually doing something that works and not spending needless money.

1. Everything must have a way to tell what works.  If you are doing direct mail, attach a coupon that customers have to bring with them.  Have a quick note at the front desk and ask the customers how they found out about you.  Make appropriate check marks or scratches in the box.
2. Put Google Analytics on your web site (your web designer will know how to do this) so that you can track online traffic.  Make sure you have a definite goal for the web traffic.  Web traffic that comes to you and does not buy is not really web traffic that does you much good.
3. Brochures,flyers, informational marketing pieces, and any print media should have a "call-to-action" part to the piece.  This allows the customer to immediately purchase something by calling a number, visiting a web site, or coming in to your place of business. 
4. If advertising sales people are involved, ask them to show you direct evidence of the claims they are making.  The yellow pages are an example of something that used to be necessary before smart phones, etc.  How effective is this method of advertising if you do 90% of your business online.
5. Always have a system for tracking marketing.  Here at Ogden Blue, we design our marketing timeline by quarter.  This is posted at a permanent location so the employees know what's going on with each piece of the puzzle with dates, explanations of the method, and what each employee or manager is responsible for.  Each piece is then tracked by coupon, analytics, or just by asking questions.

Billboards and other mass media are a little harder to track than newspaper ads, web sites, or direct mail, but it is still useful to test the message before putting it up or sending out on-the-air.  Try a small test market first... like in an email newsletter or direct mail.  See how effective the message is first.  If you receive a lot of calls or traffic on the piece (greater than 2-3%) then you know you have a good message.  That is the message to then put up on the billboard or share over radio or some other broadcast message.

We can help you design a message that will be effective and work with your branding.  We have four graphic designers here that can help you put together a message and make it work with your current branding. 

Step 2 - Build Your Business Identity around Your Customers and Your Market 

Now that you have identified your reasons for being in business in the first place, let's discuss what business identity means and how to bridge the gap between your perceptions of the market and the actual market.  Then we can discuss branding and being clear with your customers by establishing a very clear idea in their mind about what you do, how you do it, and why you do it. 

Customers buy the "whys" of your business.  Check out this video by Simon Sinek in which he explains the reason great companies are great companies.  The why is the most powerful of your business ideas.  It inspires your employees to "buy in" to the business, it gives a reason for your suppliers to believe in you, and it gives your customers a reason to buy.   The why flows into your business identity and branding.  This should be worked from the "ground up" in a way where the principles of the business are integrated into everything you do.  From customer service to sales, your company should be wrapped around the core principles of your business through processes and procedures that speak to who you are.

The why automatically begins a certain set of parameters that directly flows to branding.  Look at Apple's brand... the simplicity of the design, the feel of "high-tech", and the innovation that can be "felt" just by looking at their logo.  How messy is your current look of your logo?  Is it a clean design that really tells what your company is all about?  How do you communicate where you are going through your logo?  When we were thinking about all of this at Ogden Blue, before we rebranded, we wrote down a set of keywords that were used to identify our core strengths of being a multifaceted company, an expression company, and a more streamlined, focused, and innovative company than the one prior.  We then began a discussion of what really spoke about our company.  We ended up with six different logos that spoke to what we do, but more importantly, had the "feel" of a younger, vibrant, and future-looking company.  This step really needs some thought put into it.

 Once you have a "feel" or list of keywords that define your company, visit with a graphic designer.  This is not a time to be frugal.  You really want the business identity to speak about who you are as a company.  This is the time to really focus, because once you have this down, the rest of your marketing materials will be much more effective, cheaper to design, and focused to your identity.  We have four graphic designers on site at Ogden Blue, and they have a great range of experience to help you define and develop a brand.

Now that you have thought about and talked to your customers about what it is they want from your business and identified a brand around that, developing a message gets much easier.  Speak to concerns or excite your customers about possibility.  Personally, I don't really focus any marketing around a "fear-based" type of advertising.  Sometimes, this is not avoidable, as in the insurance industry, where the motivation to buy stems from people's desires to take care of things should disaster strike.  Even here, more positive messages that speak of where people desire to be are more effective than showing them what they do not desire.  People desire to be safe, happy, fullfilled (as in expressed), and comfortable.  Speak to one of these desires when coming up with your message.

A message should be short and to the point, and the rest of the marketing piece should be focused around the short, simple message.  If you have branded well, the message will be a simple elaboration of the brand, and the rest of the marketing piece will elaborate on the message in a "top-down" kind of approach.  The identification of your market also drives the message.  You will market differently to different demographics.  Just think about who you are trying to reach with this message, and talk with someone in that demographic about your message before finalizing design.  Ask questions about whether or not this reaches them in how they think about the world.  Don't rely on your own perception of that demographic... ask your demographic who they are.  

Case in point, I just received a call from a client who used to do a lot of business with us.  We haven't seen anything in a while from this particular customer, and the feedback I received was about flexibility and speed.  Now, we have really designed a lot of internal processes to deliver just this; however, the feedback points to areas where we could do a better job about quickly turning our product out the door with a greater amount of flexibilty.  If I hadn't talked to this client, I wouldn't have been able to see where we were still be inflexible in our processes.  Talk to your customer.  They will tell you the way to go.

Although it may seem that talking to your customer doesn't really dovetail into your business identity, it absolutely should be the basis for what you are doing.  Without customer input, you may be missing the mark completely in what it is you are trying to do.

So, in closing, follow a few simple steps.  Identify "why" you are doing what you are doing.  Design your business identity around where your customers are pushing you.  Design your logos, message, and delivery to clearly communicate that you are in touch with your customers' expectations and goals.  When developing your brand, don't be inexpensive... this is your core of your business, and professional designers make a world of difference in how your company is perceived.

Portrait Painting Tips

Painting   portraits is a skill that may take a few years to master.  It is the job of the painter to bring out the persons /subject personal qualities as well as their attributes or what they look like. There is no right or wrong way to paint a portrait, the likeness comes with practice.

The portrait is not usually started without a lot of preliminary sketches.  A likeness can be mastered with patience and practice.

SOME SIMPLE TIPS

-The subject should not cover more than two thirds of the canvas.  It is important to size the subject right.

-Ensure that the source of light will fall on the sitter’s face in such a way as to make the best use of shadow. Good use of light and shadow can give the impression of strength and solidity to the subject’s face.

-The background is important in the portrait. Avoid putting distracting things in the background so the eyes of the viewer will always be drawn to the subject of the painting.

-If possible use a live model.  If this is not possible use a good quality photo and a larger photo.

-Study the subject as a whole. Study the bone structure and try to see the shapes and planes.

-Focus on a section at a time.

-Begin with a thinner mix of your darkest darks, next paint your lightest lights with a thicker or medium consistency.

-Mixing flesh tones takes time and of course skin comes in so many varieties of colors. There is no specific formula; you will have fun experimenting and practice. Over mixing can deaden a color.

-The forehead and muzzle area (the space between the nose and the mouth) and chin are usually the same color but cooler.

-When painting hair, don’t try and paint every strand. Look at the hair as one object.

-Try and repeat the colors and values in your painting to create balance.

-Add bits of color where the shadow meets the light in your portrait.

Painting portraits does take practice so enjoy the practice!