How to tell about yourself

Write a resume

Include in it information about the place of study, about exhibitions indicating the time, place, name. You must have been involved in group activities. Constantly update your resume, add new art-related events, and delete less important ones. Also write about internships, master classes, prizes, awards, if any. Add your photo.

Write a biography

Briefly tell us about yourself. Literally half a page: write about who you are, where you were born, where you studied. Probably, some of your works are in private collections (even if you donated them) and, possibly, in different cities of Russia or abroad. Add this information as well.

Prepare a booklet

An optional item, but it allows you to brightly and colorfully present information about you. Post your photo, a photo of one or more paintings. Add brief information about yourself, what you write, contacts, mention your website or pages on social networks. A good option is a double-sided leaflet in A5 format. More informative than a business card, and also inexpensive.

Get social media pages

If there are, post photos of paintings more often. Very interesting shots in the process of writing, in the open air, pictures of paintings in the interior. Ask to be photographed at work. Shoot short videos.

Sign up for artist portals

Perhaps some of the other visitors will want to purchase your work. The main advantage of such sites is that when your name is entered in search engines, your pictures will be among the first links in the search results.

How to prepare your work for an exhibition

Decorate the pictures

Paintings need to be framed in baguettes, for watercolors it is better to add a passe-partout. Don’t forget fasteners. Recently, I switched to canvases with a gallery stretch, 4 cm thick.

With a gallery stretch, the edges of the image go to the ends of the stretcher and no baguette is required
I kill several birds with one stone: I save on decoration (baguettes are not cheap) and facilitate the transportation of paintings. The frames are heavy and fragile, they are easily damaged, it is necessary to protect the corners with special corners, and if we transport them by plane, we count every kilogram. And canvases with a gallery stretch are lighter and more convenient for transportation and packaging. In addition, in modern interiors, such works look stylish.

Put your signatures

Be sure to sign on the front of the work. On the back, indicate the last name, first name, title of the work, size of the picture (first the height is written, then the width), material (for example, “canvas / oil” or “watercolor / paper”), year. You can sign with charcoal, then be sure to fix it with a special spray or hairspray so that it does not crumble.

Take a picture of the paintings

The best thing to do is professional photography. Good quality photos can be used for catalogue, album, booklets, prints (creating copies) or when printing on clothes and accessories.

But such shooting is expensive, so at first you can take pictures yourself. For shooting, it is better to take the work outside and shoot in the shade. Then cut off the excess and process in a photo editor. Make sure the colors in the photo match the actual colors in the painting.

To store photos of paintings, create a separate folder on your desktop. Pictures can be pre-arranged into collections, so you can always quickly find the ones you need. For photographs of paintings in the interiors, also create a separate folder, as well as for pictures from the open air and your photos at the easel.

Make a list of jobs

Make a list of all your paintings in a table format. Can be sorted by collection or year. So you yourself will understand how many paintings you have, and put things in order. In the table, indicate the number, name of the painting, year, size, material, if necessary – cost, attach a photo. I add notes to paintings when they are sold or placed in the collection. Be sure to mark the paintings that you donate to an exhibition or somewhere else.