Self Promotion Gone Wild!

You believe in my work and I will help promote you!

After a year full of complete life changes, including loosing a house, a cat, and my mother-in-law, having a beautiful baby boy, and rebuilding everything, I am creating my website anew to reflect my desire to be an extremely successful artist.

See? Isn't that awesome?

Please help me out. It’s free …or you could invest in my work, but that’s later on down the page.

1 – Request a Link

Let’s link to each other! It’s good for our SEO. In layman’s terms, that means we become cooler in the eyes of Google.

In order for me to link to your site, you must have content on your site that will be of special interest to my visitors, and you must place a reciprocal link on your site. Links to your site from outside sources help to improve search engine optimization, so what are you waiting for?

Please copy and paste the HTML link below onto your site, and then shoot me an email detailing your link url and title. Spammers will be ignored, so don’t even bother.

MyPreferredHTML Link :

<a href=”http://www.rachelmcotton.com/”>Fine Art Paintings by Rachel M Cotton</a> Savannah artist sharing artwork and tips for creative growth

2 – Write a short blurb about me

You know me!

If I have done work for you in the past or if we grew up in the same town, write a your impression, your memories, or your kudos abut me and be featured in a blog post on my new site. Again this helps us both. I get an awesome blog post and you get some much deserved PR! Email your writing to rmcotton.art@gmail.com.

3 – Show your support for the Arts

In addition to being a great supporter of my own work, I am also a great supporter of the arts, including art education, collecting and business. If you or your company has done something wonderful to help support the arts in your area, please share that with us, so that we may share it with our readers. Or if you have heard of something wonderful happening, please share that as well. There are good things happening in this world, and we would love to hear the positive.

Or Invest in Artwork or Sponsoring An Artist (Me).

There are also several ways to invest in my work.

1 – Commission Custom Work

Butterfly Ballerina - A Commission

The majority of my work is from people like yourself that want an original piece of work for their home or office. I have been known to do portraits of people, pets, and homes, specialty work for nurseries and children’s rooms, as well as some pretty atypical requests. Pieces are affordable, and I happy to accept payments. As an emerging full-time artist, prices for my work have more than doubled in the last 2 years. I can only see this trend continuing as I am now in Gallery 11 in The City Market Art Center in Savannah and my commission availability is decreasing rapidly.

2 – Purchase Existing Originals

Between painting custom work, I like to work on my own projects that reflect my growth and exploration of technique and concept. These pieces mark my artistic progression. Many of these particular pieces will exhibit, but they are also for sale to art lovers and collectors. Each piece is registered with the Fine Art Registry and comes complete with a Certificate of Authenticity.

3 – Purchase Prints

Your Dad may like this one!

Most of my paintings are also available as open edition prints. Limited Edition prints are available on a limited basis. Prints are created by quality scans and/or photographs of the original piece, the colors are matched to the original, and the piece is printed either on quality photographic paper or as a high quality, archival giclee print. Please let me know if you are interested in a print of a specific painting.

4 – Sponsor a Competition

I regularly enter prestigious competitions both nationally and internationally. Entry fees can be very expensive ranging from $25 – $100 per competition. You pay an entry fee or two in return for the following:

• PR on my site with a link to the sponsor site with additional promotion across major social media outlets
• 20% of the awarded prize, 20% to a charity of your choice, if prize money is awarded
• A Full Press Release to the newspaper(s) of the Sponsors choice for promoting local arts

5 – Sponsor an Exhibition

The time and resources it takes to prepare for an Art Exhibit are great. As an artist and an entrepreneur, I am prepared to enter into a partnership with an individual or company in a collaborative marketing experience. The Sponsor may receive the following based on the partnership agreement and sponsor amount:

• PR on the my site with a link to the sponsor site as well as promotion on various social media outlets
• A Full Press Release to the newspaper(s) of the Sponsors choice
• Sponsorship listed on invitations and marketing materials at the Opening
• Tasteful Advertising at the Exhibition and Opening Event
• A percentage of the total sales of the exhibition

Please contact me with any questions or inquiries at rmcotton.art@gmail.comThank you for your interest!

My Latest Challenge – A Total Success

Fantasy New York Scene

The Client

My client is one Eric Posman, a producer for ESPN and a sports writer. Posman came to me with a photograph of his children looking out a window of a high rise hotel in NYC. His request? He wanted a piece of work showing his children looking out into a fantastic world that reflects today’s culture with a twist towards the children and the incredible possibilities of their futures. Sounds fun! Sounds hard…

 

The Process

Mind Mapping Technique

Brainstorming

I started this project with my trusty mind-mapping technique (fig A). I fist made a list of nouns that refer to New York, today’s children, movies, books, and cultural icons. I then did a free drawing that I am, quite honestly a little embarrassed to post here as it is very infantile, but it was so much fun to draw! It also allowed my mind a chance to think visually. I really enjoyed it as a brainstorming activity, and I think I will incorporate it more often into my planning stages.

 

 

Reference Collecting

From there, I began to collect references of New York and other characters and images that crept into my brainstorming sessions. All-in-all, I collected over 60 different photo references some of which added to the ideas already conceived and some of them changed my ideas completely.

Thumbnails

My next step was to devise a composition or layout plan for the piece (figs B, C, D, E). I completed several different thumbnail sketches that would have made my grad school professors cringe… Thank goodness I wasn’t grade.

Fantasy New York Scene

Mind Mapping Technique

Preliminary Drawing

Color Comp – The Full Plan for Execution

 

Preliminary Drawing

Preliminary Drawing

After choosing the thumbnail I liked the best, I began my preliminary drawing incorporating the thumbnail, the references, and the results from the brainstorming sessions. I drafted the drawing to size at 20″ x 16″. I then made a few modifications with overlapping tracing paper. It was at the point I was ready to meet with Posman again. I wanted to get his take on the direction I was heading. I also wanted to pick his brain about his children’s likes and dislikes. Eric Posman was able to help draft the drawing in it’s final stages.

The Final Piece

Color Comp - The Full Plan for Execution

Finally I was able to mock up the final piece in a digital collage combining my drawings, my references, and digital painting with my Wacom tablet. This step is not one that I often use, but it made sense with the amount of information and imagery going on within this one piece. I used this step as well to prepare a color plan for the final painting.

 

Now for the final Art!! Wooo Hooo!

After all of these steps, I finally get to paint the picture. I first redraw the entire scene on Clayboard in pencil and then I inked the board. After allowing the ink to dry, I sprayed the board with a healthy dose of Krylon Crystal Clear to seal the ink. I painted the images with many different painting techniques, including wet-on-wet, glazing and dry brush. After the paint dried, I reinked some of the areas. The piece was finished with a protective coating.

Drum roll please….

Fantasy New York Scene

Thank you for the challenge, Mr Posman. Let’s do it again sometime!

Greeting Cards for the Holidays 2008

Greeting cards for this holiday season are now available with matching postage – Super Cool!

At this moment there are two different pieces of artwork from which to choose.  I will be adding more holiday artwork as this month progresses, so make certain to check in periodically.

Tower of Gifts Greeting Card

Or get the Computer Wallpaper

Snowman Holiday Greeting Card

Or get the Computer Wallpaper

You can also get matching postage for any of these!

Snowman Postage