I have spent much of the day working on my Facebook page and making a Facebook page for my business. My personal page is http://profile.to/dianeclancy and the page for Diane Clancy’s Art is http://artist.to/dianeclancy. There is a cool application that allows one to make Memorable Names - the name of the application begins with Memorable if you want to use it on your own Facebook. Feel free to become my friend and please become a fan of my Diane Clancy’s Art page. Hope you are great!!
First of all, Chris O’Byrne and I have a project we have been working on .. he wrote a post about it today … I hope you will read his post and check out our new project!!
Kara Jones of Mother Henna had a post a few days ago about the One World, One Heart GiveAway. I had never heard of it … I think thi sis the second year. Lisa Oceandreamer OWOH has a blog here which lists all the blogs involved and gives the details.
Lots and lots of blogs are giving away items - to show love and build the blogosphere. So once I knew, how can I resist? My give-away will be one set of the cards that I had been telling you about in the marketing story - and we will get back to it.
You have until February 13 (at least at most blogs) to leave your name and join in each blog’s give-away. If you want to win the give-away, leave enough information for me in a comment to this post so I can get a hold of you.
Make sure your email address is a valid one and not one of the no-reply ones. Please do not leave sensitive info like your address or phone .. I can get your address when you win!
I will accept all entries until 9 pm eastern time on February 13and then the winner will be announced on February 14 … and then your gift will be coming your way!
Recently Sue O’Kieffe of Sacred Circle Mandalas surprised me by honoring me with this very special award. You Make My Day.
What a nice thing to say to anybody. The question is, how often do we do it?
A special kindness , a smile, a laugh, an unexpected compliment, a hug…all these gestures come and go. Do we tell those who add an extra lightness the joy it brought? I do not mean to be preachy here. It’s just, well, I hope you do. We need to let those people know, even if it is just a passing acquaintance in a line at the store, the extra ease they bring to us, if and when they do. Light and love gets passed this way. Moments of the day are brighter for everyone involved. (These ways of making people’s day are copied from Sue’s blog … I thought it was part of the award … I think she has done a wonderful job elaborating on how to share joy!!! And why try to improve on perfection.)
So here are the rules:“Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about blogland! Beware! You may get the award several times!”
Sue’s blog, Sacred Circle Mandalas, is a wonderful blog! It is one of the first art blogs in the blogosphere that I could find - it was sure a relief to find someone who valued art. Now, of course, I know many people - but she was the first. Se has gorgeous mandalas that just make my heart sing. Day after day she puts out beautiful, spiritual images. Lately she has expanded her repertoire … but still uplifting!! We are also both artists who are working at marketing our art and have had a great time supporting each other on many levels. Sue also commented almost every day back when almost no one else knew about this blog!! Sue, You Make My Day!
Tomorrow you will get to find out who I am passing this award on to. There are so many deserving people and today I need to rest … so thank you for witnessing my award and tomorrow I hope you will check back - after I have chosen among all you wonderful readers! No easy feat!
I know some of you loved yesterday’s colors … but these are the colors that really feed me … I just love them!! Colors like this make heart sing and make whatever feels heavy a little lighter. I will keep creating in the other colors that others of you like too though … don’t worry.
Jean Levert Hood asked me a question about BlogCatalog, so I went and figured it out. By the way, Jean has a beautiful blog here. “Diane, I do have one question. How do you get BlogCatalog to know you’ve updated your blog?” I found it once and I found it again … so here goes. Here is my BlogCatalog. Go to profile (top of right sidebar), then go to the second section of the middle (”My Blogs”), click on “manage blogs” (tiny little link on top right of this section).
You will go to a new page. You will see your blog listed … on the right side, there is a title called “Actions.” Click “manage” - one of the 3 choices under Actions. The 5th section down on the page is “Thumbshot.” There you will see a button “Update My Thumbshot” - click that. I cannot imagine how I ever found that once (I too wanted mine updated), never mind twice. But at least now we can look back here! Thank you, Jean, for asking!
NicoleB Photography asked me to be part of her Artists Unite section of her blog. I am showing you to her About Me section since I think it is a good place to start with her photography blog. NicoleB is currently living in Kuwait - I think you will find her interesting. She has photos from her travels.
Nicole also has asked me to write posts … particularly showcasing some of my work for sale. Here is the latest post. Here is my other post if you want to see it. It is fun to connect with others in different parts of the world! Other artists are welcome to joint Artists Unite … I think NicoleB wants more artists! NicoleB is very much on top of her email (in my experience). If you leave a comment in an email saying you want to join, then she will get back to you. If you have an Etsy Shop or such, it could be one more way to market your shop!
BlogCatalog is a really cool place to meet lots of other bloggers! I stumbled upon this place last September and have met several wonderful people there. My profile there is here. I have been writing about it this week and I have heard that it is being helpful to go into so much detail … so I am going to continue. You may want to go back to Sundays and Tuesdays posts to catch up.
First, to speak a little about this next painting in our Simple Pleasures bubblescape series. Those who know my work, know this is a different color range than I usually use. But when this image came out this way, I feel it has a lot of power, a very deep, earthy power. It took while to figure out its title. I ask the paintings what they are wanting to say and how they want me to present them to the world. I feel this is about regeneration and a deep, deep healing and redoing. I hope you enjoy it!
Back to BlogCatalog. We have finished with the center column and through “Shoutbox” on the right hand column. Next is “Broadcast.” This is a part of the sidebar I have discovered within the last week - chagrin here. When you join a “neighborhood” (see the other posts, it is saying you are interested in someone else’s blog - so you join the neighborhood), you then actually become part of a neighborhood. When someone posts a blog post on their own blog (like this one), they can choose to “broadcast” to their neighborhood about this post.
Not everyone broadcasts each time, but it is a way of knowing what someone’s new post is about. You can also leave a comment about the broadcast if you like. If you have set your notifications to inform you when you get a broadcast, then you will get an email each time one of your neighborhoods broadcasts.
Now for the fun part .. I had been getting broadcasts for quite while now. I have made a few myself. When I got one from someone else and I wanted to make one, it gives me a button on that right sidebar to make a broadcast. But only last week, I found out, not only are all the broadcasts I have received on the right sidebar … it also has a link “Post New Broadcast”!! Will wonders never cease! This makes it much easier to make a broadcast. You can view “All Broadcasts” and they will move to the center of the page in a list.
After Broadcasts (we are nearing the bottom here), there is a section called “Discussions.” Probably those are my own discussions that I joined. That must be it. I think I might have joined a few that sounded interesting. You can view “All Discussions” and they will move to the center of the page in a list.
Finally, there are “Neighbors.” I had to go look at it to figure that out. So neighbors are those who joined my neighborhood - those who want to receive my broadcasts. As before, you can view “All Neighbors” and they will move to the center of the page in a list.
I will do one last piece and then call this done unless and until you have questions or requests. If you click your blog (or one of your blogs), under the blog will be “Recent Viewers” - those who clicked on your blog link in BlogCatalog and looked at what you said about your blog. They may or may not be your friends or in your neighborhood.
The next section is your “Neighborhood” - these are the people who “joined your neighborhood” and receive broadcasts. Then is a list of your “Recent Posts” - this is actually from your blog (like this one) and lists your recent posts.
After that is a neat section called “Comments and Reviews” - I never knew about this until I got a review. You can see what people say and how they rate your blog. At the bottom you can make comments and reviews yourself - you would generally do this on someone else’s blog section.
One last thing that I have noticed in writing these posts. On the right, partway down, on the page that features one of your blogs, is a section called “Related Blogs.” This actually looks quite interesting and I will have to check out some of these blogs on my sidebar!
I hope this series has been helpful to you. Please feel free to ask questions or clarifications and I will do my best - or someone else will respond. Happy Blogging!
On Sunday I posted about BlogCatalog - you may want to read that first. My profile at BlogCatlog is here. So, continuing from that post, in the center column, after “My Profile” and “My Blogs,” is “My Communities.” It took me quite awhile before I figured about what all that meant! OK, call me a slow learner - it gets a little overwhelming to me to learn about all the different formats and ways of being around this blogosphere.
“My Communities” are some of the social networking sites that are around. You can see on the side bar of this blog a list of my communities - BlogCatlog offers lots of cool little widgets that you can put on your blog. This little widget you can see is showing what some of my social networking sites are - like Flikr, and Facebook. Of course, BlogCatalog showcases only a handful of these sites … but they are some of the biggies like YouTube and MySpace. I particularly like that BlogCatalog gives people a place to put these sites into their profile.
If I like someone on BlogCatlog or through blogging like from this site, then I will like them elsewhere too. I find it fun to connect with people in a variety of ways. Sometimes people start these things with a network - like most of the kids at a certain college .. well, they have their initial friends cut out for them. But I am just an artist, in a rural area, and it is very nice for me to be able to connect with others across these different social circles!
Other widgets show who has been viewing your blog, who your neighborhoods (see the other post to see what they are) are, discussions (I haven’t entered into that yet if ever), your groups (which were covered the other day) and communities - which I love and which I have finally put on my blog after seeing it on numerous other blogs. This takes care of the center large column.
Moving to the right hand column … At the top is your name and also links to your profile and your account. A friend called me a few minutes ago and he wanted to know how to get back to his own page from mine. So thank him, Tom, for my telling you this. It took awhile for me to get this piece too. So click profile to get back to you … and account for settings and such.
Under that, is a link to edit your profile (the pencil) and create the widgets we have been talking about. Skipping to “Shoutbox.” Shoutbox allows you to leave messages for people - and they can be either public or private. If you want private, make sure you click the “private” button - I know obvious - but I missed that one the first time.
You can click on the link below an icon (person) in the shoutbox … BUT at the end of the Shoutbox list, is a box that you can put a shout into … so that is good. Took me awhile to find that shoutbox at the bottom too. You would use the shoutbox at the bottom of this part on someone else’s sidebar - when you want to leave them a message.
I just get overwhelmed by all the options!! I am sure I am not the only one. So, Shoutbox is just a way to message someone very easily. The profile is a magical place where you can do many things.
I think I better finish this tomorrow … or else it will go on too too long! If you would like to see the post I did today at World Gallery on Shades of Color, please check it out.
BlogCatalog is a really cool place to meet lots of other bloggers! I stumbled upon this place last September and have met several wonderful people there. My profile there is here. (I am doing this on the big computer as I am printing some clients’ paintings and cards … it is so clumsy for me after always using the laptop!) The main page is here but you can join from anywhere (that is, any page on BlogCatalog).
This is another painting from the Simple Pleasures bubblescape series that was inspired by Ruthie Hochman of Ruthie’s Reason. She has some news today that you will want to go read if you have been following Ruthie at all … here is the link to her blog.
Back to BlogCatalog. You can make friends there - as most social networking places allow. It is easy … you click a link on their page (after you join) and they become your friend. Hey, if only offline were so easy!! Then they will be notified and will often become your friend too.
They have a list of their blogs and a short description of what they are about. I have listed only this blog since it is my primary one. If you click on their blog (as listed in BlogCatalog), then you can “join the neighborhood.” This means that you are connected to their blog at BlogCatalog. In your profile will be a list of your friends and another of your neighborhoods.
I am telling you these things because it took me a long time to figure this all out. I found BlogCatlog by accident, as I said, so I had no one to help me learn how to use this resource. I am not 20 or 30 or even … and I was not born with this info … or getting it by 5 or 6 years old. It takes me a little longer to learn all these things that are hard-wired into the young!
In the middle column, you have “My Profile” which is a few sentences about you. Then “My Blogs” which is where you list your blogs and a few sentences about them. “My Communities” are next and we will talk about that Tuesday (tomorrow is for Illustrator Friday). For a preview, you can look at the sidebar of this blog.
Then comes “My Friends” and “Recent Viewers.” After that is “My Groups” - you can join lots of groups with certain topics …. I am not very sure what the purpose is yet. “Neighborhood Blog Posts” comes next. After you join a neighborhood (someone’s blog that looks interesting), then their recent posts come up on your page. Lastly, “My Neighborhoods” are at the bottom of the middle. This is a list (with icons … all these come with icons) of all the blogs you chose to follow by joining the neighborhood.
I will tell you more about “My Communities” and the sidebar another time. I just learned something new there within the last 2 days … I hope this is helpful to you!!
Many of you know that I belong to WWAO (Worldwide Women Artists Online) which is an international organization of women artists who market our art for sale on the web. It is a very cool group and exciting to be with an international group like this. There is a new page up “Baby, It’s Cold Out There” (obviously, the people who were kind enough to set up this show are in the northern hemisphere) … Many months an artist will offer to put up a show that features one piece from any of the artists who want their work shown. I have a piece for the first time. It just went up tonight! Some of the art is gorgeous!!!
This image is for the Pet Monologues is the blog which I directed you to showing that incredible video about the lion hugging the woman who rescued him. I sure was moved and I think many of you were too!! Also they highlight art, poems and more that showcase animals every week. You can see there blog here. And this is the post for this particular challenge. Many of you have seen my sweet little kitty before - we lived together for almost 18 years. I hope you enjoy the images there!!
Many of you know about Bloggers Choice Awards where we all (once you register) get top choose the best blogs in lots of different categories. It is an honor to be even suggested … never mind win. You can check them out here. Someone wanted to nominate me for a best blog in Art. But there is no category for art. When I wrote today, they suggested (nicely) to put it in hobby. They have something like 37 categories and many a lot less obscure than art. How about we all write and request an Best Art category … then we can recommend some of our favorites!! Here is the email info@bloggerschoiceawards.com. I encourage you to write so we artists can have a little niche too! Thank you!
Lastly, someone asked me today about how to do their signature like mine … I want to share “Diane Clancy, <a title=”www.dianeclancy.com/blog” href=”http://dianeclancy.com/blog”>www.dianeclancy.com/blog</a>” is the code I use to leave my little footprint. This leaves an active link so people can go right to your blog. Some of you may remember how people kept going to my Blogger blog instead of here .. so some of you asked me to do this … and helped me learn how. Please let me know if you need more help.
A few types of blogs have probelms with this code. With TypePad and LiveJournal blogs I leave “~ Diane Clancy, http://dianeclancy.com/blog”. I hope this helps a few of you anyway! Thanks for coming by!!
Happy New Year!! Let’s all have the best year we have ever had! It would be wonderful for each of us to move ahead with our goals, health and relationships and to have peace and justice everywhere on earth. This includes environmental justice - caring for the earth! Sounds good to me!! Marketing is going to wait a few days as I am inspired to write a few other posts first. Lisa Call inspired me to review the year in this post. Today I am going to look at 2007 and see what I have done and tomorrow focus on what I want to accomplish.
Actually I have accomplished quite a bit in 2007 and perhaps it will be useful to document some of it. Some of these were goals and some weren’t.
Opened my CafePress Shop which allowed people to buy my paintings on mugs, tiles, totes, journals and more. This has been a goal of mine since 1988 (to offer my paintings on merchandise) and CafePress has allowed me to!
Opened my Etsy Shop where I have been selling reproductions of my artwork from cards to larger matted prints. Opening this shop allowed me to reach more people who wanted to buy my artwork. I have been wanting to market more effectively for a long time.
Learned about Art Trading Cards (ATC or ACEO) this fall and started offering them for sale. These were my best sellers at Etsy.
Learned about blogs this spring and have posted a post every day since the end of March on this blog.
Had several clients for whom I created web sites and blogs. If you go to my site and look under links to clients links, you can see some of them.
Several clients wanted substantial graphic design work which I was delighted to do!
I exceeded my financial goals for the year.
Thanks to one of my readers on this blogs, I am doing better at keeping on top of my financial records … trying for every day to keep the details fresh in my mind as I put them into my databases.
I have maintained some local card sales.
Made fantastic connections with online friends!! Thank you!!!
This fall is when I think I first heard about social networking … I have been very hard at work doing this!! Sometime I will do a post with my connections so you can connect with me in these various ways.
Found out about and joined WWAO, Worldwide Women Artists Online, a great group of women artists who sell our work online. I have made lots of great connections there.
On Etsy found out about VAST, Visual Artists Street Team. I was in the group for about a month before I became a moderator … so this is a great opportunity to again connect with other visual artists who sell our artwork.
Had a very small amount of licensing of my artwork. This was something I wanted to pursue a lot … next year.
Several clients hired me to put their animal companions into fields of flowers or butterflies. This was a big success.
I sent out one email newsletter this year - and I didn’t get any “take me offs.” Several people wrote back thanking me for this holiday newsletter.
Finished “Reflections in Blue IV,” a pastel series I have been working on.
Been creating digital art like wild, supported greatly by your support and enjoyment of my bubblescapes.
I have cut a whole pile of blank ATCs that are all ready for me to fill up .. it should be a great way to get back into my traditional painting …. next year.
Our local Artists of Franklin County became much clearer about our goals, under my leadership. We put on 3 AWE (Artists Window Exhibits) since mid-summer.
I was invited (and accepted) to be on the Board of Directors of the Create Franklin County, the regional group working to build the Creative Economy.
I am sure there are more .. but this is exciting to see all the things I have done to move my business ahead as I wanted.
I was asked by Collin De Ruyck to be a featured artist at Your World Gallery. Yesterday’s post is welcoming me to the blog and today’s post is one I wrote introducing myself and my art. I hope you will consider checking out this to see another resource for artists. I am pretty excited that someone likes my work enough to feature me!! There is also an interesting story about how Collin got into art in his own life (in the section World Artists across the top).
I am also on a list of the 50 Awesome Blogs on the techXtreme blog. Abhinav Sood is a very knowledgeable young man from India who can run circles around me with technology .. so it is a fun connection to have! I met both Abhinav and Collin on BlogCatalog where there is a lot of networking going on. BlogCatalog also has a place where you can list all your other social networking sites so people can find you easily. If you go check me out, please contact or friend me where you are … I find it great fun to be connecting to others in a variety of ways!!
Tomorrow I have already written my post about Kwanzaa - I think you will enjoy it. After that, I already have 2 more of the marketing posts ready. So stay tuned for a busy week!
After the ice of yesterday (in my post), I figured we could use a little spring weather. So here is my gift to you. I want to share with you a few things I have been doing the last few days … I have put several new items into my Etsy shop and I would be delighted if you would look at them. This is my Etsy Shop. I am pretty excited! (And I hope you are too!)
The other big thing I have been doing is networking. I have either set up or developed several networking sites and tools. I have no idea if it even is going to make sense to have done, but I felt it was important to try. My Blog Catalog entry has a section called communities. This is a link to a bunch of these other sites.
If you are involved in any of these other sites, please choose me as a friend - I would love to connect with you there. I know there are different rules for these sites … some one is allowed to showcase one’s stores and on others one is not allowed to be directly commercial. Given that I am working to market my art online, obviously I would be happy to get some sales indirectly through this networking.
Anyone who knows the ins and outs of the various sites, please share the info with us. I am sure I am not the only one who would be interested!!
In a few minutes I go to two meetings in town - one supporting a bio-diesel plant in this town that the Planning Board is stalling on … and the other is a great sounding forum for Sustainable Development in our area. You begin to see the problem when the board is not going to this really big forum on an issue that is crucial to survival of the planet.
I will catch up with your blogs … and I would love to hear about you!
This is an incredibly busy week for both the Creative Economy and protecting the environment offline. In these 3 days I have 7 meetings at least … and my computer is being slow … so here is a painting to please your soul hopefully. I also have been developing some of my networking sites - as some of you know since we have connected there! I will catch up again!
Susan Elkin posted yesterday for the first time in awhile. Her post will tell you what has been going on for us that has made the last 2 - 3 months pretty difficult. I hope you will stop by and say hi!
Here is my contribution for the 2 Things Challenge. The deal is that anyone can participate and enter your own entry. This week the challenge is Intricate and Interlace in one image. I think this shows both in one image. But the image is so intricate I had a hard time with my signature … but it is so *intricate* that none of the colors from the painting really worked - they all disappeared. But eventually I tried a totally different solution that works for me.
Having joined Worldwide Women Artists Online (wwao), I have been inspired to tweak up my networking in general that I am doing. I have put up a first video at my YouTube. It is pretty clumsy - but I did something! And I did some work on my BlogCatalog which lists different “communities” I belong to. Since I listed them, I went and tweaked each one up a little.
So you can see what I have been up to! I would love to hear what YOU have been up to!
Today I was accepted into Worldwide Women Artists. Their slogans are “Quality Art on the Internet” and “Quality Art Direct from Artists.” I am pretty excited that they wanted me to join. I have yet to put my bio and such at the site … but I will very soon.
Worldwide Women Artists - Quality Art Direct from Artists
I very much look forward to networking with this powerhouse group of women artists!! Any woman artist who is selling her own art online is welcome to apply. I saw the logo someone had at Etsy and checked it out. I am sure you will hear more about this group from me at another time.
Today I had my first wholesale sale of mats. Whole Foods (only the local store) has been buying my cards for awhile. It’s great because our cards get sold fairly quickly. So I am pretty excited that they are going to try 8 of my small mats this holiday season and see how they sell. Yippee!
Tonight is one of the reunions of our art business class. Plus my connection right now is slow as molasses!! So I need to get going. But I would love to hear about you!
Blog Action Day has a great wrap-up. Over 2o,6oo blogs participated with over 14,000,000 (yes, 14 millions) RSS readers - which translates into many more readers than that. I know from looking at my own stats, there are far more readers and visitors than the recorded rss feeds. Apparently the number of posts about the environment went through the roof on Oct 15. So ya!! for all of us … and the earth!
Neda created some beautiful awards for those of us who took part on the gallery exhibit at Maraya Galleries. You can see mine at the bottom of the sidebar. Thank you, Neda and they are great! I can also give them away - so let me know if you see a blog I should look at - thank you.
Diane Clancy creates vibrant paintings that feature color and vision to inspire and uplift people. Says Diane, "I feel very blessed to have this opportunity to express myself through painting. I love that people say my artwork enhances their lives."
Diane belongs to Worldwide Women Artists Online, an international collective of women artists showing and selling our work online. For more original art direct from the women who create it, search WWAO.
Diane Clancy creates vibrant paintings that feature color and vision to inspire and uplift people. Says Diane, "I feel very blessed to have this opportunity to express myself through painting. I love that people say my artwork enhances their lives."
