Postcard from Provence: Small Business Blog of the Day

As a result of featuring Duane Keiser's A Painting A Day blog a couple of days ago, Craig McGinty wrote in to suggest another painter based in France. I have a soft spot for the Provence making this blog an easy decision to feature.

What it is
Postcard from Provence is another artist blog where the painter (in this case Julian Merrow-Smith) paints a new painting nearly every day, selling them through a shopping cart program on the blog. This blog has an unusual format. Instead of the traditional vertical layout of post on top of post on top of post, Merrow-Smith displays only the current day's painting. Clicking on the monthly archives reveals thumbnails of the paintings created that month. The navigation works more like a photo gallery than a blog, yet uses blog technology to achieve this.

Favorite Post
Sunflowers and Cypress Tree has that "quality of light" that you always hear about regarding Provence.

Further Comments
Again, a brilliant use of blogging technology for an artist. I don't know if it's too late to jump on this bandwagon of creating a painting a day, but it's certainly has proved successful for Merrow-Smith and Keiser.

Merrow-Smith doesn't write too much on the blog, just the title of the painting, whether it's already been sold, and who "won" the painting. Unlike Keiser's site, the paintings are not auctioned, but rather sold for $120 a piece during what must be a mad race when Merrow-Smith places a purchase button beneath the painting. Weird format, but Merrow-Smith has "sold" written below every single "Postcard Painting" on the site. Hey, compared to Keiser's ebay-auctioned paintings, these are a bargain (Keiser's latest painting sold for over $1,500 today).

There is a weird glitch (at least on my computer) where clicking on a painting opens a large version of the painting in a new window, except the new window is only about an inch wide and high. You can resize this window, but it definitely shouldn't work like that. Also, Merrow-Smith uses google ads on the site which is a bit perplexing to me. They take away from the design and are distracting, and they produce very little money. If Merrow-Smith is trying to make more money with the blog, all he has to do is look at the potential of his product. All of his paintings are sold. If he raised the price of his paintings by $5 each, he would probably far exceed the profits he is making through Google, and I'd make a strong wager he can command a much larger price increase than that. I like Keiser's model of using ebay and letting the highest bidder determine how much he gets paid. I would suggest Merrow-Smith try that as well (perhaps he has and will leave me a comment about the results?).

Technorati : a painting a day, craig mcginty, duane kaiser, julian merrow smith, julian merrow-smith, postcard from provence, postcards from provence, provence, provence france, sunflowers and cypress

Comments

[Rob]

excellent blog
always good to see non artist writing about artist and their work and blog.
i just started reading and will be back for more
thanks rob

[Linda Warner Constantino]

I thought I would chime in about this internet marketing for artists. I came across Jullian Merrow-Smith before seeing Duane Keiser's site. Though they both have different approaches there is a unique elegance to presenting and selling art in this manner.
The scale of the paintings being small in size and price (initially) appeals to a broad range of clients. As a painter myself, working small has a special sense of intimacy to it. Buyers can interact with the artist if they like. unlike paintings in a gallery where the painter may only occaisionally meet his clients.
I am a painter and a college professor and I have created a blogspot similar to Duane Keiser's that has been active since Oct. 2006. I do a small painting a week rather than everyday because of my teaching and link it to ebay where it is up for auction. I have been painting small for a long time anyway. It has been working well so far. I like the ease of transactions with using eBay.
It is a "word of mouth" type of thing right now. Best of all it keeps me painting. Since I am doing this for myself I feel my painting comes from an honest place, no pressure to work to a popular style just to make money.
As a college professor it becomes difficult to get to your own work but that is exactly what is needed to continue to be a decent at your job. This committment to make a small painting a week is a wonderful discipline. Being able to share your art with what essentially is the entire world is staggering. Due to the beauty of Google Analytics I can see that people from Iran, New Zealand, South Africa, Europe and many places in between have seen my work.
I hope that the world is big enough to support other artists pursuing this format of selling their work. I do think this way of presenting and selling artwork to the public goes beyond just being a trend.
I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Linda
http://www.lwarnerconstantino.blogspot.com/

[ParisBreakfasts]

I came here by way of making a mark.blogspot today..
Interesting point of view on the artist blogging/selling concept...
I just started selling my watercolors directly mid-December, bypassing Ebay.
I use a "gallery" set on Flickr to pop all the paintings into for easy viewing.
So far the response has been very positive.
Thank you,
carol Gillott

[Brian Brown]

Pretty cool blog Carol. I'll have to review it soon.

Visit carol's blog for her watercolors at:
http://parisbreakfasts.blogspot.com/

[Brian Brown]

I like yours too Linda. Also worthy of a review in the future. Thanks for the comments.

[Katherine]

Julian has actually changed the format for his blog and it now has a rather unique in-house auction site which I blogged about here http://makingamark.blogspot.com/2007/02/postcard-from-provence-new-in-site.html

I agree - nice to see a non-artist blogging about artists who are also running a business!

[Brian Brown]

Thanks for your comment Katherine. My fear is that the URL to your blog got cut off, so for anyone who would like to see the post that Katherine is referencing, it's here at Making a Mark.