Keiko Tanabe - Blog: Art Marketing

To Facebook Or Not To Facebook

9/2/2015 10:28:56 AM

Aside from creating, there are many tasks to be done on the business side of art. No doubt marketing is one of the priorities for a professional artist. Since 2011, facebook, to me, has been a marketing tool, if not the most essential. I am delighted that Professional Artist magazine interviewed me for a piece in their recent issue (October/November 2015), "Build Your Following on Facebook." With two other artists also active on facebook, we discussed our thoughts on dos and don'ts for this topic. However, I have to confess that, while it was an honor to be featured in this [...]

FASO Featured Artists

5/21/2012 1:15:07 AM

Artists about to launch an art career sometimes ask me what steps they should take to be a professional. Almost always my answer is, create a professional art website first - before a blog, facebook page, twitter, etc. That's what I did. I chose FineArtStudioOnline (FASO) as my website host and I know I will never regret it. If you are serious about art as a profession, the entire team of FASO is there for you in many facets on the business side of art. FASO Featured Artists is their latest feature and I am truly honored to have my work featured [...]

Have You Googled Your Name Lately?

3/31/2012 5:43:40 AM

A recent conversation with my student revolved around names artists use. He said he was thinking about adopting a more English-sounding name. This talented young man recently came from Europe and he thinks his name is rather long and not easy for Americans to remember and pronounce. I said having a unique name was to his advantage. I'm not sure if he was completely convinced but I said it wouldn't be an issue and even going by initials might be just enough for him if he became well established. He then asked whether I ever thought about changing my name in America. [...]

Portofino, Italy IV, Italian Landscape Painting

1/17/2011 2:02:36 AM

The internet has allowed us artists to reach virtually all over the world. I, for one, have done business with many people, in the last few years, who are more diverse in nationality, geographical location, profession, age, and financial means than I can write in one blog post. Communication with them is usually by email. While some prefer keeping it strictly business, many tell me a bit of their background information - who they are, where they live, why they like a particular painting of mine, who they buy a painting for, etc. Each of their stories is so uniquely different, therefore [...]

2011 Art Calendars from Daily Painters & Watercolor Artist

11/21/2010 12:55:17 AM

Family photos, artwork, a clock... We carefully choose what we hang on our walls because we want to make sure that's something we want to look at all the time. What about wall calendars? This holiday season, I'd like to suggest as a gift idea art calendars from Daily Painters and Watercolor Artist magazine. Over a dozen different themed calendars are offered by Daily Painters and available via their Lulu.com store. I have my painting included in Cityscape and Landscape themes. For watercolor enthusiasts, editors of Watercolor Artist magazine have a beautiful watercolor art calendar made up of their 12 top choices available [...]

San Diego 100 (#22) - Balboa Park, California Landscape Painting

6/27/2009 1:30:10 AM

Balboa Park (SD100-22) This painting, a part of my San Diego 100 Series, was posted previously but, today, is being introduced to Daily Painters Gallery for the first time. As I was contemplating what to write about this painting, I realized I had blogged quite a lot on Balboa Park already (Please click here here and here to see and read about other Balboa Park paintings). Since I joined Daily Painters Gallery back in January, I have met so many artists, collectors, dealers, art students and those who simply love looking at our daily display. Of course, when I say "met," I mean [...]

Art Fairs and the Economy

4/25/2009 1:34:18 AM

Little Iatly, San Diego IV With the arrival of spring, art fair season is starting across the country. The most serious artists on an art fair circuit will find themselves at a different event venue almost every weekend for a few months from now. Without a doubt, art fairs provide artists with a great opportunity to show their art to a wide variety of audience in a relatively short time. Meeting potential buyers and actually selling is a real confidence booster. I'm not exactly on an art fair circuit, but I do a few events a year and know first-hand how [...]

Innovative Marketing of Nintendo

12/10/2008 1:47:02 AM

You’ve been painting for a while and it’s time to start marketing your body of work. Or you’ve been already in this game. Along with many tried-and-true marketing ideas, you wonder what else you can do. As artists, we have to produce first and foremost the best work possible; that’s a given. But on the business side of art, sometimes it takes novel thinking to give you an edge. Today I would like to share a story that is a little old but illustrates how innovative idea helped one company lead a market. As a mother of a 12-year-old boy, I’ve been hearing [...]

Turning My Thoughts to Holidays

12/1/2008 2:18:08 AM

There are always scenes to paint, chores to do, work to finish and meals to cook. Our day gets easily filled with necessary routines, leaving little or no time for anything special. This is a time to change our priorities a little and turn our thoughts to holidays. What it means professionally may vary from artist to artist but, to me, holidays are a time to reflect on the year that has passed and write a special thank-you card to each person who was important to the progress of my art career. I usually pick one image of the paintings I made that [...]

Drop Everything and Have a Cup of Tea

10/24/2008 11:30:03 AM

Silence at Eiheiji Temple, Japan (14"x21", 2005) Whether you sell your art or not, we all know how important customer service is. We all have been on the receiving end, first of all, as a customer and remember how we felt when we were treated nicely or rudely. That experience often determines whether we want to favor or avoid the business we dealt with. Now, going back in history to the 16th century, there was a well-known master of tea ceremony in Japan, Sen no Rikyu who described the art of tea in simple language. He said, "the way of tea [...]

Art Market and Recession

10/7/2008 10:20:11 AM

"Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, California I" (21"x14", 2007) - Sold Even if I don’t watch TV or read newspapers, there’s no escaping from hearing depressing news about economy and worrying about it. In many art-related blogs, too, financial crisis and its impact on art are being widely discussed. Many artists, including myself, are shifting their approach to the market as it changes. The difficult part is to know what is changing in the art market, particularly in buyer behavior. Take Hollywood, for example. They say people will still go to the movies in slow economy like they did during the Great [...]