St Patrick's Day - March 17
See all my St. Pat's cards HERE
This design is also available on T-SHIRTS and other gifty things in my Zazzle shop
Persian New Year - March 21
The month of Ramadan begins on March 22, 2023
St Patrick's Day - March 17
See all my St. Pat's cards HERE
This design is also available on T-SHIRTS and other gifty things in my Zazzle shop
Persian New Year - March 21
The month of Ramadan begins on March 22, 2023
I was left with Instagram and Facebook. Both were problematic in that department. IG doesn't like live links although you can have them in your bio profile . Facebook did not like you being too sales oriented. So yes I can post my GreetingCardUniverse card links, but posting the weekend sales promo code got me a warning notice. sigh. I did sign up for a Facebook Artist Page. In January, I signed up for Post.News. Links and images look gorgeous on that site But I feel like I'm shouting into the void over there. Needless to say, I don't post as many links as I did on the bird app cause it's just not the thing to do on any of those social media platforms. Now what?
I did get creative in December, and did a countdown to Christmas and posted 25 winter/Christmas illustrations on IG, the majority of which were GCU cards. And yes that did help with my December/Christmas card sales. I also did a shorter run up to the Lunar New Year, Year of the Rabbit or Cat with illustrations/cards of, you guessed it, cats and rabbits- which helped with the January sales. And now we're at the end of February and my sales are way down compared to last year. Sure I could do a run up to Spring? But do I want to? Must I? Sigh.
Have I learned anything?
• Posting daily helps as far as engagement and getting new followers. No big insight here.
• My followers on all my sites seem to respond best to my Art Process Posts for illustrations or greeting card designs. They seem to find the process as interesting if not more interesting than the actual finished art. Thankfully, I enjoy documenting and sharing my art process.
• I realized I stopped blogging because I was micro-blogging on Twitter. No bird app and the blog revives. Hmmmm Maybe I'll do an occasional upcoming holiday blog post.
I would love to hear what social media sites you use to help promote/market yourself or your creations.
My Cupcake Bouquet greeting card design was inspired by a greeting card design challenge, #dhgartspark, on Instagram, Design House Greetings - Cue The Confetti. Which led to a lot of doodles in various notebooks and finally a full size pencil sketch and then an even tighter one. My next step is to take it to the light box to transfer the sketch to watercolor paper. I use Canson Montval Watercolor 140 lb paper.
Step 2: Is the inking. Black India ink with a brush and then wash with shadows.
Step 3: I paint my illustration traditionally. Using Higgins Waterproof/Water Resistant Colored Inks as if they're watercolors and then scan it all in.
Final Step: Bring it into Photoshop, clean up paint splotches, specs and dust and add details like sprinkles. Tah Dah - here's the finished art!
I hope to do a few more greeting card designs for this challenge before March1 happens. BUT who knows if I actually will. Anyhow hope you enjoyed reading about my art process.