When I first went back to being a fulltime artist after ten years hiatus I decided to blog about my journey and post my art online. I did this for a number of reasons. I wasn’t really happy with my art to begin with, I maybe liked one painting in ten. My art felt stale, and I struggled to get anything finished. Posting my progress online really helped with that. It gave me a sort of deadline, I got lots of helpful feedback from folk and I made loads of online friends, artists and art lovers.
Then slowly, as time went on I began to sell my work. People contacted me becasue they liked a certain painting or because they liked my style and wanted to commission me to make work for them. It’s been really good for me. I’ve enjoyed making connections and selling my work, but it was always in a limited way.
I’ve been selling via print on demand sites such as Imagekind and Fine Art America for some time and last year I set up an Etsy shop, through which I sold special editions of wee paintings, studies and sketches, but I kept my work small, because small paintings are easier to post.
I’ve always wanted to sell larger pieces, in a more systomatic way, but I didn’t know where to start selling, how to market myself or where to begin really. I had begun to investigate and then lockdown happened so I shelved it for a later time.
Then, about three weeks ago I was checking my spam folder and there was an email from Singulart inviting me to join their online art website. I’m no stranger to hard sell emails, people offering to help me improve my website, advise me how to sell my art or offering to pay me millions of pounds if I only give them my bank account details. We’ve all had them, right?
But the email from Singulart seemed different. So I did some research.
Singulart is a fairly new start-up, based in Paris. A recent article in EU Startups says of them:
Founded in 2017 by Véra Kempf, Brice Lecompte, and Denis Fayolle, the online art sales platform allows art collectors to discover works from the hottest artists in 80 different countries, while allowing nationally recognised painters and photographers to sell their art more easily around the world.
So my next thought was, do they really mean me! Well, yes they did.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in a high state of excitement, working with a wonderful advisor from Singulart (thanks so much Hong). Who has helped me with pricing, advised me on setting up my page and chivvied me along so that they could add me as one of their artists.
And here it is
I must say the whole experience so far has been really good. I’ve been encouraged to take some new photos, which I couldn’t have done without my lovely husband, who clambered over bog and heather to take the outdoor photos and put up with taking hundreds of studio shots till I finally found one I could live with! I also had to write a bio, which made me really think quite deeply about my process and my goals.
Even though I haven’t been selling any larger paintings recently, I have still been painting them. There’s something about the majestic landscapes in the Highlands and large canvases that go so well together. I had some paintings that I have done over the past few months, but I was so inspired by being invited to join Singulart that I did two new pieces “Torridon from Annat” (above) and “The Five Sisters of Kintail” (below) both are 60 x 90 cms and they depict two local mountain ranges. If these larger pieces sell, Singulart offers professional support to help me ship them, free of charge to the purchaser, which helps me have more confidence in the process as I have someone to turn to for advice in that and lots of other areas
I have been working on a series of smaller paintings too, (the ones that are easier to post) for a upcoming exhibition with my friend Aileen Grant Art and another local artist, Steven Proudfoot. That exhibition is planned for the 16th of October at the gallery at An Talla Dearg on Skye, fingers crossed that goes ahead.
Aileen and I are also planning to set up an online shop via our joint website at Lochcarron Arts so watch this space for more about that soon
Please do stop by my page on Singulart (linked below) and let me know what you think and meanwhile do browse some of the other amazing, talented artists that they are showing and supporting.
Singulart the main page
Or why not pop over to one of my social media platforms to say hello
Cindie Reiter Fine Art 