How to create your own workspace and storage for your art supplies.

Every artist needs a place to keep their art supplies, even if it’s at a homemade desk in the corner of their room. There are several easy ways to make a homemade desk out of things that are cheap and easy to find.

The first step is deciding on how big you want the desk and how much weight it will need to hold. For example, if you will be using a computer, you will need a bigger desktop and it will need to be able to hold a heavier weight than just canvases and tubes of paint.

Another thing to consider is storage. How will you round up the computer disks, sketching supplies, extra notebooks, canvases, and reference books? If this is the case, then you will need a desk with good built-in storage.

Below are several designs for easy to make desks. Make sure to pick the one that will best suit your needs.

Desk One: The Corner Desk

This desk can fit in a corner and has the most storage and desktop space. It will work great for a computer user.

Materials:

Two Core Doors

3 Two Drawer Filing Cabinets

Duel-Purpose Glue (Make sure it is a kind that will work on wood and metal.)

A 2-inch board the same length as the top of the filing cabinets.

Set one of the filing cabinets in the chosen corner with the other two cabinets on both sides on the opposite walls. Glue the first core door to the tops of the filing cabinet in the corner and to the one on the left, lining the edge of the door up against the wall. Next, glue the 2-inch piece of wood to the top of the cabinet on the right. Glue the second core door on top of the first over the cabinet in the middle and on the cabinet on the right.

Desk Two: The Crate Desk

This desk is the simplest, but still has great storage.

Materials:

4 Yaffa Blocks or Plastic Milk Crates

1 Core Door (or a plank of wood about 6 feet long)

Stack Yaffa blocks so that you have two stacks with two Yaffa blocks in each stack. Then put the core door across them. Make sure that the Yaffa blocks are far enough apart that the edges are even with the edge of the door.

Desk Three: Cheap and Quick

This desk has an easy construction and is fairly cheap.

Materials:

8 Cinder Blocks

1 Core Door

Build like the desk above, making sure that the blocks are turned on their long sides, holes outward. Stack four blocks on each side and top with a core door.

Nov 30, 2006

Sketching landscapes, still-lifes, and objects...Easy. Humans, not so much. This article will help you draw and sketch humans with ease.

What artist hasn't had the urge to draw the human form? But wanting to draw it and actually accomplishing a realistic version are two separate things, unfortunately.

But there is help! This article is here to cover all the basics, from the proportions of the human body to how to find subjects.

1. Proportions

The human body comes with easy to follow standards to use as a guide when drawing. The basic rule of thumb is:

Average Male:

7 1/2 heads tall

Shoulders are 2 heads lengths wide

Hips are a little over 1 head wide

Average Female

7 ½ heads tall

Shoulders are 1 ½ lengths wide

Hips are 2 heads wide

On both female and male, the hand is generally as long as the length from the hairline to the bottom of the chin and from the point of the chin to the back of the neck.

See drawing for clarity: i121.photobucket.com/albums/o221/alinasandor/Prop.jpg

2. Choosing a Subject

This can be hard, most people don't like to be stared at. You really don't have to ask to draw someone, but don't make a show of it. The more covert you are the better. Try getting a back booth at an all-night waffle house and drawing the characters you see there. Or sit on the back pew of a church service. My favorite sketching time is to sit in the parking lot of a shopping center and drawing the people passing. They can't tell you're watch, or drawing for that matter.

3. Getting Down the Important Stuff

When sketching a person you really just want to catch the things that make that person unique. Whether is their quirky smile, loose legged stance, or their unusual attire, you want to cement that part on the page before adding anything else. Humans are flighty, they may not stand still long enough for you to get all of it.

4. Practice!

Here are a few of my early sketches leading up to my most recent: alisandor.tripod.com/artlessonsforpaintingdrawingsuite101/id5.html.

Notice how they got better with time?

5. Get Variety

I've known some artist to specifically only draw ballerinas or football stars. As you can see from my sketches above they aren't the same subject over and over. They are of different types of people. This is how you get good. You try everything, not just a the "pretty stuff." Why? Because not everyone is pretty. Most people have lines, wrinkles, bulges, scars, etc. If you want to get good at drawing people, draw real people.

If you plan to sell your art online with your own unique website, my advice is simple: Be Different! There are hundreds of artist websites online today that are all making the same mistakes.

The first problem I would like to note, is the use of long multimedia presentations that artists are incorporating into their websites. I don't think there is anything more frustrating then arriving at a website and waiting for this huge multimedia presentation to download and play. The artist may think it's cool or adds something to their work, but in all actuality, it only frustrates impatient surfers. Not all Internet users have super fast cable or DSL connections. Many are still using dial up modems and if they have to wait for something to download, they will simply leave and visit your competition.

There are also sites that insist on putting unrelated banner ads or other unrelated advertising on their websites. Just the other day I was doing a search for original watercolor art. The first website I arrived at had a big banner at the top of the website advertising a dating site. I am not sure how dating is related to watercolors? This is simply a distraction and you are immediately sending visitors off your website. If you are going to advertise on your website, make sure it's related to the theme of your website and is helpful to your visitors. Do not make it the very first thing they see when they arrive at your home page.

You need to catch your visitor's attention right away. This means putting your most important information near the top of your website in plain view. Your goal is to draw your visitor into your site immediately with a compelling headline so that they stay long enough to check out what you have to offer. Once you draw them in with a good headline, you must then direct them to take an action. That could be to subscribe to your newsletter, or to check out your latest product(s).

Keep your site navigation consistent throughout your entire site. This means having the same navigation links in the same order on every page of your website. Your goal is to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to get from one place to the next, not to confuse them.

Make sure your visitors can easily contact you. Put a link to a contact page on every page of your site.

If you have testimonials, use them. Testimonials are awesome sales tools. People love to hear good reviews about a product or products they are about to purchase. It really does boost sales. If you have ever received testimonials from customers, highlight a few of them on your home page in clear view. If you do not have testimonials yet, contact people that have purchased from you in the past and ask if they could provide feedback on the product they purchased for inclusion on your website. Make sure they know how you plan to use their testimonial, and ask if you can site their name with the testimonial.

Start an opt-in newsletter. If you do not already have a method for collecting your visitors email addresses, then you may be losing sales. Many people who first come to your site will usually leave without making a purchase. It is important therefore to collect as many email addresses as possible so that you can follow up with your visitors. You could send out an announcement to your list of subscribers whenever you have a new piece for sale. If you regularly attend art or craft shows, you could send out an email and let your subscribers know when and where. You could also send out surveys or questionnaires to your list to get a better idea as to the type of products they are interested in purchasing.

Make certain that you have a variety of different payment options for your customers, especially payment by credit card. Studies have shown that sites, which accept credit card payments, have significantly more sales. Use a service like PayPal to accept credit cards from your website. It's free and easy to setup.

Make sure you have detailed purchasing and shipping instructions in place.

Have a good refund policy. When your customer receives your product, it may not be exactly what they anticipated. By having a good refund policy upfront, you will gain your customers trust and they will be more comfortable making a purchase, especially if they are parting with a lot of money.

Include a "Privacy Policy". Internet users are a paranoid bunch. People are still somewhat reluctant to part with personal information, so it is your job to make them feel at ease when they use your website. In a nutshell, a privacy policy clearly states what you do with users personal information. What kind of information do you collect from your visitors? What do you do with that information? Do you share it with anyone? If you are not sure how to create a privacy policy, visit the following website to access an easy to use Privacy Policy Generator: http://www.the-dma.org/privacy/creating.shtml.

Include a "Terms of Use" section. This section outlines the terms and conditions for using your website. For instance, you probably want to restrict visitors from copying or reproducing the images on your website. You would put that in your Terms of Use section.

When adding images of your products, always use thumbnails that can be clicked to show a larger image, so that your pages download quickly. If the larger image is a big file, let the visitor know that they may have to wait for the picture to load.

Avoid putting traffic counters on your site. Counters make your site appear amateurish. If your site is fairly new, and your traffic is not yet established, you are broadcasting this to everyone that arrives at your site. If you need to track your website statistics, check with your hosting company. You may already have a good website statistics program included.

Choose a basic color scheme and only one or two different fonts. If you go overboard on color and use too many different fonts, your site will look out of balance and amateurish. Your website does not have to be a work of art. You are trying to sell your art, not your website.

Use a light background, preferably white, with dark text, preferably black. Don't use images or textures for your background. This makes it difficult for your visitor to read the text on your site.

Avoid adding music to your site. You may think it sounds nice to include your favorite songs when your page loads, but not everyone will agree. If they find the music annoying, they will leave.

Don't make your visitor have to scroll horizontally to view information on your website. Web surfers are lazy. Most hate to even scroll up and down let alone left and right.

Avoid animated graphics and scrolling or flashing text. This only distracts your visitors.

Put prices on all of your products. If people have to contact you to find out the price of something, they will more often than not leave and look elsewhere.

Make sure your site works in all the major browsers. The most popular browser today is Internet Explorer, but there are a good amount of surfers who use Netscape, Opera, and Firefox. Check out http://www.anybrowser.com/siteviewer.html. They have a great tool that enables you to see what your site looks like in various browsers.

Lastly, make your website personal. Speak to your visitors. Let them know who you are and what your art or craft is all about. Educate and enlighten. Include a step-by-step article or demonstration on how your work is created. If people have more of a connection with you and your art, they will be more comfortable buying from you.

I hope these website tips have helped. I wish you the best of luck in everything that you do.