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| Is there an approval process? | Artists interested in joining the
gallery are asked to submit at least four samples of their work, either
printed, photographic or digital. If you are snail mailing these and
would like them returned, include a self-addressed stamped envelope.
Please include a phone number and email address if you have one so
we can contact you and mail to: A Stroke of Genius, Inc. 1482 Buckeye Lane Palm Harbor, Florida 34683 Images via email attachment should be .jpg files. Please send only one or two images at a time. Do not send .tif or .bmp files. They are too large for sending this way. |
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What do you look for in an artist? |
First and foremost is quality of
work. Generally speaking, this site is not for the beginner. There
are exceptions, so if you feel your quality is especially high, please
submit your work. There are some starting in the portrait world with
a high level of talent or education, so credentials are not the key
factor. If you are rather a beginner in portraiture, the portraits you feature should at least appear to be real commissions, even if they are not. In other words, if your portraits are predominantly of famous people or copies of old master paintings and your fees are rather low, it could give the impression that no one has actually commissioned you for a portrait. From a marketing point of view, it puts you in a better light if people perceive that others have used you for a commission. Also, if a lot of your portraits are of family and friends, to avoid giving the impression in your captions that this is all you've painted, it's probably better to leave off the relationship. Though we do feature some charcoal & graphite portraits, in general, these are not as popular as oils and pastels. Therefore, we only feature a limited number of artists who specialize in these mediums. We do look for the majority of the portrait fees to be above $2,000. |
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| Do you take a commission? | The only time we take a commission is if we are asked by a prospect to help in selecting an artist. In this case, the fee is 15%. | ||||
| What pages do I get and what is my web address? | The basic package features 12 portraits.
A duplicate set of these pages is also provided for your own marketing
use and for passing out to clients and prospects. The duplicate set
has no links to this site so when you refer clients and prospects
to your pages without concern that they will view other artists. Your duplicate or "stand-alone" pages will typically have a web address of http://www.portraitartist.com/yourlastname. Your Stroke of Genius pages will typically have the address of http://www.portraitartist.com/yourlastname/yourlastname.htm. The only exception to this format is if two artists on the site have the same last name in which case the address might be http://www.portraitartist.com/yourfirstnameyourlastname |
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| Can I have my own domain name? | Yes, for a small monthly fee, a domain name can be set up to do an automatic and transparent forward to a second set of Stroke of Genius pages. This set will have no links back to the main site. | ||||
| How long does it take to get my pages up? | Normally, from two to six weeks, depending on what other work is ahead of yours. As new work comes in, it is executed in the order received. In some cases, it could be longer if your work comes in during or close to the time of one of the annual portrait conferences which I attend. Also, if your materials are incomplete, the time could be lengthened. | ||||
| What can I include on my pages? | Besides portrait images, fees and
procedure and bio, you can also include information on your site regarding
books you've written, workshops and videos. Up to four of your images
in the basic package can be other paintings such as landscapes or
still-life. If you'd like to feature more than four other types of
works, then we suggest you purchase another set of 10 images. PR shots of you presenting a portrait of someone important is encouraged. A PR photo would likely be featured on the bio page. If you have a particular theme or logo you'd like to incorporate into your pages, let us know. You can also feature paintings on our Works for Sale page. If something sells from this page, there is a 20% commission fee to Stroke of Genius. |
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| What should I do to prepare my written materials for the web? | Captions are important to include
on paintings for the search engines since they only search on words.
Include as much information in the caption as possible. You should also review your bio for search engine "friendliness". Try to work in the words "portrait artist" and "portrait painting". Other terms such as "fine art" might be helpful. You never know how someone will be doing a search, so the richer your bio is in meaningful words, the better. Given the choice of saying "...paints corporate and family portraits", choose "paints corporate portraits and family portraits." Perhaps not the best writing style, but better for the search engines. |
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| What about submitting portrait images? | Normally I scan these myself, but sometimes an artist has them scanned and sends a CD. Before having a CD made, please check with me first. If the CD is made on a MAC, there are technical things that are important to consider so I can open the file. Some artists are more technically knowledgeable and scan the images themselves and submit them via email or CD. Further details are available by contacting me. | ||||
| Is there a difference in your scans? | Seven years of scanning
images and adjusting them has fine-honed our skills. Following are
some examples of portraits by Bart Lindstrom portrait "before"
and "after" a Stroke of Genius scan. Note that even
more differences are visible in a larger version of these images.
If you happen to already have high-resolution scans, but are not happy
with the color, saturation and/or contrast, these things can be adjusted
from the original. In the Jonathan Linton samples below, I did not
rescan to achieve a better result.
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| What do changes cost? | There is a nominal fee for future changes to your site. Right now, swapping out or adding new images is $15. There is no charge for updating your prices, email address, phone number, minor changes to bio, etc. Custom design is billed at the hourly rate of $65/hour. | ||||
| What kind of traffic do you get? | Traffic to Stroke of Genius is currently running between 100,000 - 180,000 unique visitors per month. We do monitor our visibility and part of the benefit of being associated with us is the volume of traffic. However, you are responsible for any marketing, online or off-line, of your second (personal) set of pages. Though we would like to be able to help everyone achieve good visibility for their stand-alone pages, it is simply not feasible to service everyone properly, get good visibility for Stroke of Genius overall and also do online promotion for every artist individually. In fact, online promotion has become a specialty and there are many businesses on the web who offer these services. A couple are mentioned in the Resource & Business Center. | ||||
| What can I expect in terms of commissions? | Don't expect your phone to ring off
the hook. I strongly encourage all artists to view their web pages
as their electronic portfolio, which means it is to be used just like
you use your regular portfolio. If you're alert and "think with
your online portfolio", you will find benefit beyond getting
commissions. However, there are commissions occurring. Some artists have had to wait over a year and others have gotten something within a few weeks. Any way you look at it, the web is the least expensive means of getting your work out there to be seen and probably the easiest method of keeping an up-to-date portfolio. Some artists use their If you already have your own web site, it's important that you arrange statistics with your hosting company so you can see the increase in traffic after being listed with SOG. |
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| Do you pass out my email address for the use of others? |
Absolutely not. As a member of Stroke of Genius, you will sometimes receive announcements and tips from us that we feel could be of interest to portrait artists. These announcements could be about our artists who are finalists in a major portrait competition or actual winners, new art books, computer tips, alerts about viruses or worms, workshop announcements, a newsletter or dates for events by the American Society of Portrait Artists and Portrait Society of America and more or news about the site. These come only from Stroke of Genius. |
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| What if I already have my own site? |
If you already have a website, there are a couple of options. For
a fee, we can feature you in the galleries and link to you existing
site. However, to maintain our level of standards, we do reserve
the right to critique the site and ask for changes if necessary
before acceptance. It's also possible for your pages to be moved
over into portraitartist.com and still maintain your domain name.
This is a more seamless approach. |
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| Do you provide statistics? | These are provided by the Internet Service Provider that hosts Stroke of Genius. We've arranged with them so that each artist has their own statistics set up for a one-time fee of $20. They are accessible any time online. If you already have your own site, you will have to arrange statistics through the company that hosts your site. | ||||
| What are the costs? | There is a monthly fee
for being featured on Stroke of Genius, billed quarterly or
annually, with a discount for paying a year ahead. A minimum one-year
commitment is required. The first year, there is also a one-time
startup fee. All design fees are included. For complete details, simply
fill out our information request
form. Upon submitting the form, you will be taken to our online instructions
and forms in printable pdf format. If you're unsuccessful in accessing
these forms, then you may not have Adobe's free Acrobat Reader on
your system. Simply email us and we will send them to you. Please note that you will generally not receive a reponse from us by filling out this form. It simply allows you to access the relevant document. If you would like communicate further, please use our Contact page. |
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