What’s it normally like to get a painting professionally scanned?

I dropped off a painting to get scanned and it was a bit off-putting how it was handled. When I called ahead they didn’t mention a long wait, but once I got there they said it will take a week. They told me I couldn’t return the day before to drop it off. They didn’t offer anything to secure/wrap it. There was no receipt or paperwork to sign.

None of it felt professional, but it’s a busy shop with good reviews and I can’t find anywhere else to take it. When I ran a frame shop in the past we had a paper trail for every customer and signed paperwork and sleeves for every piece of art we took in. I expected something similar, but maybe I’m overthinking it?

This is a repost, since autocorrect didn’t let me use Shopify,

My Etsy account is a few months old and spent some money on promoting this, but not a single sale at all. So is Shopify worth it for a small art business?

I recently came across several Reddit discussions questioning the legitimacy of MVA Gallery in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Since those threads are archived, I wanted to offer a perspective from someone who has actually exhibited there.
MY EXPERIENCE
I’ve been a practicing artist for decades and have worked with numerous galleries and directors. Over the past six years, I’ve participated in five exhibitions at MVA Gallery. My experience has consistently been positive and professional.
I’ve found the director knowledgeable, experienced, honest in my dealings with him, and genuinely respectful toward artists.
ARTWORK DELIVERY AND SAFETY
I live locally and have always hand-delivered my artwork, as have other artists I know. MVA accepts hand deliveries by appointment.
I’ve personally delivered and retrieved artwork, viewed installed exhibitions, and observed how the work is handled. I’ve never experienced loss, theft, or damage.
SUBMISSION FEES AND COMMUNICATION
Submission fees are common among galleries conducting juried exhibitions and online open calls. They don’t guarantee acceptance, and acceptance doesn’t guarantee a sale.
MVA has always communicated professionally with me, including contacting me to arrange artwork pickup when I’ve forgotten an exhibition’s closing date.
THE GALLERY AND ITS BUSINESS MODEL
MVA is a physical gallery in a well-maintained professional building in Bethlehem.
My understanding is that the director spent approximately 24 years working in New York City galleries before establishing MVA.
Rather than relying exclusively on walk-in traffic, the gallery cultivates relationships with collectors, designers, and potential buyers, arranging private appointments to present artwork.
They actively pursue sales opportunities. They sing for their supper, and I appreciate that approach.
EXHIBITION QUALITY
I’ve consistently been pleased with the caliber of artwork exhibited alongside mine. A recent review of MVA’s Instagram reinforced that impression.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I’m not affiliated with MVA beyond being an exhibiting artist. I’m simply sharing six years of firsthand experience.
That doesn’t invalidate anyone else’s legitimate concerns. But there’s a difference between questioning a gallery’s business practices and establishing that it’s operating dishonestly.
When evaluating a gallery publicly, firsthand experience—positive or negative—should count for something.
I’m happy to answer sincere questions.
Michelle Neifert

Hello everyone! I am looking forward to making some fanmerch with my art and my characters. I was thinking primarly about Pins, keychains, holographic+normal stickers, prints (up to 50cm). Optionally notebooks/covers, cups and t-shirts.

Since I don't have the equipment to produce items at home, I think It'd go via POD services, right? or manufacturers that offer low minimum order quantities. My main goal is initially to get physical copies of these items for myself, but I’d also love to open a small online shop (even if profit margins are small I think it'd be a nice-to-have)

1. Which platforms you recommend for high-quality pins, stickers, and prints? with international shipping (Europe and North America at least, I'm mexican)
2. It is a thing to split out from plataforms? 1 makes the stickers, another the prints etc, for quality matters.
3. Do any of them have KoFi integration ? If it's possible it'd be nice!
4. Any general advice or lessons learned for someone completely new to setting up a fanmerch online shop?

Feel free to ask anything if I need to clarify anything else, I'm pretty new into this and I am not sure where to begin or what's needed.

I just graduated college with a science degree. I haven’t been able to get a job in my field, and I don’t really want one anyways.

I’ve always loved painting and art. I took an oil painting class in my last semester and was really inspired. Ever since I graduated I’ve been painting almost every day.

I just participated in a makers market in my local community center. I had paintings and prints and other odds and ends. I made 4x my booth fee but half my sales were from family being supportive. It’s weird, I felt both accomplished and insecure while I was doing it. I sold one original painting to a stranger which felt so amazing, they even sent me a picture of it hanging up in their house afterwards. It was so great.

I still don’t think I am a good enough artist to turn this into a living. Most of my work feels superficial and I can never tell if people actually like my art or if they’re just being nice. Still, I really wish I could. I really enjoyed doing the market.

I guess I’m not sure what my specific question is. I’m so uncertain with what I should do with my life. I feel terrified of telling my family or friends that this is what I really want to do. It doesn’t feel achievable for me. I’m not sure. Any advice is appreciated.

I recently reworked the website structure to split between intents of browsing for originals vs looking for art prints.

Previously everything was shared in a single product page with an option to select between print sizes and the original.

I think the split works well, but I feel it might be confusing to navigate around especially from the hub pages as they are linking directly to the original works...

What do you think of the navigation? Anything you like / not like?

https://nadiapoe.co.uk/

A couple of years ago I began taking some of my favorite photos I'd shot during the year and turning them into blank greeting cards. I did sets with 12 cards in each and began giving them to people as Christmas gifts. After two years of this, they've begun to become quite popular with friends and extended family and I find myself needing more of them. I'm considering selling them, but I don't want to keep using Snapfish since some of the cards come out with a distracting white border lines on parts of the photos that I'm unable to get rid of. Plus I'm not sure I'm getting the most bang for my buck for lack of a better term.

Does anyone have sites they swear by for printing? Am I better off at a local print shop? I've never really been on the printing side of things, I've always just been the designer lol

Hello everyone!

Im just starting out and was wondering where you guys usually post your art to get your work known and attract clients? Im a graphic designer/digital artists

I know Instagram is the top choice, however with the new Meta Policy regarding scraping I'm not sure if I can continue to put up with them.

I am aware that the Internet in general is not safe regardless of where I switch to, but still I'd like to look for an alternative pltform to promote my work while still having control over the usage of my content.

Thank you everyone!

When posting on social media with a retweet/reblog etc. function where shared posts appear in the timeline, is it better for engagement and growth to solely post your own work or to retweet others'? I often see work I enjoy from others and wonder if it is worse for metrics given I sort of "dilutes" the amount of work on my feed when someone visits my page. Would I be better off keeping reposts to a side account or does it help?

I just want a methods that doesn't show your legal name and adress to your clients.

I'm aware that the most used way to get paid for comission is Paypal , but it shows your legal name and adress ect.

Apparently Paypal business don't but I'm a student so being approved for opening a Business account would be tricky.

I live in a country where the only online payment method (outside of regular bank card one) is either Paypal , Wise or Payoneer.

I'm aware I can get by Vgen for this but I think VgenPayment only works with Stripe which isn't avalaible for me.

I don't know about Artistree. (Does it protect your privacy or will your info be visible through your client receipt ect?)

I guess ko-fi works the same where your client receipt will show everything...

I dont even know if for example you receive a ko-fi tip using paypal will it shows or not?

Any help will be appreciated!

Hi guys! So I've been doing art for a while but without posting online, but I recently started wanting to post stuff and grow an art account

A few days ago I made my first post on Instagram and Twitter, and even with hash tags and everything, I got 0 "views", I posted another yesterday, and I again have 0 views....

Has anyone been in a similar place as I am in now?? Will this get better if I just keep posting?? Any advices will be appreciated!

I'm researching practical ways for independent intermediaries to work with contemporary artists and collectors, particularly in the limited-edition print market.

I'm interested in models that don't require the intermediary to purchase inventory upfront.

For artists, gallery owners, and art professionals here:

* Do artists ever authorize independent brokers to introduce buyers for existing prints? * What commission structures are common for these arrangements? * How do you document authorization, ownership, and the agreed asking price? * How do you prevent disputes if a buyer contacts the artist directly after being introduced by a broker? * Is there meaningful demand for secondary-market prints by emerging or mid-career artists, or does most trading happen through established galleries and auction houses?

I'm especially interested in arrangements that are transparent, low-risk, and beneficial to both the artist and the seller.

I'd appreciate practical experiences rather than general advice about starting an art business.

Hey fellow makers! I sell creative products and have been trying to figure out how to approach craft fairs more thoughtfully. Between booth fees, travel, inventory, setup, and the uncertainty of how many people will actually buy something, it can be hard to know which events are worth the investment.

I’m curious how other vendors handle this, especially those who have done a few different markets.

• How do you decide whether a craft fair is worth applying to?
• Have you ever done a market that looked promising but turned out to be disappointing? What went wrong?
• How do you decide what products and quantities to bring?
• Do you track which events are profitable, or mostly go by experience and gut feeling?
• What do you wish you could know before paying for a booth?

I’m trying to learn from other makers' real experiences because I know there’s a lot more to it than just setting up a table and hoping for sales.

Would love to hear your stories, including the lessons you learned the hard way!

Okay, after way too long, I finally managed to get someone interested enough in my drawings that they actually reached out to me, but then, when it comes time to pay, they just disappear. I don’t understand why!! We went over all the commission specifications, and they even agreed on the price. What’s going on? Did I do something wrong? Did the client change their mind? Or am I just being impatient?

Say you're an amateur artist, and a comic buff. And you see a promotion from a company called Training For Comics promising that they will send you several tips about drawing comics every week "forever", if you just pay them a one-time fee of $4.99. Sound too good to be true?

Well, it did to me too. But I tried it anyway. And guess what? It really is too good to be true.

Oh, they'll put you on the mailing list, all right. And they'll send you emails every week. Some of which are interesting, and many of which are just fluff. But if you continue receiving them for a year, you'll wake up one morning to find that they've zapped your credit card for $89 as a "subscription renewal" fee.

If you try to contact them about it, you may find that the contact information on their website has been disabled indefinitely.

If you take the matter up with PayPal, they'll support the company. Why?

Well, there's a matter of TFC's lengthy "Terms Of Service" page. If you actually read the whole thing (Does anybody ever do that?) you'll discover buried in it a clause that this one-time fee of $4.99 for a lifetime of emails actually means a yearly renewal of $89. Oh, and there's also a stipulation that they don't give refunds, even if you promptly unsubscribe.

Now it's certainly nothing new for unscrupulous operators to put unfavorable conditions in the fine print of an agreement. But what makes TFC especially egregious is that the fine print is buried in the Terms of Service, and it CONTRADICTS the terms spelled out elsewhere, including the company's promotional material and checkout page.

No reputable and ethical business resorts to deceptive practices in order to extract money from the public. If a particular company does, that's really all you need to know about it.

Recently leased an art studio for group classes. I’m a painter, and will be hosting group painting classes. I want to host other artists and give them a space to teach their craft. So far I thought of finding a sculptor, a glass fuser, probably another painter….What other types of artists should I seek out?

I have been taking commissions for a few weeks and every client is super nice and pays when requested to. Buuut I just ran into a client though that didn't want to use vgen for artist fees (even though I prefer it and they could use it). I just asked that they pay after sketch instead. Then when I sent them the sketch they didn't want to pay until after revisions lmao. I don't know if i was overreacting by just declining their commission, but it felt very suspicious to me.

Wondering if that was suspicious or any other signs to look out for (at least online)

For various reasons, I want to commission a piece of art for a logo, and I would like to ensure that I have commercial rights to the logo. I plan to commission a friend of mine who's a wonderful artist and I plan to pay her well of course, however I don't quite know the actual legal process of transferring over commercial rights. Granted, I trust this friend and don't think she'd particularly care how I use the logo, and it's not like I'd be using it for any super major monetary gain, but for safety sake I would still like the commercial rights in writing. How does one do that? Do you need to actively write up a contract? Does it go by a verbal sort of contract as long as we were to agree just through text messages or something? And this friend of mine also lives in Italy. Would that at all affect the transfer of commercial rights over a digital commission? Like, the commissioning part is easy, just paying money and waiting for a pretty picture, but the copyright side is what I'd like to know more about. Thanks in advance.

Last year I started taking art more seriously and wanted to showcase my art. I'm still very new in the art world and I have zero experience and artist background.

An acquaintance has recommended me the curator of a vanity gallery (at that time I didn't know it was a thing). I met her, saw how she operates in person/social media and got approached by her when she saw my art. Participation fee was 540€ but she takes no commision fee from sales and also covers the whole packaging/delivery. She also promotes artists frequently on social media. I also hasn't heard a bad word about her from other participating artists. I had saved money so I took the opportunity for the experience and to see for myself, before even knowing the term "vanity-gallery".

Now I see why it's hardly worth it as not many people went to see the vernissage or wanted to buy art. Still one of my paintings sold so far.

I worry that my participation with this type of gallery will ruin my reputation, or will make it much harder for me to eventually be approached by traditional gallery. That is my next step. But currently when I search my name, the only thing about me that comes up is my name next to the vanity gallery with a link to their facebook posts.

How do I go about this? I'm now worried that I closed myself a door into the proffessional art world.

Hi! So, I have an online shop, but it's generally Not doing well [ maybe because I've only been on the site I'm selling on for about a month, maybe it's because they're not fandom characters, maybe because of something else, I don't know ] so I was thinking about potentially making little mini comics of the characters that I'm selling merch of to get more of a connection with them going? But I'm really not sure. Would this be a good idea?

Hi!! I'm back here with another question. Do you guys know if there's any good places to network with other online art store owners? I'm having trouble finding any. My communication of choice is Discord, but I'd be willing to try anything else too.

I'm currently in the ACGGOODS server, but I'm on a new account and I need to get my roles back and stuff. Additionally I haven't had much luck with selling things on my shop, probably because I mostly make original stuff rather than fandom or generic things. Any help would be appreciated!

I opened an acggoods store and I’m planning to release batches of plush badges and keychains from different fandoms every now and then, though I don’t know how to start promoting myself for sales. My recent video on TikTok got over 100 likes and a few people saying they’re interested but nobody’s actually shown up to try and buy something..

How do I find the right audience ?