Archive for the ‘The DIY Artist’ Category

When you’re a kid you aren’t scared to suck at something. When you’re an adult you are embarrassed to suck so there is a lot of stuff you don’t try. You expect to be good right away and forget that the only way to get good is to practice and work through the sucking phase.

If there is something you really want to learn and be good at, whether it be drawing, cooking, cartwheeling, kissing, selling cars, playing guitar, sewing, public speaking, skateboarding, whatever…you need to accept that you will not be good at it in the beginning. If you REALLY want to get good at something it is worth devoting time to it because the time you invest will not be wasted and is way better than living with regret.

Now get out there and suck at something! Before you know it, you’ll be good at it.

I made a map on google where you can see all the locations of my artwork. There are a couple of galleries on there, some businesses and even a couple of public outdoor pieces.

View Claassen Art Tour in a larger map

As a bonus, I decided to write a brief tutorial on how to make your own. Although, before I get into that, you might be asking yourself, “Why do I need a custom map?” Well, here are a few ideas of things you might want a map of. Also, you can share your map, which can come in pretty handy.
Your personal favorite:
- restaurants, cafe’s, etc.
- art galleries
- clothing boutique’s
- bars/clubs
- public parks/pools
- atm’s
- book stores
- local landmarks
- public art
- transit stops
- tattoo shops
- skate spots
- and of course, your favorite brothel’s

As for business’s, say you own a clothing company. You could make a map of all the retail stores where your merchandise can be purchased. The possibilities are quite endless.

Google makes is so simple to make your own custom map that you will slap yourself with a wet noodle for not making one sooner. In fact, it is so simple I feel slightly stupid for taking the time to make these screen captures. Oh well!

1. make sure you are logged into Google.
2. Go to https://maps.google.com.
3. Click the “My Places” link.

4. Click “Create Map”.

5. Make up a title for your map and write a description. I predict that my idea of mapping your favorite drunk spots will be all the rage in the near future.

6. Now it’s time to actually map your locations. I should have labeled these A, B, and C, but I wasn’t thinking. So, part 1 of this step is to type in the address or business name in the search bar. 2 and 3 are pretty much the same thing. If you click that little drop down arrow on 2. some options show up and you want to choose “save to map”. Or do it the easy way and click “save to map” where 3 is.

7. When you are done adding all the locations you want on you map click the “My Places” link and you will see your map listed, like so.

8. When you click on that you will see your actual map in all of it’s drunken glory. You know, if your map is one to show all your favorite spots to get intoxicated. To share your map with friends, family, co-workers, and random people you’ve hooked up with at these designated locations, click the little chain icon and you will be given two options. You can copy the link and paste it wherever you’d like. For example, you can text the link to your homies, post in on your FB wall, tweet it, tumblr it, whatever. The second option is to copy the embed code, so you can post the actual map on your blog/website like I did above.

9. Pat yourself on the back.

If you’ve been missing Claassen Gallery status updates (or any other pages you follow) you need to visit those pages, hover over the like button and choose “show in news feed” option.

That should do the trick. Please spread the word!

Go to the Claassen FB Page now to update so you don’t miss out on any news.

Thanks much!
- Jeff

Years ago I created a line of wallets called DAYLER.

It started as a side project to do something creative other than painting. In fact, it was also intended to be an escape from my artwork. The original designs were all photos I had taken and manipulated in photoshop or were graphic designs I came up with using images I found.

I purposely left my “art” out of it. I sold them online and in my retail shop. It didn’t take too long before I started getting some wholesale accounts, which was very exciting for me. I’ve sent my wallets to Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, Florida, Ogden and Moab Utah, Amesbury Massachusetts, Australia and quite proudly the Honolulu Museum Of Art. One of the buyers from one of these shops that picked up my wallets was also a fan of my art and requested some wallets with my artwork. I guess it was inevitable that my art would end up being used on the wallets so I just rolled with it. I added card cases to the line for awhile, but eventually stopped because they wreaked havoc on the paper cutter I used to trim the edges of the cases. The vinyl was pretty thick on those things.

I also made a few checkbook covers, but never really focused on them too much and mostly made them by request.

I’ve always thought the wallets could grow into something bigger, but I’ve never fully dedicated myself to them because it’s hard to juggle while being a full time painter. About a week ago Coral and I were talking about my inability to focus on one thing. Am I painter, a wallet creater or a candlestick maker? Then she started throwing design ideas at me and insisted I make a women’s wallet, which is something I’ve never made. She’s mentioned it before and I always resisted because girls have purchased my wallets. It’s just that Coral isn’t the type to carry a little square wallet. Let’s face it, she’s got a lot of shit to carry in her wallet and the ones I make simply don’t cut it. Something about what she was saying finally inspired me to try it out. I’ll have to admit, she has some super fantastic ideas. Also, she was very excited about contributing design ideas and giving my wallet line a complete overhaul. I pulled out a roll of vinyl, started cutting and sewing. I made about six different versions, making adjustments and adding improvements with each one. We finally arrived at a version that we’re both happy with. Now we’re working on some graphics and will do an official launch once we get a dozen or so designs under our belt.

That brings us to the topic of what to do with our remaining inventory.
The answer: SALE!

Yes, all Dayler products are on sale for the remainder of January. Don’t forget to enter the sale code during the checkout process. The code is DAYLER30 and orders can by placed in my etsy shop

As for the makeover, we are very excited to show it to all of you. Please be on the lookout. There are a couple of teaser pics on our new Instagram account. If you have yet to get addicted to Instagram like we have then check out our Tumblr, which is basically a feed of what we post on Instagram.

Yeah, there’s a Facebook Page too. You might even be the first to like it!

Thanks for reading!
- Jeff

I just realized this idea (“Put Your Facebook About Page To Work”) is also for bands/musicians. I just looked at five “about” pages of people I know that are in a band and none of them have their band listed in the “work and education” section of their about page.

Being in a band takes a lot of dedication, so I would assume that a lot of people in a band would love for their band to be their full time job. I am pretty sure that most people that have put in the time to write songs, meet for practice, record albums and load heavy equipment in a van to go play a 20-30 minute show are pretty serious. In other words, it’s not just a weekend hobby for them. If this is you I suggest deleting all the non-musical work from your about page and list your band as your main job. Also, get all your bandmates to do the same.

I decided to experiment on Saturday. The experiment was promoting an “item of the day”, which was a print marked down 50% for one day only. I posted a link to it on my FB Fan Page. As you can see from the screenshot, only 403 people saw the post out of a potential 2,300 people that have liked my page. (This was four hours after posting. It’s Monday now and only an additional 103 have seen the post. Obviously, the first couple of hours will be the time your post gets the most views.)

In the next screenshot, which is from my Etsy stats, out of the 403 people that saw the post on FB only 18 people clicked the link to see my “item of the day”.

Out of the 18 people that looked at the actual item in my etsy shop none of them took advantage of the 50% off deal. You win some, you lose some.

Naturally, there are an enormous amount of factors to consider:
- Posting on a Saturday might not be the best day because more people are away from their computers than on a weekday.
- Time of day that I posted was possibly a time where less people are online.
- Perhaps the item I chose to promote isn’t a popular one. Then again, maybe it is, but it might be more popular in a different format like a limited edition print on wood with resin coating as opposed to the open edition that I was promoting.
- It’s the end of the month too, which could mean people aren’t spending money on artwork because they have rent due in a few days.
- With the amount of people on FB it’s highly likely that my post simply got buried on people’s home page within a minute or two.
- I only posted the link once. It would have gotten more views if I posted the link every few hours.
- And the list goes on and on.

My main point though is the number of click throughs. I have 2,300 “likes” on FB, which I think is a lot. I know it’s nowhere near the high profile “rockstar” artists, but it’s certainly more than a lot of other fan pages on Facebook. The thing is though, out of 2,300 people I only managed to get 18 of them to click on the link and to look at the item I was promoting. How many people would have had to see the item before a purchase was made…19…20…300? We may never know.

Armed with this information what is a DIY professional to do? First and foremost, it’s good practice to not let stuff like this get you down. It’s completely irrational to get upset because people don’t buy your creations. And when 18 out of a possible 2,300 click on your link you need to keep in mind that 18 is better than zero. You must forge ahead and keep at it.

Naturally, you might be asking yourself, “is it worth it?” In the big picture I would have to say yes. Simply because there are too many factors to say this particular promotion was a failure. I could try the same promotion with a different item and have totally different results. Possibly better results or maybe worse results. I could even do the same exact promotion with the same exact item and end with different results by posting on a Monday as opposed to a Saturday.

In conclusion, I think it’s best to continually experiment with promoting. Who’s to say that one of those 18 people won’t come back and make a purchase later?

Any thoughts, comments, ideas, past experience with your own FB promoting…I’d love to hear them.

Here’s a little idea I thought of yesterday. I noticed my Facebook “About” page is pretty boring. Honestly though, I like it that way. I have no desire to list schools I’ve attended, jobs I’ve had, religious and political views, etc. My stalkers should have to do a little more leg work than simply looking at my facebook page. Right?

Then it hit me, I can list all the places where my artwork can be purchased in the “Work and Education” section.

Take a look:

If you’re an artist you can use this page to list any galleries you’re featured in. If you own a clothing/jewelry/etc line, you can use this to list all the shops that carry your goods.

For us independent artists/designers/DIY’ers I think this is a great way to better utilize your About page on Facebook. Although I sprinkle personal posts with ones to promote my business the main reason I’m on FB is business so there is no reason to list all of my past places of employment.

This utilization of the About page goes hand in hand with my theory of “being synonymous with your craft“.

Thoughts, opinions, ideas? I’d love to hear them. Please use my Contact page to send them over.

Also, if you like this post you might want to check out some of my other DIY posts.

Thanks for looking!
- Jeff

I get asked variations of this quite a bit and it wasn’t until someone recently asked on my Facebook Wall that I realized it would make a good blog post. This sums up quite well all the tools I need to make my artwork.

Behr Paint from Home Depot. I use this for a few different reasons.
1. I’m not a fan of mixing my own colors. It’s not that I’m totally against it, but it’s a real pain to mix a second batch of the same color. I can get any shade of any color I want at Home Depot and it’s always consistent. You can actually make your own custom color at home and take a sample of it to Home Depot and they can match it for you. All they need is a sample that’s at least the size of a quarter. Check this out. This is something I’ve actually done. One of my favorite colors of MTN Spray Paint is called “Luminouse Green”. I sprayed it on a piece of paper, took it to Home Depot and they color matched it. I was able to get a quart of my favorite spray paint color in house paint form.

2. I like the consistency. I can make it drip if I want to. Watering it down to do light washes isn’t a problem. It just works for me.

3. Price. It simply can’t be beat. We’ve all seen those little 2oz. tubes of Golden Acrylics for $8. Or $15 if you want Cadnium Red. Even the “cheap” stuff like Liquitex Basics is going to cost you $6.50 for a 4oz tube. Behr, you can get one quart of paint (32oz.) for $12-15.

About a year ago I discovered these little gems. Home Depot, I’m guessing, finally got tired of people returning paint that was custom mixed. Basically, people would get a gallon mixed, take it home and not like it. Then return it. Now you can get these little 7.25 oz. jars of any color you want for $3. I rarely need an entire quart or gallon of paint for what I do, so these things have been great for me.

I use spray paint quite a bit. Mostly for my backgrounds. I’m certainly not one of those guys doing super fine detailed and technical work with a spray can. I like brushes too much.

I’ve strictly been using MTN Spray Paint for the past four years. In my opinion, it’s the best. It’s so great, in fact, that I’ve been selling it in my gallery since 2008. DO NOT get it confused with “Montana Gold” or “Montana Black” or “Montana Cans”. The one you want is manufactured in Spain and simply goes by “MTN” or “Montana Colors”. If it doesn’t look like the cans pictured here don’t get it. MTN has a very interesting story that you can read about here.

All the black lines you see in my paintings are done with brushes and ink. Some people ask if I use paint pens for my fine lines. The answer: no. I can get way more detail with a brush than with a pen. Over the years I’ve used a few different inks, but this acrylic ink by Daler-Rowney called “FW” is currently my favorite.

And of course, painting on wood is the best. Canvas is way overrated.

- Jeff

If you have an iPhone or an Android I suggest getting the Red Laser app. It’s awesome. You can use it to scan QR codes as well as bar codes. Scanning bar codes is fun because you can price check items and see what other stores in your area carry the same product and how much their selling it for.

Those square black and white pixelated images you’ve been seeing popping up everywhere are called QR Codes. If you have a smart phone you should be able to scan the code and it will take you to a website. They’re pretty cool and you’re going to start them more and more. As an artist the first thing that came to my mind was getting a QR code for myself and printing some stickers made with a code on them with “FOLLOW ME” just below the code. When scanned the code would take you to my twitter page. I know, I know, it’s not that original of an idea, but usually the first idea that comes to mind never is. People are already doing similar things and printing QR codes as shirt graphics. I think it’s great though because scanning a random code is always a surprise.

Naturally, I wanted a more unique code, something custom, so I used this painting:

and came up with this code:

If you’re familiar with photoshop you should be able to figure out how to do this pretty easily. Unfortunately, this isn’t a tutorial on how to customize your QR code. It’s just a post to show you that it can be done and also to talk a little about QR codes.

My buddy, STENZSKULL, put my design to shame with his custom QR.

So, where to get your own QR code? That’s easy. You can get a QR for any URL using the google URL shortener, www.goo.gl.

After messing around with the google URL shortener I learned that the Red Laser app can generate QR codes too and it’s super simple. I’ll make a tutorial on how to do that in a future post. Anyway…

The thing with using www.goo.gl is that the code it generates will always be for that one particular URL. This is ok for the “FOLLOW ME” sticker idea, but for other applications you might want to change the URL the code takes somebody too. It would be pretty boring to have a QR code as a shirt graphic that only takes people to the site of the shirt company. It would be much more fun if the URL was changed from time to time so that people scanning it would be taken to different places every time they decide to scan it. For this you need a QR Code that allows you to redirect your URL. That way you can use the same code and switch up the URL destination from time to time.

To do this check out www.qrjumps.com. I haven’t looked too into the site myself and at the moment I don’t feel like googling any more today, so you can research it on your own by googling “redirect QR code URL“.

You can also get creative with what to do with the code. One thing I came across that I thought was brilliant was in the flower section at Home Depot. I noticed QR codes on the labels for plants and flowers. Being an iPhone nerd I figured I better scan it. The code took me to a page about that particular plant, gave me the scientific name for it and instructions on how to care for it, what to plant near it and all kinds of stuff. It was extremely informative.

Nerd out!

My true nerd has been manifested in the last couple of weeks and I couldn’t be happier about it. After all, nerds are awesome.

It all started when I had to transfer my phone line to the new gallery space. Assuming the new space was all set up with a phone line I should have been able to transfer without a problem, at least from the perspective of the phone company. However, there was a problem. And the problem was all mine. The actual wires from the phone jack that lead to the source of all things telephone had been ripped out. This is one detail the phone company would not have known. It was something I didn’t even realize until I plugged my phone in. Hmm…no dial tone, why isn’t it working? Oh, I see, there should totally be some sort of wire coming out of that box that goes outside and connects to a telephone pole somewhere. It was with this desperation that my full nerd was able to infiltrate my being and oversee what has now been dubbed “Operation: What The F Am I Supposed To Do Now?”

I had enough smarts in me to expect a 2-3 day processing time for the phone line transfer to take place, so I had found this app called “Square“, that would allow me to process credit card transactions on my phone.

(Square on iPhone)

That’s right, part of my nerd manifestation required me to buy an iPhone. For awhile I thought not owning an iPhone, or any smart phone for that matter, made me a little bit cooler than other people. Wait, that’s a lie. My true belief was that it made me way cooler. I had transcended the necessity of owning an expensive phone that so many others had fallen prey to. I’ve learned now that gaining cool points in that fashion is a bit misguided. Kind of like how people brag about being an insomniac. There is nothing cool about not being able to sleep, people. Sleep is freaking awesome. For reals. And there is nothing cool about not owning an iPhone. The real selling point for me on acquiring a new phone was that the unlimited data plan offered by Verizon was coming to an end. The loophole, of course, was that if you already had an unlimited plan before the deadline you would be able to keep that plan while new customers would be left in the dust with a measly 2 GB transfer limit. Those poor souls. I refused to be part of that gang.

Ok, so now I had the overpriced phone (worth every penny). This gave me access to the Square app which would allow me to process credit card payments during the few days my store would be without a phone line. I thought I was so smart.

Little did I know, I was getting smarter by the megabyte. And trust me, I transfer googols of megabytes. It wasn’t long before I added Square to my iPad and by golly, wouldn’t you know it…Square on the iPad changed my life. On the iPhone Square is great. You type in the total of the sale, the tax gets added automatically (which is something you set up beforehand), you swipe the customers card, they sign on the screen of your phone with their finger and the last step is the customer chooses to receive a receipt by text or email. It’s awesome!

(text version of receipt)

While Square is great on the iPhone it’s a powerhouse on the iPad. The app transforms the device into a digital register complete with images and descriptions of my products, priced and ready to ring up.

(Square on iPad)

One small problem, my iPad only connects to the internet through a wifi connection. Because of password protected neighbors (jerks) and no phone line/internet in my place of business the opportunity to take full advantage of what Square could offer me on the iPad was totally lost. Or was it?

Somewhere in the scrolling of sites I remembered reading something about the iPhone’s capability to be a hotspot. Voila! One simple trip to the Verizon store later, my phone was set up with hot spot capability. Now I could use Square on my iPad as well have internet access for my computer.

When it comes to math I’m about as gifted as a ballerina at boot camp. When money is involved, especially mine, I start to grasp the concept quite a bit more. If I end up with a higher number of dollars in my pocket than when I started it cheers me quite a bit. That’s the kind of math I can get behind. So, here’s a little breakdown of how my nerdiness has let me keep more dollars in my pocket than before this whole phone line debacle.

(Dollar Sign painting by Andy Warhol, who happened to know a thing or two about money.)

My typical phone bill (land line) was in the $20 a month range, which was strictly used only to process credit card transactions. On top of that was an additional $30 for the internet. So, my total phone bill was $50. I couldn’t live without the internet because of my Twitter and Facebook addiction. Ha ha, just kidding…what am I, thirteen years old!? C’mon people, I’m a professional and use the internet only for business. I have no time whatsoever for those silly sites. Now, FOLLOW ME and FRIEND ME! Add the “Statement Fee” from my credit card processing company, $10, and that puts us at a total of $60 for the luxury of having a phone line to accept credit card payments and the internet. I won’t calculate in the percentage taken from each credit card sale because each card takes a slightly different percentage and equates pretty close to the same amount taken by Square, which is 2.75%. The bonus with Square is they accept all cards for the same percentage. If you’ve ever wondered why a store won’t accept your American Express card it’s because the percentage they take could be best described as rape.

The cost of having my phone be a hotspot is $20 a month. The hotspot allows me to accept credit card payments on my iPad as well as connect to the internet on my computer for all of my business needs. Yes, people, BUSINESS. I’m saving $40 a month using my phone as a hotspot, not to mention the cost saved if I would have had to hire an electrician to fix my messed up phone line.

Ching! Ching!

Now, Square up!

The Facebook app is pretty easy to navigate for personal use. For those of us that created a Facebook Page for our business you might have had trouble with a few things. If you’re like me there’s a good chance you asked yourself, “How can I add a photo to my Facebook Page?” It seemed like the only thing possible was to add a photo to your personal page and hope that members of your business page also followed your personal page. Ahh, but what then would be the point of having a business page. One loophole I found was that you could upload a photo to Flickr using the Flickr app and then post a link to it on the wall of your business page. The problem there is that it doesn’t show up in any of your Facebook photo albums and the picture will get buried with each new wall post.

Well, I finally clicked around enough to find out how to add photos to my business page. It’s pretty easy and I’m surprised it took me this long to figure it out.

First, open the Facebook app.

Tap in the “search” bar and click on the “pages” tab.

Type the name of your page. In my case it’s “The Claassen Gallery“. Choose your page when you see it show up in the drop down menu.

Now you should be on your business page. Tap the “Share Photo” option on the left side. This is the part I can’t believe I missed before.

Pick your option. I went with “Choose From Library” because I tend to take photos of stuff before I open the app.

Choose your album.

Choose the photo you’d like on your Facebook Page.

Tap the “write a caption” option.

I highly suggest leaving a caption for all photos you put online.

Now check the spelling on your caption and tap that fancy “upload” button.

And there you go! The photo will post on the wall of your business/fan page and will also be added to the “Wall Photos” album of your page.

When you’re back on a your regular computer or on the desktop version of Facebook you can edit your photo album and move your recent “wall photo” to a more appropriate album. In my case, when I get a chance I’ll have to move this photo over to the “Art Supplies” album, but for now at least it’s on my page.

Hope this helps!
Jeff