I have already supplied a painting of Voldemort (Harry Potter’s arch enemy) for Esther, who gave it to her son for his birthday. Now her other son also wants a painting, and he is a Batman fan. Although the customer is always right, you can still negotiate and adapt any suggestions made.

Esther’s son said he wanted “Batman and Robin”, but I don’t like the Robin character and I think his uniform looks silly. Also ‘Batman and Robin’ means trying to get two characters looking good for the same price. So I asked if it would be OK to just paint Batman on his own, and that was fine.

I ended up painting three images of Batman, to give Esther a choice. Two of the paintings have turned out so good, I almost don’t want to sell them. There were artist crossovers between Marvel and DC comics, and I found a Batman portrait by one of my favourite Marvel artists – Neal Adams.

Batman swinging between skyscrapers was a computer generated photo which had enough detail to produce a good oil painting. However the third image I chose was another painting by Neal Adams of Batman responding to the Bat Signal. The original of this painting looks good, but there was not enough detail on the photo for me to use. I’m disappointed with how this turned out, and hope Esthers son picks it.

If you’re lucky enough to get some feedback from customers it’s worth adapting  to satisfy their suggestions.  There will be other people with the same wants and needs, so a whole new market could open up for you.  Batman has a massive fan base, so despite being a  devotee of Marvel Comics I will also paint the main DC character – Superman.

John McNally

But somehow, they do.  In fact, some artists have become extremely affluent just from the sale of their artwork and art  merchandise.  Do you think they were just lucky?  You know… in the right place at the right time?

I’m not saying that sheer luck doesn’t have a part to play in this and for a select few that’s all it took to succeed and  become leaders in the art market niche.  But what about the rest of the artists out there pouring their hearts and souls  into their creations, shouldn’t they have a shot at the golden ring?

Well if you weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth and a pocket full of “Lucky Charms” then you’re just going to  have to come up to speed on leading-edge internet marketing skills. 

That’s where “Art Marketing Success” comes into play.

Professional artist and internet marketer Joelle Rene’ Hughes has developed a brand new product that will demystify the  process of becoming a financially successful artist.  She can teach you how to get started selling your art online with  little or no initial investment, or transform your existing art business into an income generating sales machine.

Is this a get-rich-quick scheme?  Nope.  You are going to have to work hard and implement these marketing strategies. 

Will you achieve overnight success?  Not likely, but if you follow her guidelines  then you will possess the skills  you need to become one of the Art Sales SUPERSTARS!  “Art Marketing Success” comes with a no-questions-asked money back guarantee.  So what have you got to lose? 

Aren’t you tired of being a “Starving Artist”?  It doesn’t have to be that way.  You just need to learn the skills that  will put you in a league with the big players.

Are you ready to get serious about your art business and catapult your sales into the stratosphere?

If so – then you might want to check this out:
To your success!

John McNally

When writing a sales letter or web-page you need to empathise with the prospective customer, and to do this you need to know who they are. Often they are someone very similar to you. Like attracts like.

I love drinking beer so it was natural for me to organise beer festival holidays.  I knew what I would want on a boozing holiday, so I created the perfect trip for my customers. They seemed to appreciate it; I took around 10,000 people abroad every year.

I have been painting pop art images and always imagined that my customers would be someone like me. A bloke in his 50s, interested in science fiction and music. I paint things that had an influence or impact on me; John Lennon and the Beatles, films like 2001 a Space Odyssey and Clockwork Orange, and the Marvel comics I read as a kid.

Yesterday I had to re-evaluate my customer profile. I just sold a painting to a 11 year old boy, or to be more accurate his Mother. It was an image of Lord Voldemort, a baddie from the Harry Potter series. There is another potential market I was unaware of, parents who want a unique present for their child. Knowing this I can create paintings that would attract younger customers.

Look carefully at your own customer profile, there may be other avenues to exploit for sales, and they could come from unexpected quarters.

John McNally  

He was a loyal, and more importantly prolific, lieutenant to Marvel’s editor Stan Lee. Sometimes his artistic quality slipped when he was simply drawing too many comics, but he was always a superb draughtsman and had an excellent eye for dramatic action sequences.
 

When Kirby had the time he could come up with some stunning visuals. One of my favourite comic covers is Fantastic Four # 72 which introduces a new character ‘The Silver Surfer’ .

Jack Kirby was the creator who envisaged a silvery skinned alien who flew through the universe on a surfboard! – This was the swinging sixties after all.

When Stan Lee saw how Kirby had portrayed the Silver Surfer he realised that he had captured something truly cosmic, and the Surfer’s portentous language flowed from that. This demonstrates how an artist can interact with the writer to create something that only a partnership could produce. 

The Fantastic Four cover of #72 inspired me to paint the Surfer using traditional oils on canvas. Here is my version, which is a mirror image of the cover.

Hope you like it!

John McNally

One slight problem is that I no longer have it! Mandy Allen has it in her Art Gallery. I didn’t realise Internet Marketing could be so powerful, and just assumed that hardly anyone was looking at the website. I have now taken all the Paypal buttons off www.popartoilpaintings.com

Changing the website instantly brings me back nicely to another blog post of mine….Web Design Made Easy. X-Site Pro has really transformed my business prospects. I can’t recommend it highly enough, it’s the best £150 I have spent in the whole field of Internet Marketing, (and I have spent around £7,000)!

I now have another Internet Marketing project that has been made possible entirely by XSite Pro. I have registered a new domain name, and will reveal more as I develop the site. I think this will be the third string to my bow. First two are paintings, and personal training.

XSite Pro also means I can finally develop a home site for my main company name potentproducts.co.uk. I have loads of products developed and ready for sale, but have been stuck with paying someone to upload a website. No More!…XSite Pro does it so easily.

PS. Have I mentioned XSite Pro?

John McNally 

I wrote a list of categories of subjects I’m interested in: Beer, Comics, Music, Films, Running, Books, Astronomy, Painting…..Internet Marketing was way down the list, but it was Internet marketing that made me create a blog, and I’m really grateful!

I’ve ended up pursuing two interests; Painting and Running  that I really enjoy by creating two new websites: www.popartoilpaintings.com and www.personaltrainerleamingtonspa.co.uk.

So are blogs a waste of time? My answer is an emphatic NO! Without the blog I don’t think I would have started painting again. It was only be reading my own blog posts, that I truly realised where my interests lay.Particular thanks must go to Mandy Allen whose encouragement really inspired me.

So for a long time I have been writing blog posts about running and painting. Now I have two new websites, the great thing is that I can copy and paste my blog running articles into my Personal Trainer website, which has already made it the biggest website for content in my area.

The same applies to my painting website. I had loads of ready-made articles about painting on my blog, which I simply copied and pasted into my new website, making it instantly quite large. 

I’m now considering what other websites I can create to utilise all the ready made articles I have on my blog. So, No. Blogs are not a waste of time! Keep blogging, you never know what will happen in the future.

John McNally

It’s only thanks to Google Images that I have been able to fulfil this ambition, as  the posters sold out on the day of issue, and I didn’t have anything for reference.  However I was able to download a jpeg photo via Google, and used this as the basis for my canvas.

John Lennon is my favourite Beatle and because of that I was actually quite scared to commit any paint to canvas. If I was going to paint Lennon it had to be good, and I wasn’t sure how it woud turn out.

In my head it was brilliant, I knew how I wanted it to look, but I wasn’t sure I could do it. The colours are different to the poster, but I think they work and I’m very happy with the way it has turned out. I think I have done Lennon justice, and I’m proud to have this hanging on my wall.

My current pricing policy is to sell paintings at a low cost comparable to a print. However I think this Lennon painting is good, and I won’t therefore sell it for less than £97. It was completed in oils on a stretched canvas over a wooden frame measuring 15.5″ x 19.5″.  

I’m not worried whether I sell this or not, because after 40 years of dreaming I’m just glad to have it hanging on my wall.

John McNally

The title track ‘Help’,was also a No.1 single of course. This was not a ‘churn it out’ pop song but a genuine plea from the heart. Lennon really was feeling stressed by his pressure-cooker Beatle existence…”When I was younger….I never needed any help in any way. Now those days are gone, I’m not so self assured….HELP I need somebody.”

 My favourite track is “You’ve got to hide your love away”. This is Lennon doing his Dylan impression, and a very fine job he does of it too. Another number one single ‘Ticket to Ride’ completes the first side. The Lennon & McCartney songwriting machine could write hits to order, and the most recorded song of all time ‘Yesterday’ wasn’t even issued as a single at first…it’s just another track on the Help album!

Any Beatle fan would recognise the Help album cover, and I have used these silhouettes to create a pop art style painting. The colours have been inspired by the artist Julian Opie and his painting of the Blur album cover. It was a simple image to produce, but I think it is effective. I used oils on canvas stretched over a wooden frame measuring 19.5″ x 8″, and this is for sale @ £27 plus post and packing. 

John McNally

I’ve always thought this to be a powerful image, with Kubrick filming from inside the subway looking out. This produces the extended shadows and contrast between dark and light.

I’m quite pleased with the way the painting has turned out. I used different colours to those originally intended, but orange being the dominant colour is appropriate and effective. The painting measures 20″ x 16″ and has been completed in oils,on canvas stretched over a wooden frame.

Many artists have switched to acrylic paints as they dry quicker. However I prefer using traditional oils as they offer deeper colours and are more permanent. I am setting up a website to accept payments, and once this is ready I will include links to it. I intended to offer my original paintings at prices comparable to prints, so Clockwork Orange will be for sale at £47.

John McNally

Galactus needed to consume living planets in order to survive.  However he transformed Norrin Radd into the Silver Surfer to become his herald, finding suitable alternative planets throughout the universe.

When Galactus found the Earth it was so full of vibrant life that it offered an irresistible feast for him. Luckily for us he was unable to consume our planet because the Silver Surfer turned on his master, and fought him to a standstill.

Eventually the Silver Surfer had to sacrifice himself again to save the Earth, this time he sacrificed his freedom to roam the cosmos, when Galactus imposed a force field barrier around the planet. Subsequent stories had the barrier removed, mainly because confining the Silver Surfer to Earth restricted the full potential of universe-wide adventures.

The Surfer has always been my favourite Marvel character, and I’m currently painting a Jack Kirby cover from Fantastic Four #72. I don’t think there is anyone painting these pictures using traditional oils on canvas, and I hope to sell them to comic fans over the Internet. When I have enough paintings completed, I shall create a separate web-site featuring original oil paintings for sale.

John McNally