Emma Cownie is an artist based in Swansea. To see more of her work, please visit her website at http://emmacownie.artweb.com/.
Using video as a promotional tool
I wanted to promote my artwork in a different manner to the promotion normally done by Art Galleries. I wanted to promote it while at the same time promoting the idea of buying artwork via online galleries, especially those such as my own art website on Artweb.com… so I came up with the idea of promoting artwork via a YouTube video.
“Up Your Street!?”
I then tried to work out a pitch, or a ‘hook’ if you like, linking online galleries with the fact that, generally, I ship artwork to art-lovers to places as far away as Australia (a popular destination for my work), via the postal service.
Then I came across this image sent to me by another online gallery, with whom I have an online collection:
I thought instantly about how we artists send artwork around the world and how metaphorically, via postal services, we are posting from one street to another.
We are all a global village of artists and art-lovers, and we are all on the same street in a sense. Then I thought as I looked up the street in this image that I am delivering artwork to art-lovers who like my artwork, so in terms of slang, my artwork must be “up their street.”
From there I thought to myself, so if we are all on the “same street” in this global village/market, where would you be likely to find my work on this “street”?
Implementing the concept…
So for this idea, I decided my video should go through all the places on a street that you might find my work, such as online galleries on your PC, laptop, iPad or Smartphone, to real life galleries, to LED lights, to advertising screens, to displayed on banners, in newspaper print, to delivered giclee prints. I then went on to show areas in one’s home where you would find my artwork, such as over the mantelpiece etc. The video concludes with suggesting that wherever you find my artwork, I hope you find it “up your street”. This double meaning or promotional “hook” and will hopefully make you think twice – that if you like my artwork, potentially it will find it’s way, literally up your street… in other words you like it enough to buy and have it posted to you!
The video is here!
Response
Generally I think it is useful to use video as a promotional tool because you can show a lot of your artwork in a very short space of time, and if accompanied by music, it can heighten the enjoyment of looking at one’s artwork. I have had some great feedback on the video with some art-lovers watching it over and over again. I chose this song, because it had the refrain “I fall in love with the light” which reminded me of Derain’s “the substance of painting is light.”
Highlights
Here are some snippets for the video “storyboard”:
From online galleries …
to real life galleries…
in LED lights…
to advertising screens…
displayed on banners…
in print…
or in giclee print…
On rustic walls or smooth…
… I hope you find my artwork ‘up your street’!?
