What to Know About Licensing Your Art

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Being an artist can be a hard job when it comes to making money and getting customers. One of the best ways to turn your art into income is by licensing your artwork. When you license your art, you’re allowing a bigger company to reproduce it on their end. This isn’t something that needs to be done for all of your pieces, but every artist should have a few in mind that they would like to share with a larger audience. Many times licensed artwork is put onto tote bags, phone cases, pillowcases, and many other products. Licensing agreements state what percentage of sales an artist will receive. Before jumping the gun and licensing your art, here are important things you need to know about licensing.

 

Manufacturing

There are so many ways and places you can license your artwork. Many times opportunities of collaboration will come up with someone you know or even a brand that saw your art on social media. Check out small local businesses that may be interested in teaming up with an artist to work on their products. Some restaurants might want to rebrand themselves by having new cups and coasters for tables and selling merchandise. If you’re interested in working with a larger manufacturer, then check out options on online stores. Redbuddle is an online shop where over 700,00 independent artists sell their art on just about any product you can think of. This option is great for artists who may not have time to create products themselves.

 

Understand your Deal

Every licensing deal is different, so it is important as an artist to sit down and understand the terms. For some companies, you may be asked to create art that is specifically designed for them to manufacture. If you team up with a well-known company to license your art this most times means that they take care of work behind the scenes. From manufacturing, shipping, and customer service, none of these things will be on your hands. Look deep into your deals to see if you can license the same pieces of art to more than one company. The most important thing to consider in a licensing agreement is the responsibility of you as an artist and the amount of money you receive from sales.

 

Enjoy the Benefits

After licensing your art you will begin to gain new customers and attract followers on social media. Your sales won’t only increase through licensing but as well as your selling. It can take some time for your art to be noticed, but once it is, it’s up from there. By continuing to create art and selling it from your home or a local store, and licensing other pieces of art, you’ve created multiple streams of income for yourself! 

The World’s Best Street Art

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Today, many cities commission artists to decorate walls, utility boxes, and selective areas as part of their beautification program. However, there are still artists and gangs around the world leaving their mark on the walls of their neighborhoods. Either way, street art has gained world recognition.

 

Street art has gained popularity in its expressive and uncensored nature. It also allows free viewing for those who are less inclined to visit a museum. Art within the environment is more likely to be seen and appreciated. These are five cities around the world with the most expressive street art.

 

Los Angeles

 

The City of Los Angeles considers graffiti illegal. Bold text and gang tags divide neighborhoods. As a result, L.A. commissions local artists to paint over graffiti and decorate its massive murals with colorful street art. Downtown’s Art District welcomes Latino heritage art on walls under freeways and neighborhoods. Guided tours are available to tourists for a more intimate look at the art on the walls.

 

London

 

North London in Camden or the Leake Street Tunnel near Waterloo are two places where street art is prevalent in London. The street art scene is huge in the neighborhoods of Shoreditch and Hackney. They are London’s locales for spray-painted walls such as Michelin-starred restaurants. Visitors can take a tour of Shoreditch to see London’s best artists.

 

Mexico City

 

Mexico City is the home to the most poetic, political, and traditional street art. Its neighborhoods of Juárez, Roma, and Condesa are known for the giant vivid murals. History and Latino culture are captured on the walls of businesses. Tours guided by graffiti artists are the best way to see Mexican art.

 

Buenos Aires

 

Both international and local artists have left their creative mark on massive murals on the streets of Buenos Aires. Political, traditional, and light-hearted collages adorn various neighborhoods (barrios). The barrios of San Telmo and Colegiales Crespos depict historical urban movements. Guided tours are the best way to connect street art with each barrio.

 

Berlin

 

Berlin’s graffiti-covered walls date back to the Cold War. The hip Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough houses the remaining stretch of what was once the Berlin Wall. Today it is known as Berlin’s East Side Gallery where 3-D street art adorns the facades of business and buildings. Visiting this neighborhood is the best way to explore Berlin’s art

Artificial Intelligence Takes on the Art Industry

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Artificial intelligence is making inroads into just about every industry. Finance, medicine, and marketing are all being changed by discoveries made with artificial intelligence. One world that most people didn’t expect to be overtaken by AI is the art industry. However, like any other, it is being heavily influenced by the automation and technological advances of AI. Pieces created with neural networks are taking the art world by storm.

 

Just over a year ago, the portrait “Edmond de Belamy, from La Famille de Belamy” sold for over $400,000 at Christie’s in New York. It had been expected to sell for about $7,000 to $10,000. This painting, made with convolutional neural networks, is just one example of how the art world is reacting to artificial intelligence. This new technology is making a bigger splash than many people had expected.

 

Computers use convolutional neural networks to arrange and analyze images. This technology isn’t just used in the art world. It has applications in a number of industries. It’s the same type of artificial intelligence that is changing the way the medical profession interprets images from X-rays and MRI images. CNN uses style transfer. This process changes the tone of an image without changing the content. This is similar to the idea of a filter on an Instagram photo.

 

While some purists are alarmed that AI-created images are sharing space with the work of classical and popular artists, it is important to remember that computer-generated art dates to at least the 1950s. Some artists in the postwar period saw this art as an important antidote to emotional manipulations. For people who had lived through the rise of fascism and Hitler’s propaganda films, an art made without feeling seemed like a relief. It was hard to imagine how such works could be manipulated by politicians, and that seemed comforting.

 

Frieder Nake and Max Bense are some of the important names in that early period of computer-generated art. Although many people today feel that AI-generated art is just a grotesque display of technology, it’s important to remember that many respected art forms started off that way. Today, films are preserved by governments for posterity due to their cultural value. When that industry emerged, it was made up entirely of outsiders. It was considered vulgar. It will be interesting to see how history views AI-generated art.

What is Art Therapy?

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People have turned to the creative arts as a means of therapy for centuries. Art therapy is a field that originated from the catharsis of artistic expression, and licensed art therapists help clients around the world treat a variety of mental illnesses and personal struggles with creative projects.

 

Art therapy can be used in virtually any environment with clients ranging from pre-school children to senior citizens. Those who cannot articulate themselves clearly due to developmental disorders such as autism may benefit from art therapy as it gives them a voice that would otherwise go unheard.

 

With the help of a professional therapist, clients who undergo art therapy are able to learn more about themselves through their nonverbal expression; art therapists decipher symbols, colors, patterns and metaphors that arise through the creative process, all while helping clients relieve stress and find comfort in their artwork.

 

Art Therapy in Action

There are types of art therapy that can treat depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems. Therapists will typically choose exercises and mediums based on a client’s age, personality and symptoms.

 

Journaling is a common art therapy prescribed for people struggling with depression or anxiety; children and adolescents who may not be as capable of identifying and expressing their feelings might be prompted to draw or paint their emotions instead.

 

For children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), sensory art therapy that utilizes finger paints, kinetic sand, clay, and other tactile mediums can provide emotional release and serve as a positive outlet to reduce maladaptive behaviors.

 

Benefits of Art Therapy

It is not always feasible or comfortable for people to express how they’re feeling. Sometimes, an individual may not even understand the depth of their own emotions until they are given the opportunity to explore them creatively. Through art therapy, people can develop healthy coping skills while learning more about themselves, who they are and how their problems “color” their lives.

 

Art therapy can build confidence, reduce stress and improve behavior. By exploring a new way of expressing one’s thoughts and feelings, art therapy offers the opportunity to delve deeper into the psyche and uncover repressed thoughts and feelings that may be causing trouble in the present.

 

Finally, art therapy is a valuable tool that can be used in conjunction with traditional psychotherapy. By exploring a client’s creative output, therapists can find new ways to address their problems using therapeutic models such as talk therapy and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).

Why Study Art?

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Student who intend to study art often get flack from well-meaning loved ones who believe that the student won’t be able to make a living if he/ she studies art. However, the ability to make a living as an artist has changed drastically, in part, due to advances in technology. Further, the study of art develops skills aside from the obvious, art-related ones. Here’s a look why the arts can actually lead to better careers.

 

Technology Has Opened Up New Jobs

The advancements in technology have created a new demand for artists trained in digital technologies. After all, it was well-trained artists who created the fantastical dragons on shows like “Game of Thrones” or the magic of “Harry Potter.” Studying art, including the new technologies that make that art possible, opens up new job opportunities that have never existed before.

In order to work in these industries, these digital-savvy artists usually study both traditional art techniques, like drawing and old painting. They also learn the principles of design and art marketing. Finally, they become well-versed in digital tools, like Adobe Photoshop, Maya, Lightwave and Adobe After Effects.

 

Develop Cultural Awareness

A design career offers a simple example of how culture and art studies converge. Many challenges in the workplace arise from a lack of cultural awareness. Studying art, art history and languages develops the cultural awareness necessary to work in the art and design fields.

 

Transferable Skills

The study of art doesn’t just develop the ability to draw or sculpt beautiful things. It develops other skills, like creative thinking, the ability to work independently and eye-hand coordination. Aside from this, university studies done by James Catterall, a professor and researcher at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies demonstrate that students who have been exposed to the arts and who have been involved in the arts do better in school.

 

 

These days, studying the arts helps students develop many practical skills that bring value to the workplace. Additionally, art studies teach students about the cultures and eras from which a piece of art arose. Finally, technology has changed pretty much every aspect of the workplace, including animation, media, and other arts-related jobs. Having a foundation in the arts opens up job possibilities that heretofore didn’t exist.