myartbrief

[myartbrief]

Big Problem to Big Artwork #RefuseTheStraw

There’s a lot of publicity at the moment, (and rightly so) around the environmental issues associated with plastic drinking straws.  The JD Wetherspoon group are the latest to announce this week that they will no longer offer plastic drinking straws in drinks.

What does this have to do with us?  Well, several months ago, (ahead of the game) Oakman Inns found our site looking for ideas on how to use the thousands of straws they already had in stock that they no longer wanted to use when the environmental issues were brought to their attention.  They submitted their ‘Sustainable Straws Sculpture’ brief which matched to Lois and after several online design discussions and reviews, they now have this....

A large ‘Green Man’ sculpture made entirely from plastic drinking straws ready for installation in their Akeman venue in Tring following refurbishment this autumn.

Oakman Inns are a UK based pub company who place great emphasis on sustainability, hence they took the pioneering decision to ban all plastic drinking straws from their business.

The Green Man theme is intimately linked with Oakman Inns. Two of their pubs are named The Akeman, which is another name for "Oak Man" or "Green Man" and the Oakman Inns logo is an oak leaf.  

About the Sculpture

Being a lover of trees and Green Man imagery, Lois engaged wholeheartedly with the spirit of this brief and went on to complete the wall-mounted sculpture shown above, incorporating thousands of the drinking straws supplied by the company to her studio in Ipswich.

The piece features a traditional Green Man face surrounded by oak leaves as well as a host of intricately detailed smaller sculptures that depict distinctive elements of native British woodland flora and fauna: fern fronds, dandelions, fungi, blackthorn, grasses, swallowtail butterfly, dragonfly, and even a spider's web, suggesting the immense web of interwoven biodiversity supported by the Oak tree. The predominant green and gold colour scheme is inspired by Lois's visits to see the famous Green Man carvings on the ceiling bosses of the Norwich Cathedral cloisters.

The theme is reminiscent of one of Lois's best known papercut works: 

Gaze of the Green Man (2015).  The original framed papercut of Gaze of the Green Man is currently on display at the beautiful family-owned Sugar and Spice Mediterranean Bistro in Llandrindod Wells. Jess and Paul who own Sugar and Spice have also been inspired by this project to insist on banning plastic drinking straws from their restaurant so the piece has already inspired others to #RefuseTheStraw 

Lois had never used straws as a medium, (who would?) and spent several days working with them to determine what could be achieved.  Progress and samples were all uploaded via our service for review online and some of the outer pieces, (see below) were created as ‘proof of concept’ before the commission was agreed.

Large Dragon Fly evoking thoughts of a prehistoric age.

Spiders web, a recurring feature in Lois's artwork, representing the interconnectedness of all things. Weaving her own web out of plastic drinking straws has only deepened Lois's existing respect for spiders!

The Butterfly.  An enduring symbol of transformation and rebirth, which seemed especially appropriate for a sculpture that transforms plastic rubbish into art. 

Below is an alternate view of the completed sculpture.  

We’d like to thank Oakman inns for using our service and Lois for her versatility and commitment in creating the piece that exceeded the customers expectations.  Here’s her review left by Jake at Oakman Inns:

To discuss any commission with Lois, simply register to use our service here and contact Lois via her profile page here.

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Commissions Update

We currently have 13 commissions in progress, 3 of them for business customers!  

July was another steady month with 10 briefs moving to 'In Progress' and broke another record with the total value of work secured for artists at £4441!

In the first week of August, 5 briefs have moved to 'In Progress' with a total value of £1909 so we could be heading for another record month!

Many thanks to our fantastic artists and happy customers!

We are currently completing our financial accounts so that we can apply for the 'Own Art Scheme’, a programme run in partnership with Arts Council England, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Creative Scotland.  If we are approved we'll be able to offer customers a '10 month interest free credit option', helping our goal to make art commissioning and original artwork available to everyone.

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Anthony did such a fantastic job on his first commission we thought it appropriate to try and do it justice with a promotional timelapse video.

Make sure you have HD format selected and unmute, enjoy!

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Our Best Month Yet!

It's been a slow start since the website went fully live with marketing at the end of December 2016.

In the first four months of the year we averaged 1 commission per week.  

In May, the website procured 7 commissions, close to 2 commissions per week.

June was our record month! We fell just short of an average 3 commissions per week!

In the first week we had a record 5 commissions followed by 4 in the second and, (as always) only 2 in the final 2 weeks.  Activity is always at it's highest at the end and beginning of a month.  Probably when people get paid!

We are reinvesting all commission back into marketing and we expect the upward trend to continue!

Several artists are undertaking their first commissions and we are receiving great feedback from everyone.  

We are nothing without our fantastic artists so thanks to all who make the service what it is.  The best online commissioning platform for UK Artists and customers!

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Kickstarter Campaign Ended

Our Crowdfunding Kickstarter Campaign is now Live! 

You can view the participating artists and all of their work on our Kickstarter page which includes a link through to the campaign or go directly to the campaign here.

Help us reach our goal of our first Art Exhibition and receive a high quality Giclee print of your favourite artwork created for the exhibition as a reward.  You also receive a chance to win one of the originals of your choice!  You help fund the exhibition and receive something of greater value in return, it’s WIN - WIN !

Kickstarter campaigns live and die by the number of people who visit the campaign page so please help us spread awareness by telling friends and family and sharing posts on our social media pages from your own accounts.

We are using a local PR company to raise awareness of the campaign and we’ll be updating this post as and when press articles are published.

Live Articles

North East Connected (April 20th)

ePRNews (April 20th)

Arts Council England News (April 22nd)

Jackson’s Art Blog (April 25th)

The Northern Echo (April 25th)

Bishop FM (3rd May) 

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A Moment in Boxing History

Our latest completed commission was a brief to capture a sporting moment in the artistic style of American artist Leroy Neiman.  We guided the customer to the profile of Lois who’s style we thought would be a good fit and it was a perfect match!

Lois is a prolific artist and we thought her ‘speed painting’ style would be perfect to capture the energy in the customers requirements.

The customer, a boxing and huge Muhammad Ali fan, wanted a painting similar to one that was used in the ‘Rocky’ series of films and his research found that it was painted by Leroy Neiman.  The moment he wanted was from the 8th round of the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ match from 1974 between Ali and Foreman, (his favourite fight) that has been called 'arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century'.

The brief was created which included reference photos and submitted to Lois who completed the painting in an unbelievable 4 hours and shipped within a week!  To add to that, Lois found the time to capture and create a time lapse style video of the commission in progress!

The review left by the customer says it all!

If you would like to commission Lois to create your own stunning artwork then you can do so by selecting the ‘Create Brief for Lois’ button on her profile here.  Alternatively, if you see another artwork from her gallery that you like, simply select the ‘Create Similar Brief’ button next to the artwork you are viewing.  Click here for the link to this painting.  It’s that simple!

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Charlie progressing towards BP Portrait Award

One of our portrait artists Charlie has progressed to the second round of the most prestigious portrait painting competition in the world.  The BP Portrait Award run by the National Portrait Gallery which carries a £30,000 prize for the winner! 

Charlie was one of two standby artists for this years Sky Arts ‘Portrait Artist of the Year’ competition that would take part should any of the chosen artists drop out but unfortunately for him, nobody did.  While taking part, he had the opportunity to sketch several of the celebrities that he subsequently completed as oil paintings and he chose to submit his ‘Stanley Tucci’ portrait for the competition.

From several thousand entries, the portrait is now down to the last couple of hundred and will be on its way to London shortly to be judged and hopefully make it into the final 30 or so for display in London.  We wish Charlie the best of luck!

Amazingly, Charlie is entirely self taught and even more amazing suffers from partial colour blindness that he has had to overcome for his portraiture to reach the level that it is today.

Charlie could be very busy, very soon, so if you are looking for an exceptional portrait then you can commission Charlie from his profile page here.  Charlie is very flexible on size and price and also works in different media so he can create something for all budgets!

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Artists Collaborate

Our most recently completed brief was a collaboration between musical and visual artists to create artwork for an album, (EP).  Below is the finished artwork created by Tobin.

The left hand image is an oil on canvas painting that has been scanned for use on the front cover and the right hand image a pencil illustration on paper to be displayed on the inside cover when folded into the case.

Simon of Liemba found our website via a Google search and had this to say about their experience with our service and Tobin....

MyArtBrief.com is the perfect platform for anyone looking to collaborate with an artist. Signing up and posting our brief was so quick and painless. Within an hour the site had helped us filter through an array of artists to find the right person for the job. Tobin has a very friendly and professional approach and seemed to have as much passion for the project as us. He has produced such a stunning work of art that we can proudly use as the cover for our EP. Our whole experience was a very positive one, we highly recommend both the site and Tobin.  

This was Tobin’s first brief and for him it was a perfect match....

This was my idea of the perfect brief. Liemba's music the inspiration, I just enjoyed the tunes and let the creativity flow, with absolute freedom to be myself. It was a pleasure to work with both the band, and with MyArtBrief support, who made the whole process run like clockwork.

Our whole ethos was summed up in our recent blog post and we use the #SupportUKArtists hashtag on our social media posts.  We’d like to extend that to musical artists and help promote Liemba and their music so here a few links....

Bandcamp page to listen to and buy the title track ‘Burning Wicks’ of the new EP.

Facebook page (includes upcoming gig details).

Instagram Account 

Twitter account

;and here’s some details about the new EP....

Liemba's new EP 'Burning Wicks' reflects the evolution of this exciting Brighton band's sound. Featuring guest vocals from Sweden's finest folk artist, Elin Ivarsson and mastered by Tim Rowkins. The four new tracks echo 70's era folk rock mixed with contemporary acoustic music. The 'Burning Wicks' EP will be available online and at gigs from February 2017.

We wish Simon and Liemba all the best for the future.

If we may big ourselves up a little, (tongue firmly in cheek), this is a perfect example of how our service can work.  Simon arrived at our website not really knowing what he and the band were looking for until they found Tobin’s profile and in particular his ‘Splatter Project’ gallery.  That triggered the online conversation where Tobin also suggested an illustration similar to the work in his other gallery that they could also use and that was it, over to Tobin!

We’ve taken some credit in both of the above comments but in fairness, our service is nothing without artists like Tobin so many thanks to him and all our other artists for making us what we are!

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Lego Batman Movie Competition

As a bit of fun and to coincide with the release of the new Lego Batman Movie, (we saw it on Saturday, it’s brilliant!)  We are giving away a bespoke digital illustration created by our Illustrator YaPpy.

The winner will be chosen at random and on sending a photograph of their child, (or possibly themselves?) they will receive this ready to print high resolution digital image.  Obviously including them and not Joel!    

YaPpy will copy the pose, outfit and face, (its quite difficult to capture a face in a Lego figure) and replace Joel with your child’s name.

To enter, simply hop over to our Twitter or Facebook page and Like and Share the post pinned to the top of the page.  We’ll announce the winner in 2 weeks!

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Our Ethos - We Support UK Artists

Quite simply, our service exists to put the money for an Artist’s work where it belongs; with the Artist!

Traditional galleries operate on or around a 50% commission for a sale of an Artist’s work.  Some websites charge a monthly fee for profiles or access to services like bidding for commission requests which they rarely, (if ever) win due to competition from artists all over the globe.  The 2 most popular art sales websites charge a 30% commission on sales and one of those then charge VAT on that commission and then a 3.5% payment processing fee on the total sale price!  These 2 websites have thousands and thousands of Artists from all over the world and an Artist’s work simply becomes lost in a sea of imagery.

At www.MyArtBrief.com, we support UK Artists….

Artist registration and building of an online profile that can be seen by everyone visiting the site is completely free.

We charge nothing for our service that puts Artist’s in direct contact with potential customers to discuss their commission requests.  

Potential customers can find the Artist they need by location or by composition and style of art, all at the click of a button, and still free!  

Artists can discuss commission requests and submit quotes for work all completely free!

All of our Artist’s work is pushed out to our social media channels that are starting to grow with genuine followers.  Again free.

Artist’s can share their own work from our website too using the social media share buttons on their uploaded artwork.  All free!

To support development/upkeep of the website and support staff for queries during the online commissioning process, our fee to an Artist is 22.5% for an Art commission, only when the customer accepts a quote and pays via our secure payments system.  That’s not 22.5%+VAT, or 22.5%+VAT + a payment processing fee.  Just 22.5% 

In addition to that, we have partnered with Jackson’s Art Supplies and all of our registered Artists receive 10% off orders from their website.

If you are waiting for a catch, there isn’t one.  Our sole purpose is to provide a service to bring Art Commissioning to everyone via our automated online platform and the lowest possible commission rates that allow Artists to price their work without the need to consider hefty commission fees or service charges.

If you are a UK Artist that accepts commissions you can sign up and create your profile here today, (there’s additional information for Artists here).  If you receive a commission request, you can be assured the potential customer has seen your work, knows your prices and there’s a good chance they will commission you.  If you don’t hear anything, it hasn’t cost you a penny!

We hope to see your work on our site soon!

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Website Facelift

We’ve freshened up the home page and some of the colours throughout the site.  We hope you like it!

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Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2017

This year’s Landscape Artist of the Year offers artists the chance to win a £10,000 commission for a British institution’s permanent collection and £500 of art materials from Cass Art. 

Landscape Artist of The Year will film at stunning locations around the UK and artists can register up until April 28th 2017 on their website here.

If you are looking for a landscape painting, you can view the work of our landscape artists here and they are all available for commission now!

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Sky Arts 2018 Portrait of the Year Competition

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year offers you the chance to win a £10,000 commission for a major British institution and £500 of art materials from Cass Art.

Portrait Artists can enter on their website here.

If you are looking for a portrait you can view the work of our portrait artists here and they are all available for commission now!

Not a portrait artist?  Maybe you’d like to see how they work?

Filming of the heats will begin in April 2017 on the following weekdays; Wednesday 5th, Thursday 6th, Friday 7th, Monday 10th, Tuesday 11th, and Wednesday 12th.

Why not join the team in the beautiful Courtyard at The Wallace Collection, and watch a selection of extremely talented artists paint famous faces from the world of arts and entertainment.  You can register your interest for the event on Facebook here.

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Special gift for Mothers Day

Mothers day is just around the corner! This year, now that our service is up and running, why not commission a portrait of the children or a family scene from a photograph as an extra special gift. We have artists for all budgets with pencil and charcoal portraits starting at under £100 !

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Old Photo to Beautiful Portrait

Sandra was our busiest artist over the Christmas period and her latest artwork was just received by her more than happy customer.

The brief was to capture a moment from 16 years ago of a grandmother and her grandson from an 8” x 5” photograph and Sandra has done a fantastic job given that was all she had to work with.

The customer told us:

“My mother past away in 2014 and this is one of my favourite photographs taken at Christmas in 2000.  I’d never thought of commissioning an artist before but by chance I saw a post a friend had shared from the MyArtBrief Facebook page so I thought I would give it a try. Several artists responded within a day of submitting my brief and I chose Sandra as I really liked the examples in her portrait gallery and she gave advice on materials that could be used and a couple of pricing options.  She posted images of the portrait at an early stage and I requested some changes and I absolutely love what she has created! The support team at MyArtBrief have been brilliant too!”

If, like this customer, you’ve never thought of commissioning an artist because you didn’t know where to start, then start with us.  View the video guide on our home page describing how to use the service and then take a look at the work of our portrait artists here.  

You can buy artwork from several websites but it won’t be personal to you.  We are the only service that simplifies the commissioning process and puts you in direct contact with Artists who prefer to work to commission, enjoying the creative process.  Our low commission rates ensure the lowest possible prices and artists receive a fair fee for the fantastic artwork they can create for you.

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Local Artist, Local Customer, Local Hero

We couldn’t find a better example that encompasses everything our service is about. A customer finding a local artist to capture a personal memory for an affordable price!

Two Newcastle fans attended a recent charity match and the following day found themselves in the background of a photograph posted to social media.

The customer knew about our service, (this is their second commission) so created their brief via the site and submitted to 6 matching artists they felt could be a good fit.  One of those artists, Sandra, responded to the brief within hours, creating a charcoal sketch suggesting that it could be an ideal medium carrying through the black and white subject matter.  The customer thought it was a great idea and requested if some colour could be added to Alan, himself and his friend to make them stand out.  Sandra suggested using pastels and created a quote on that basis for an A3 size picture.

The customer called his friend, showed him what he was having done and he liked it so much he requested the same for himself!

The customer said he chose Sandra because she made the extra effort to create a sketch before even submitting a more than reasonable quote and she was based only 6 miles from him.  The customers review, (along with Sandra’s first review from her first brief 2 weeks earlier) is below which the customer posted after meeting up with Sandra to collect the finished Artwork in person.

Have an idea for something similar?  Use the ‘Create Similar Brief’ button on our website page here and submit your brief to Sandra.

All of the artists on our website accept commissions, (its what they do!) so whatever you are looking for we’ll have an artist who can create it!

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We hope you like our new promotional ‘How To’ video!