Useful Articles

For a while I ran a side business advising other artists about how to get online.

I no longer do that because of my ill health but I've collected some of my more relevant blog posts into categories for you. Most of these posts are old now and many aspects of the internet have moved on since I wrote them but you may still find them useful. The art and creativity articles, which deal with things like creative block and getting out of your own way, are much more timeless.

Internet Stuff

Art Stuff

Practical Art Advice

10 Top Tips For Artists
The Art Of Illness
What Are Your Showing Rules?
How To Package Works
Enough Already or why you shouldn't write 'art wank'!
Thoughts On Titles

The Creative Process

Tidying The Studio
On Sketchbooks
Facing The Empty Page
Everyday Art
Facing Our Art Fears
Taking The Lazy Road
Art School Monster
Enjoy Your Process
The Wisdom Of Mistakes
Using Metaphors To Combat Art Fear

Collecting Art

Why You Should Buy Original Art
Become A Confident Collector

Other stuff

Big Thinking

Authenticity, Sacredness and Plastic Bags
Falling Off Beams
Ecstatic Moments
What's Your Motivation?
Stamp On Your Shoulds
This Is Not About Gardening

Money stuff

My Business Plan
Money, Business & How To Avoid 'Magic Pill' Thinking
Hat Attack - Or How To Hire Yourself (one of my personal favs)

Feel free to link to these articles or quote them on your own blog but since copyright resides with me, please don't reproduce them in full without my permission. If you do want to use a whole post, just drop me a line - I don't bite and as long as you're a genuine site, I'll probably say yes.

FREE PHOTOS FOR YOU

Hey, who doesn't like free stuff!

I now have a collection of Creative Commons photographs available for you to freely use in your artwork, blogs, talks etc. You can even alter or edit them as long as you credit me. If you do want to use them commercially, just email me - if you're a small business, I'll almost certainly say yes. I've only shared them under a non-commercial license to stop huge businesses like Yahoo scooping them up and printing them without my permission.

The current sets are House Numbers; Signs; Graveyards: Urban: Natural World; Found Drawings; Winter and General. They can be found here. There are currently about 500 photographs available for your use but I am adding to them all the time. I do this because I want to give something back to the internet, which has given so much to me. Yes I'm an idealist.

If you'd like to know more about how Creative Commons works, I wrote a simple explanation here.

Want to know which is my most used photo? By a considerable margin, it's this one.