Article directories add value

Article Directories follow the metaphysical law of Reciprocation. What this means in Layman's Terms is: you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Both parties get something out of the arrangement, and all is good. If you contrast this particular method of marketing to the more odious method of "scraping content", and you'll quickly see why article directories are considered to be the wave of the future when it comes to interactive and co-operative marketing. Article directories allow for participation by:

1)webmasters who want to use the articles

2)The Webmaster who wrote the article and who receives promotional credit for publishing it

3)The end user who gets high quality content that may not have been available otherwise.

If you haven't already begun article creation, you better get started soon. Right now, the article directory industry is exploding. What better way to promote your website than to write expert articles that make you and your subject matter stand out from the crowd? If you're an excellent writer, you can greatly expand the audience of your website by expanding your reach on the internet. Once you're published on a multitude of websites, you can expect a great deal of direct traffic as well as search engine juice from your many installed articles. If you think about 10 articles that are on over 100 sites, you can quickly see that's 1,000 pages that now link to you with information about you and your website. Done consistently, for months on end, there is no better way of increasing your exposure than authoring and submitting articles on your favorite subjects. If you're not already an expert on a subject, then what better time to start than now?

You are best off writing individual articles for the web directories that do not appear on your own website. Otherwise, you may run into the very real risk of the article directory outranking you for your very own content! Generally article directories are very popular website with a great deal of traffic and link popularity, so they often will rank for your article. If you use original content, you can expect additional traffic, that doesn't interfere with your websites traffic at all. Submitting content to article directories is not a miracle cure for all of your ranking blues, but it's a great start for a deserving website on the road to recognition. Only by getting the word out, can you expect others to be able to find the wonderful resource that is your website.

The Article Directory at Webs-Best-Directory.com is a human-edited, categorized search engine friendly web directory. Add your website today. www.yeswebsites.com

View their website at: www.yeswebsites.com

Art Prints友inding The Best Value

You池e not in college anymore, and it痴 time to take down the posters and replace them with original art. But, you don稚 have the money yet for oils or watercolors. Art prints are an affordable alternative, yet they too can be pricey. How can you tell if that art print that痴 caught your eye is more than just another pretty face?

Art prints are works of art in and of themselves, and may be handmade by artist-printmakers (artists・prints), digitally printed (gicl馥), or photomechanical reproductions (offset lithographs).

Artists・prints are handmade and are not reproductions of paintings: the print is a unique work of art. The term covers a range of printmaking techniques such as etching, woodcut, engraving, screenprint and linocut. Editions tend to be less than 200, partly because the materials used to make the prints wear out. This type of print is sometimes called an 登riginal print.・
Limited edition reproductions are multiples copies of the same image, but produced in guaranteed limited numbers. This makes the image more exclusive. The market price can rise over time, if demand outstrips supply. Edition sizes vary but are limited by market forces, not by the physical constraints of the printmaking method. Most limited editions are signed and numbered in pencil by the artist with a commitment that no other reproduction of the image will be made.

An open-edition reproduction print can be produced in any quantity and the image may also be used in other ways, such as on tableware. Open editions tend to cost less than limited editions and are much less likely to increase in value.

Gicl馥 prints are made using digital printing technology, usually inkjet. The technology enables users to produce small runs of prints. It also allows retailers to offer 叢rint on demand・services, where buyers select an image and it is printed out there and then.

Several factors influence the price of art prints:

Artist and Rarity
Certainly the name of the artist is a major contributor to value. But the art prints of even the same artist may have widely ranging prices. This added value is due to rarity. The more valuable print may be part of a limited edition run of only a few copies, while the more affordable from a larger open-edition run. But they are both original pieces of art by the same artist. It痴 a good idea to be well acquainted with the works of a particular artist and his or her peers as well. Research into an artist痴 place in the art world will help you ensure you池e getting a good value.

Editions, Signatures and Seals
Before the twentieth century artists did not routinely number nor sign their prints by hand. A signature can come from the plate but is not much of a value. What counts is an individual signature of the artist on the print, usually with a pencil (ink would eventually fade). Modern art prints are often numbered by the artist himself, i.e., "34 / 100" (number 34 out of an edition of 100).

Condition
It痴 not unusual for older art prints to have some flaws. If there aren稚 any, check again! It might be a reproduction. While minor flaws such as slight soiling are considered normal, depending on age, other defects, such as trimming into the image or heavily faded colors, can reduce the value of a print considerably.

Quality of Impression
Prints taken early from a plate or woodblock are more precise and detailed in lines than later impressions. Depending on the technique, a block/plate is worn out after a certain amount of impressions. Hardly more than 2,000 impressions could be taken from a woodblock without a rather visible deterioration of quality. Look to the numbering (i.e., 15 / 450) to determine what place in the run the print had.

Size
Larger prints tend to cost more than smaller ones. This rule of thumb is less valid for older prints than for modern ones.

Provenance
Provenance, or the item痴 ownership history, can influence value. Prints from a famous collection will usually yield a premium.

Subject
Although a matter of opinion and personal taste, the subject of a print has a great influence on value. You値l pay more for cute animals, pretty women, nice landscapes, interesting portraits. Commercially non-appealing subjects are ugly, gloomy, or war-related, no matter how classically significant the work is. After all, it痴 being bought to put on the wall. People will pay more if they like the image.

In the end, it痴 your own opinion of the value of the print that matters the most. You値l be happiest with an art print that you personally like. Although art prints can sometimes be a good investment, the best way to get the most for your money is to enjoy it every day as it graces your home. The value of that? Priceless.

Add extra value to your art work - part one

There are several things that you might not have thought of, that add extra value to your artwork and can make it worth more money when you come to sell it. I'm not talking here about reworking pieces you feel haven't come up to scratch. Yes, it is sometimes possible to rescue a less than perfect watercolour by using a pen and ink technique, and you can paint right over parts of an oil or acrylic painting to in effect completely rework the area, but here I am talking about techniques that don't involve changing your artwork in any way.

Sometimes you only need to put a cardboard mount around a painting to bring it out of the doldrums, and there is no doubt that the right mount and frame can do wonders for a slightly mediocre piece of art. For a sculpture, or a piece of ceramics, the right stand and appropriate lighting can make a big difference to the way it displays, but after you've made sure that your artwork is being displayed to its best what else can you do to add to its worth?

The first and most important thing you should do is make sure that your artwork is signed legibly. It's surprising how many people forget to sign their art, but it makes a big difference to the buyer. A signed piece of work is worth more money than an unsigned one, and it doesn't matter whether you sign it on the front, at the top or bottom, within the composition, or even on the back, just as long as you sign it. If you have an illegible signature spare a thought for future generations trying to make out what it says and wondering whether they have a piece by a famous artist. The first thing almost everybody wants to know about any piece of artwork is who made it, what's the name of the artist. If it's unsigned it's almost as though you didn't rate it enough to put your name to it, and if you don't rate it no one else will either.

The second thing you need to do, in order to add value to your art, is to give it a title. Now, some people don't like titling their work because they feel that it pigeonholes it and in some way restricts the viewer to seeing it within a particular set of conceptual boundaries, so if you are one of these people then you should really consider calling it 'Untitled'. Even with the title that says 'Untitled', a piece of work is worth more money than if it doesn't have a title at all. Artwork without a title leaves the potential buyer wondering whether perhaps it had a title once that has been lost, it leaves the buyer with an unanswered question and means they are less likely to buy it and more likely to move on to another piece instead.

Along with the title, your artwork would benefit from a short explanation about it. The more a buyer knows about a piece of work the more likely they are to buy it. If you think about it by putting yourself in the buyer's shoes for a moment, if you're faced with two pieces of work which are similar and you like them both, but you know nothing about one and quite a lot about the other, which one would you buy? Of course you would be much more likely to buy a piece of artwork that had information about it, because you'd feel more involved with it, you'd understand something about its history and about the person that created it, so it has more meaning for you and you feel a connection with it right from the start.

The short explanation or description about your piece of art can say whatever you want it to, there are no rules, but it's useful to tell people either what it's about or what it means to you. One thing you don't want to do is tell people what it should mean to them, the viewer or buyer of your artwork wants to be able to decide for themselves what the piece means to them, and it doesn't matter if it's something entirely different from what it means to you.

Most people buying artwork do like to know what it was you meant as you created it, or what drove you to create the piece the way it is. This can mean telling them something about you, your thought processes as you were beginning and working through the piece, or maybe what was going on in your life at the time you were creating this piece of art. You might decide to tell them about something you'd seen or heard that affected you in a particular way and that prompted you to express something specific with this particular medium. You might be telling them that this particular piece of art is one of a collection from your 'blue period', or your 'impressionistic landscape period', or whatever.

If you don't really want to give this information away, then perhaps instead you could describe the medium you have used, the particular techniques you've employed in using this medium and even the length of time it took you to create the piece. Really any information you give about the piece is better than no information at all, and it doesn't matter whether the potential buyer understands your concept or not, it still makes it more attractive to them to know that there was an intention of one sort or another behind the original idea.

What Makes Art Valuable?

I read an amazing article by Grayson Perry entitled "How art appreciates - it's a class act". In a nutshell he reckoned that art finds its true monetary value from what the experts say. But I can see something more from what he says.

If a piece of art is to be labeled as having any "value" at all it is what is said about it that establishes it as a work worthy of an individuals attention.

In other words ... if you see a picture and it relates to you in some way (this can be either positively or negatively) - then you should say so ... and write it down.

So once one remark has been made then others will follow ... plus other people will look at the work and make their own minds up about it, and they will also read about what you have said ... and they will include your critique in their weighing up of the image.

I am not necessarily talking only about financial worth, no, here is a far greater opportunity which is all inclusive, wonderfully mutual, and offers the chance for anyone - and everyone ... to add to the worthiness of any piece of art - and eventually to the whole of society. What YOU have to say about a particular artwork is very important ... even vital not only to the work, or the artist, or that particular type of work, or to your locality, or to your region, or to your country ... but to the World! (I am referring here to the butterfly wing beat theory ... if you don't know about it then you must look it up ... it really puts value onto the individual within a world context ... fantastic - but I believe it's true).

Let's look at this in a bit more detail, first from the artist's point of view ...

If, when you exhibit your art, you value what people have to say about your work (and I don't mean if you want everyone to love everything you do otherwise you will sulk and withdraw into yourself), and are happy for observers to voice their opinion about it - make sure you have a visitors book easily available for any remarks to be made (remember ... even someone who only wants to deface the book is actually saying something about themselves - and their society ... and your work might be evoking a challenge to them so much that their only response can be a defensive one such as vandalism - therefore even this has a value in itself - and strangely actually places a value upon your work). These can have a use later on in publicity, and in some cases can be seen as endorsements for your style of work.

If you have a website then a well placed, easy to understand and use, guest-book or visitors book, or comments page are very useful reference points for you and your work. If visitors refer to a particular image then their critique might be worthy of adding to the page that the picture is on. That way other observers can get to read observations coming from different points of view. Of course, if a visitor does not want to be influenced - then they can just simply ignore anything that is written. However, others may well find such additional information from the "man-in-the-street" helpful to them as they try to assimilate what they see. What is written will be of far greater value to them - and to you the artist in may other areas too. And if you are trying to sell your work then a timely encouraging comment from a third party might persuade an otherwise hesitant buyer into making that sort after commitment.

Now from the visitors point of view ...

It is a truly wonderful thing to be "touched" by a piece of art in a gallery. When ever I have found myself slowly being drawn into a painting I immediately want to verbalize what I am receiving - I might want to shout or laugh loudly ... but more likely I would want to put down in writing a description of what I am seeing, what I am feeling, and what kind of inspiration I might begin to cultivate ... and what intention I might want to start getting in motion (which is why I always carry a notepad around with me).

So I would encourage, even exhort, the viewer not to just take a back step and move on to another picture. But rather I want them to commit their thoughts, frustrations, emotions, decisions, resolutions ... anything which has come directly from looking at a piece of art, commit these to paper - find the visitors book and, if necessary, fill it with your reactions to the work. By doing this the visitor is rightly placing themselves into the "experts" chair. So any thoughts and points of view are worthy of note. If you have a view on a piece of work then it should be heard.

It is the same - or should be - when visiting a website. In fact it can be easier to make an anonymous comment on the internet. A lot of sites give you the opportunity to make a comment without having to give your name, email address - or any information other than the words you want to type. So if you are that sort of person then don't be afraid but try to get into the habit of writing down your views. You might actually WANT to reveal who you are or put down your area of expertise ... be it the university professor or the "public highway hygiene technician" ... because what you say matters ... whoever you are.

What will happen here is that as comments are made and attached to a work others will read them and, having viewed the piece themselves, they will make their own point of view whether for or against other comments ... and the work will gain its own merit from what is said.

So while the top artists are busy vying for that hallowed multi-millionaire-and-totally-famous-artists kind of place - the rest of us can get on and work, and receive a much more valuable encouragement ... that of the humble, if not down-to-earth, endorsements from our fellow human beings.

Don't be afraid ... be truthful ... tell it like it is ... and watch what happens.