DJ Geribo

My friend Kitty, who lives in Montana, is also an artist. We often discuss things that inspire us, where we are going with our art, and often what we are doing wrong with our art that is preventing us from getting more sales. So when she saw this free webinar from Northlight books she told me about it and today I watched it from my studio.

Rachel Rubin Wood, the editor of the Splash watercolor book series, explained the guidelines for getting accepted into the Splash books. Number 16 is currently open to submissions and one of the former participants and winner of a variety of awards over the years, Soon Young Warren, was a guest speaker as well. Rachel showed two paintings side-by-side, one that was not accepted into one of the Splash books and one that was accepted. She pointed out the reasons for their acceptance and then gave some tips about what she looks for when she selects a painting for each Splash book. She looks for the "WOW" in a painting, it should mean something to you and tell a story. Find a way to make your art jump off the canvas and have as much impact on those who are looking at it as it did for you when you decided to paint it.

Other suggestions are obvious - following the guidelines a publisher recommends to make their job as easy as possible to decide if your painting is the right choice. Rachel mentioned how some images, no matter how hard she tries, cannot be opened. This is a no-brainer. Make sure you can open the image before you send it off. It would be a shame to have a beautiful piece of artwork that is possibly worthy of a place in the Splash series, for example, rejected simply because the editor could not open the image.