Featured Artist

We all want to know what sells and how to sell it. I asked Zanne Bezuidenhoudt. Zanne suggested that I select two WSSA artists who are also successful in marketing what they paint.

I selected two very different people: Ian Warden and Ingrid Kolzing, both passionate watercolourists and both Associates of the WSSA.

Ian grew up in the then Rhodesia, where he '"fiddled about'" with arts and crafts, and, it seems, with marketing as he sold some of his thread drawings. Nevertheless, teachers discouraged him - "you're useless at that'", so he gave it up.

Ian's career and life progressed, leading him to Johannesburg and success as an insurance broker. About ten years ago while travelling in India, acquired a six-colour watercolour set….and so it began, the travels into watercolour art to today's destination of passion for the medium. A few years later Ian's wife Thandi gave him a watercolour course with Dale Elliot as a gift. Dale encouraged Ian - "keep up your art or I'll kick your b*m!"

At the same time another well known watercolour artist told Ian '"don't give up your day job'". Well, perhaps that's because it's darned difficult to make a living out of art, and watercolour art in particular. Ian then signed up for classes with Sue Kemp, who became his mentor.

Driven to market his work, Ian persuaded a popular Bryanston coffee shop to display some of his small watercolours, which were priced very attractively ('"one would NEVER call them cheap'"). Several sold. Encouraged, Ian visited framing shops and took over old frames left over from re-framing jobs. He also took over off-cuts of frames, and so was able to cut his framing costs considerably in these early days.

Soon Ian decided to do a road trip. He loaded over 40 paintings in his car and visited about the same amount of galleries in the western Cape. He got into half a dozen galleries and still supplies them, plus two more in KZN and one in Johannesburg.

Ian also sells from his studio, relies a lot on word of mouth and has two website pages - one with Mulberry Studio in MacGregor and one with Bela Studio Gallery.

Ian's philosophy is that you have to keep selling all the time, but in a gentle way. He never over-markets. An example of this is that he always mentions that he is an artist and hands out his business card. It is his way of inviting people to come to him, and not pushing them into anything.

Keep a mailing list. E-mails do work, provided you don't overdo it and bother people.
Tell people you meet what you do and invite them to buy.
Keep records of people who buy from you, photos of every painting you paint, and details of price and date etc., of each sale you make too.

Photo: Ingrid with '"Broer Willem'", which won best on show at the 2009 Grand Prix Exhibition.

Ingrid is so different from Ian - except in her passion for her watercolour art.

When it comes to marketing, Ingrid enjoys her feeling of fulfilment in selling a painting to someone who falls in love with it. In fact, for Ingrid, selling a painting is such a personal thing that she does not deal through galleries at all, preferring that each sale is personal and that she gets to meet the purchaser. I got the feeling that she does not sell her paintings so much as allow them to be adopted, with love.

When Ingrid started painting she gave up everything else and focussed on it totally, with huge support from her wonderful husband and family.

Soon she had enough paintings to have an exhibition, so she set aside a weekend, exhibited her work in her home, and invited close friends. A gallery owner in Pretoria had told Ingrid that '"the first people to buy your work will be family and friends'".

It was a great success, and other friends who heard about it asked to be included next time and so the group grew and grew over twelve years to the present. Each year the Ingrid Kolzing art exhibition takes place and Ingrid exhibits probably 60 to 70 works and sells over half of these and accepts several commissions too.

The exhibition takes place in the Kolzing family home at Hartbeestpoort over a weekend, starting with an opening with music and drinks and snacks. Ingrid's husband, an engineer, has designed and made a suitable lighting and display system and the lounge and living areas are temporarily converted into a lovely gallery.

Ingrid has a similar marketing approach to Ian in respect to her database, which she keeps up to date - .photos, buyer details, prices, etc. She says her art is a business, but it is a very personal business.

Presentation is very important.
In the beginning she sold her work mounted only but as time went on she framed everything, sometimes re-using frames if a work did not sell.
Take yourself seriously!
Focus, believe in yourself and keep working at it.
It's a job of work, not just something to do when the mood takes you.