Latest updates…

Posted October 2, 2013 by Hannah West

It’s so hard to keep this site updated when there are so many interesting (and challenging!) projects to tend to, so here’s a quick recap of a few of the things I’ve been working on.

"Master Wave," oil on canvas painting of a large wave breaking on the shore by Boni de Laire — “Master Wave,” oil on canvas by Boni de Laire

"Still Life with Red Oriental Poppies," oil on canvas by Billye Woodford — “Still Life with Red Oriental Poppies,” oil on canvas by Billye Woodford

Just after I finished the restoration of a site for Medford artist Boni de Laire, she referred another wonderful painter to me, Billye Woodford from Rogue River, Oregon. I have just finished her site, too. They’re both beautiful, and filled with lovely artwork – representational landscapes are Boni’s focus, and while Billye creates beautiful landscapes as well, she also ventures into florals, portraits and more. Please visit www.bonidelaire.net and www.billyewoodford.com today!

While I was finishing up Billye’s site, another interesting job came my way – a website for a contestant in the upcoming Miss Oregon pageant, Priyanka Samra. Born in Canada and raised in Medford Oregon, Priyanka is a college student in California majoring in pre-med. She’ll gradute at the end of the current school year. She’s also incredibly beautiful and has been modeling since she was 14 – with a special love for the runway. She’s going to be teaching runway lessons to other models to raise funds for her favorite charities – Unique Home for Girls in India, where girls who have been abandoned are given a home, education and a future under the loving guardianship of

their adopted mother Prakash Kaur, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), specifically for their important work on depression. Please visit www.priyankasamra.com to learn more and see the modeling shots in her portfolio gallery…and root for her to win Miss Oregon 2014! She wanted a site based on her friend Mabelynn’s. Mabelynn won the Miss California pageant in 2012 and her site is pretty sleek, so I went for it. As pretty as Mabelynn is, I think Priyanka’s exotic East Indian look, movie-star glamorous yet not excessively sexy, makes her site the winner. Follow her for news on the Miss Oregon pageant, which happens in November.

"Sunrise on the Rhine," mixed media on canvas by artist Christina Madden depicting a castle on the Rhine River in Europe — “Sunrise on the Rhine,” mixed media on canvas by artist Christina Madden

A couple of my artist clients have added new paintings to their websites recently.

Christina Madden paints in oil, acrylic and mixed media; her range of style and subject is quite broad, but recently she’s been refining her style to make it all her own. And is it ever! Her colorful abstract impressionist landscapes are so vibrant and full of life, like nothing else I’ve seen. We’ve also been working to improve the SEO value of her site and making progress. Help her gain better online visibility! Visit her website and feast your eyes on artist Christina Madden‘s colorful world! If you find yourself in Ashland, Oregon during October 2013, stop in at Art & Soul gallery to see a major show of her paintings. She sold ten paintings in recent months, so she had to work very hard to paint new pieces so she would have enough for her show, and they’re magnificent! Meet the artist at a reception on Friday, October 4 during the Ashland First Friday Art Walk.

"Boss," oil on wood by Eugenia Talbott of Talbott Studios — “Boss,” oil on wood by Eugenia Talbott of Talbott Studios

Artist Eugenia Talbot is an amazing woman, and she just had two shows here in southern Oregon – one at the Berryman Gallery (above the Craterian Theater in Medford) in conjunction with the production of Tarzan there in early September. At the same time I had her work hanging at the GoodBean Cafe in Jacksonville for a one month exhibition that got huge numbers of compliments! I didn’t design her site, but she brought me on for maintenance and updates, as well as to upgrade its SEO value. Once again I appeal to what readers I may have to help increase her online visibility by visiting her Talbott Studios website and take some time to look around. You won’t be disappointed – African wildlife, horses and pet portraits, portraits of people and more await you there!

Susan DeRosa art show card for South Stage Cellars show, September 2013

Oh, and you must see the art show card that Jacksonville artist Susan DeRosa had me make for her debut southern Oregon show (she moved here recently from Arkansas, where she lived for a time after retiring from her career as an art educator in California universities). She is such an amazing talent, I’m glad she now has time to continue refining her own work rather now that she’s done her time teaching others! Her show at South Stage Cellars was such a success, she sold a painting at the opening reception and so many people came that she started crying with gratitude when telling me how she felt about it.

This reminds me of the art show catalog I did recently, but I haven’t had a chance to scan it so I’ll have to post that later.

Apologies to the awesome folks at GMO Free Jackson County for not having time to have them with a project they contacted me about. Please visit their website and lend your support – they working hard to protect Oregon’s organic agriculture legacy. It’s like swimming upstream, there’s so much to do and so much resistance from the likes of Monsanto and Syngenta.

Well, there’s still more, but I’ve run out of time and have to get back to work, so please return another time to see if I’ve had a chance to write more about the fabulous projects I’m involved in now, and what my wonderful clients have for me next! Spoiler alert…looks like a new site and SEO help for Daljit Samra (Name sounds familiar? Yes, that’s Priyanka’s mom!) of the Rogue Valley Inn and possibly some modifications to a fantastic high end fashion site in New York, as well as adding video content to singer/songwriter Christina Duane’s nonprofit websites, Romancing the West and Oh Oregon Frontier Park when she returns from her current tour! Oh, right, I haven’t written about the pleasure of starting to work with Christina yet, have I? Well, we’ll have to tackle that next time…Thanks for stopping by and come back again soon!

Photoshop Workshop Coming up August 12!

Posted July 26, 2013 by Hannah West

Having trouble preparing images of your art for submission to art shows & print media? Artist Norm Rossignol told me about some challenges he’d been having, and after we got that all worked out, he suggested that I offer another workshop as there are still many artists in the Rogue Valley having problems editing their images effectively. I agreed, and we decided on a maximum of 10 participants. I will do my best to accommodate any overflow; if very many more than 10 people desire to register, I’ll add a second date.

Let me show you how to adjust your photos in Photoshop/Elements so you can submit images that show your art at its best! Understanding web vs. print resolution and how to change them, resizing and changing canvas size as opposed to image size, metadata and more… There will be plenty of helpful information for everyone. If you want to do some practicing as I demonstrate, bring your laptop, but you can still take notes that will help you when you get home to your PC.

Please plan to join me on Monday, August 12 from 1-3pm

Fee: $35 per participant

Location: Hannah West Design, LLC, Jacksonville

No prior experience required, but it will be most helpful if you do know how to find, open and find your way around Photoshop or Photoshop Elements without too much assistance.

For more info & to register, contact Hannah at 541.899.2012 or soar@soartists.com or Norm Rossignol at normrossignol@yahoo.com. My availability will be limited now through July 31, and I will be out of my office from August 1 through 4. If you can’t reach me, please contact Norm.

How Natasha Wescoat Rocked Her Online Art Sales

Posted July 14, 2013 by Hannah West

Great advice from a successful artist. If you haven’t checked out the Artsy Shark blog yet, it’s a terrific resource for artists that’s well worth your time. That’s where I found this very informative and encouraging article…and a whole lot more!

What makes this prolific artist such a sales superstar? Guest blogger Natasha Wescoat shares her secrets.

A well-rounded web presence is an essential part of your art business and brand if you want to sell online. Like any brick and mortar gallery, it’s the collector’s main source to the artist and stands as an authority and representation of you across the web.

In 2004, I began selling my art online through auction websites and established a presence through the social networking blog Livejournal. I then started my own website, which has evolved over the years through trial and error. I’ve found the keys to a successful website.

Simple Design

As an artist, your work should be representing itself. There is no need for fancy design or flashy colors. It should remain clean and simple, either in black, white or neutral colors. You want your art as the shining attraction here! Stay away from moving images or flash, noisy fonts or images that have nothing to do with your artwork.

Content is King

As always, with any site, the information and content you use is vital not only to driving traffic, but to inform your collectors and potential clients. You want to have all they need to learn about you, the artist, about your work and also most importantly, what you are offering THEM.

IMPORTANT PAGES TO HAVE ON YOUR WEBSITE:

About: This page is dedicated to describing you and your work. Your biography, artist statement and resume can go here as well as pictures of yourself (especially creating the work!) or if you remain a private person, some clever childhood photo of yourself for example. Make sure you have written a well thought out biography and statement. This can take time but is the foundation of your career.

Gallery/Portfolio: Whether you place them directly on your site (which I recommend) or you link to another site (Flickr, Imagekind or Photobucket, etc.) there should be easy access to look at your work! Be sure to include any past collections of art, present work, available work or projects you have done. Always add descriptions or captions on the art, along with a copyright statement and even links to where they could purchase it, if elsewhere on the web.

News/Updates: This page posts the latest news on your upcoming projects, events or sales. You could even connect your blog to this as blogs are a great way of updating people. Always announce stuff you plan to do, have organized to do and even the sales you want to put on. Create anticipation for your buyers and fans.

Contact: Make yourself as available and accessible as you can. Not only would it be good to provide your contact information here, but also include the information across the other pages of your site.

Links/Shop: Make sure you have posted links to every social network, online shop, print company, licensee, etc. that you use or who sells your work. This provides verification that those sites are really you and they help people find those other sites. You’d be amazed at how little your fans know about other websites or even what you’re doing.

Keywords and Linking

When writing the content for your site, from your bio to the descriptions of artwork, it’s vital to understand how keywords and SEO works. You want to make sure your content is full of the keywords that describe you and your art, so that when people search for art like yours on the web, your site is the one that comes up! Also, linking to other pages in your site from another page is important. Some people need a bit more help in navigating websites and can’t always understand or find something, no matter how easy you make it.

An example of what I mean: My About page, I may write a sentence that says, “For more info, contact Natasha…” The word “contact” could be linked to the contact page or even directly to my email address.

Featuring Specials

If you are offering a sale, running a new club, or joined a new social network, you should highlight that somewhere on the front page. If you can, create a banner or box that advertises this and link so they can go to it.

Social Networking

A website is not complete without its supporting character – the social network. Whether you use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or MySpace, those sites will help create even more traffic to your main site. If you want to be a successful artist selling your work online, you really shouldn’t attempt a business without it.

Social Networking provides:

Connection with your collectors and clients
Adds humanity to your work
Adds value to your art career
Helps you build a fan base
Creates more opportunities for sales

Over the years, through discussions and making friends, I’ve found business opportunities. You can’t force it, but you should develop a reputation as a person as well as an artist. Make friends and new connections. Add value to their life. See how you can help or promote them. Don’t always blast or broadcast what you do or sell. No one responds to that. Learn what your collectors want. What they like. Who they are. Connect.

I’ve found this to be one of the most complex but important parts of a successful art business. Without it, you don’t really have much. It’s important to research and develop your social media strategy, your execution plan and how to use it. It’s the most affordable way to promote and advertise yourself. It took me many years, but because I already loved to learn about the web and adopted technology all the time, it just became part of what I do.

Be Present

And last but not least, make an effort to attend conferences, art shows, expos or fairs that are local and national. Find ways to connect with your fans, your artist friends and potential business opportunities in person. It’s always valuable to add a face to the profile. Online is not always enough, though it will be biggest part of your business. Offline events are still vital and beneficial to your art career.

Don’t miss Judy Elliott’s Dragonfly Designs West show at the GoodBean!

Posted May 28, 2013 by Hannah West

Note: I just started working with Judy Elliott of Dragonfly Designs West to take over the maintenance on her existing website, an exciting development that follows a year of getting to know her. I’m posting an edited version of the article we submitted to the Jacksonville Review to promote her current show at the GoodBean Cafe in Jacksonville to tell you more about her. This show comes down Friday afternoon (May 31), so be sure to stop in before the end of the month…and again after the first, when we will not only have a new featured artist on display, but one of Judy’s new large wall hangings will be installed on the rafter where the koi are now! I’ll post a link to Judy’s website once it’s been updated (www.yourkimono.com), and more on the projects I worked on last month once we’ve finished wrapping them up. ~ Hannah West

“Calla Lilly with Frog and Gadflies” Wall Hanging

GoodBean owner Mary Kell and art curator Hannah West of Art Presence fell in love with the hand-painted silk creations from Judy Elliott’s Dragonfly Designs West last summer, featuring a handsewn kimono in the guest artist spot above the coffee counter and a spectacular hand-painted black and red hibiscus wall hanging that fluttered delicately above our heads when we opened the front doors. Judy didn’t have much work to share at that time since she was also exhibiting at Jacksonville Celebrates the Arts. She sold nearly all her inventory at the festival, became a member of Art Presence and the Southern Oregon Artists Resource, and we were so impressed we invited her to return the following spring for a featured exhibition.

Judy has since gotten married, moved into a new home, started a new career and painted a lot of silk ~ you’ll be treated to an array of stunning pieces that will make memorable gifts for someone special – or for yourself! – if you come in the cafe for a cup of something warm (for chilly spring days) or cold (for hot spring days – we’ve had plenty of both this year!). Along with handsewn cotton kimonos and Happi (pronounced “hoppy”) coats with authentic Japanese prints, hand-painted silk scarves, handheld fans and wall hangings, we can also expect to see hand-painted paper Japanese-style umbrellas!

Handsewn Happi (pronounced “hoppy”) coats with handpainted silk fan, on display now at the GoodBean in Jacksonville.

Hand sewn kimono by Judy Elliott

Judy shares a glimpse into her past and highlights of the process behind her creations:
“Growing up in Hawaii, I absorbed the tastes and cultures of the Islands. My father, a photographer, blessed me with an artistic eye for exotic colors and shapes. Early on I developed an interest in Japanese fashion and design, particularly the Kimono and Happi (pronounced “Hoppi”) Coat, which I often wore as a child while dancing.

“In 1991 I brought these passions with me to Oregon. To expand on the skills I developed while attending interior design school in Hawaii, I began offering hand-painted silk scarves, wall hangings, and mid-length kimoros, often worn as a robe. Now I frequently receive commissions to create custom pieces to wear or to decorate a home or office.
“My line of kimonos are made from Japanese and Hawaiian printed polished cotton. I’ve found that cotton is a far more comfortable choice of fabric for everyday wear, and the variety of prints are more accessible.

Judy paints a silk wall hanging.

“Silk comes from the silk worm and is spun into threads to weave into various items. While visiting a silk carpet manufacturing facility in Turkey, I learned more about how the threads are formed and used. While silk appears to be a very delicate fabric, it is actually very strong and durable. Silk is a unique item to paint on and requires trial and error before beginning the process. I enjoy working with silk, experimenting with new ways to use it. Some of my hand-painted scarves and wall hangings are outlined with gutta, a rubberized substance that prevents the dye from traveling from one section of the scarf to another. Some of my newer scarves are painted with dye and wax, accented with the use of salt to create beautiful effects. Each scarf must be heat-set after a four day process to prevent colors from bleeding. They can then be handwashed with a mild fabric soap.”

Hand painted silk scarves by Judy Elliott on display at the GoodBean

Though she didn’t get the Mother’s Day sales I expected with all those colorful and beautifully hand painted silk scarves on display, Judy has had a very successful show, selling two gorgeous kimonos (including the one pictured above) with magnificent Japanese crane prints to one enthusiastic buyer last week! Better check out those scarves before they’re gone…

When I asked Mary how she liked what Judy had done with her exhibition, she said “I feel so fortunate! Not everyone has beautiful art like this in their business!” A known mermaid who loves spending time by the ocean, it’s no surprise that Mary finds this show close to her heart. I’ll have to bring her to the reception for the Art Presence show in June, as Judy will be exhibiting two works not seen at the GoodBean now as part of the “Coastal, By the Sea” show of member works.

“Koi” handpainted silk wall hanging by Judy Elliott

“Koi” (reverse) swimming…overhead?!

This is a wonderfully colorful show with graceful designs that create a lovely ambience in the GoodBean’s cafe ~ please enjoy it enjoy while there’s still time as it comes down at the end of this month. If you miss it though, all is not lost, to calm her wedding day nerves, Judy created another spectacular wall hanging called “Tropical Splendor” which will replace the one pictured on the left.

Site Update for Artist Christina Madden!

Posted May 9, 2013 by Hannah West

I’m so grateful to have had artist Christina Madden come to me for help bringing more visitors to her website!

La Casa, oil painting by Christina Madden

The first thing we did was to add metadata to all the images of her art, both for security’s sake and to help promote her art. While the metadata contained within an image is not readable by search engines, it’s essential to have it in place in the event that it, through resharing, it becomes separated from any link to the artist’s website or other contact information. It’s always an option to lock down an image so it cannot be separated from the website where it appears, but then people can’t help you promote your work by sharing, so this way anyone can open the image in Photoshop, access the File Info, and see the artist’s website address so they can see more of their work, find their email and other contact information, and learn more about the artist. Christina’s choice was to allow her images to be shared, so the metadata was a must. This also saves time when adding images to social networks, as the most critical of the meta information – the artist’s copyright – will now be “exposed”, along with the title and description so it does not have to be retyped in. This also makes the metadata available to the search engines, an added bonus and a good reason to take the time to place this information in each image. And What a joy to work with the images of her beautiful oil paintings!

Next we added metadata keywords and descriptions to her pages for the search engines to gobble up, and AddThis sharing tools to her website to encourage visitors to share her pages. We also added a sitemap and Google analytics tracking code to her site and, though the site has been online for some time, submitted it to the search engines as this had not been done previously. In the process I saw that the code on her site was very outdated, and began the process of bringing it a bit more up to speed so it will be more search engine friendly. Completing this task for the entire site will take longer and we plan to take it a little at a time; we also will add proper text with keywords to the “Alt” field in her images.

Morning at Touvelle Park, oil painting by Christina Madden

Christina had started a professional artist page on Facebook but hadn’t completed the setup, so we added a selection of paintings to her page and began promoting it. While working on this, she completed two new paintings, which we added to her website and Facebook page. Boy did they get a lot of attention! Over 200 views for one painting and almost 350 for the other, plus lots of wonderful comments! She’s up to 38 likes now, but it still needs some love, so why not visit and add your own like to her page?! https://www.facebook.com/artistchristinamadden

We began working on March 5 and completed this round on April 21. Currently Christina’s site is appearing in search results on Bing/Yahoo 94% more frequently than it did before, with a 200% increase in clicks from those search result pages, and all but 5 of her pages have been properly indexed by Google. Christina can now view traffic analytics for her site through her Google account and sharing analytics through her new AddThis account. In the past month (April 8 – May 8), she has welcomed 55 visitors to her site, who viewed 266 pages, and average of nearly 5 pages per visit! This represents an 89.66% increase in visitors over the previous month, a 48.6% increase in page views, and, though the total number of pages per visit is down a little, and increase in time spent on her website of 79.5%!

In addition we can see that , although most of her visitors are coming from her home territory of southern Oregon, people from 8 different countries have come to visit since we began working. Sharing has not been intense, nor has anything gone viral just yet, but 5 shares, up from zero ability to share, is promising, and we can see that all the shares so far have been to Facebook. As these results show, search engine optimization, even if not complete, can immediately and dramatically change the visitor frequency and patterns to your website, and the ability to view and analyze these stats is very helpful to gauge how much the work you have put into optimizing your site is helping to increase traffic and sharing.

A New Website for Artist Norm Rossignol!

Posted May 9, 2013 by Hannah West

Water Lily, watercolor painting by Norm Rossignol

I am delighted to have finished a website for Norm Rossignol at www.normrossignolart.com! I was already acquainted with Norm as he had a listing on www.soartists.com, the site I created to promote the art community of southern Oregon, and am happy to know him much better after meeting with him and working on his website. It’s amazing how much this endeavor can show you about a person – some clients have even said they learned much they didn’t know about themselves through the process!

Norm is a plein air painter, which means he paints outdoors, on location. He is very supportive of his fellow plein air artists, to the point that he co-founded the Plein Air Society of Southern Oregon (or PASSO) to enourage and coordinate regular paintings sessions “en plein air” with both new and experienced artists. His watercolors are beautiful, and he has taught watercolor painting at ScrappyCraft in Phoenix, Oregon for the past three years. He’s now taking a break from teaching and watercolors to renew his focus on another love – pastels – and they are just stunning! He is also a member of the Watercolor Society of Oregon and The Pastel Society of Oregon, and the Southern Oregon Society of Artists, as well as additional plein air-focused groups.

Bluebell Woods, pastel painting by Norm Rossignol

Norm is a kind, energetic and engaging man. I can see why his classes were popular! His wife is an avid horsewoman and he enjoys videotaping her weekly riding lessons on Gabriel, her handsome Haflinger. He’s not timid when it comes to trying new things, something I learned when he dived in almost immediately to create his first post his his brand new blog! I hope everyone in the SO art community and all who love plein air painting and landscapes will follow his blog as it promises to be entertaining and informative, not to mention lovely, as I’m sure he will illustrate his posts with images of his work.

Norm was kind enough to write this recommendation for me, which I just received this morning:

Wanting my very own web site seemed so daunting to me that I put it off for years. I envied those who had a site and maintained it on their own. Then there’s the need to ensure your images are protected properly from being copied.

Hannah West has been managing SOAR for some time now and I have seen that site do wonderful things for artists. One of the things that stood out from Hannah’s work is “She has your back.” Not only builds a beautiful site but all your work is safe. Another feature I needed was a Point and Shoot style operation and Hannah has a designed system that is just that easy. Most webmasters can build a web site that is just fine, but a web site made especially for artists is another matter. Hannah being an artist herself has that insight needed to develop a tasteful and easy site to display and use. I am most grateful to Hannah for her hard work and dedication to developing my site.

Easy operation
Attractive presentation
Custom built for your needs
Easy maintenance
Safe from piracy
Something to be proud of
What more could you want?

Sincerely Norm Rossignol
Normrossignolart.com

Updated Workshop Schedule for March/April

Posted March 25, 2013 by Hannah West

Hannah West Design logo I’ve updated the workshop schedule for this week, with a partial schedule for April. It’s up on the workshop calendar now: If you have any requests, please contact me with the workshop you want and the day/time you want it. I’ll do my very best to accommodate your schedule so you can acquire these important skills artists need to promote their work in the 21st century! See this post for more information and pricing for the workshops.

Essentially what we have is 3 instances of the introduction to Blogging for Artists with Existing WordPress sites (on Friday March 29, Saturday March 30 and Saturday April 6), followed by Friday morning and Saturday afternoon practice sessions that you can drop in on as necessary (with advance notice, of course!). I have also scheduled a couple of Introduction to Image Editing for Beginners workshops, with an ongoing Thursday morning practice session you can also participate in as needed.

These ongoing practice sessions have been repeated indefinitely at the request of participants who felt that the ability to come in two or more times per month for supervised practice and answers to the questions that inevitably arise when developing a new skill would help them to recall the steps more effectively.

I have also tucked in a Using Social Media to Promote Your Art workshop on Friday March 29 at 10am and a Basic Computer Skills class on April 3.

This round of workshops are all $35.00. Please register in advance so I’ll know how many artists to expect! (you can just contact me to confirm that you’ll attend)

Thanks to all who have participated and expressed interest so far!! As always, if the schedule does not seem to fit in with your own, please contact me to arrange a private session or to schedule a new date/time for the workshop you need.

How to prevent email spam when putting your email address in your website

Posted March 18, 2013 by Hannah West

I’m a web designer who created and manages a fairly large and well-visited directory website promoting the art community in my region, the Southern Oregon Artists Resource, and its companion blog, Art Matters!. Both sites, but particularly the directory site, have a lot of other people’s email addresses in each page, and from the outset I wanted to protect them by obfuscating their email addresses. I use a script written by James Crooke for this, and use a plugin called “emOba” (for “email obfuscator”) in the WordPress sites I build. Of course, making sure you pay the extra little bit for domain privacy when setting up your website’s domain name is also extremely helpful, and I recommend doing both to protect your identity and reduce the time it takes to manage your inbox.

If you’d like to try the technique I use at soartists.com, first copy this chunk of code and place it in the <head> section of your page:
<script language=”JavaScript” type=”text/javascript”>
// Script Originally by SSI Developer (www.ssi-developer.net)
// Modified by James Crooke of CJ Website Design (www.cj-design.com)

function protectmail(name, address, link, subject, body) {

document.write(“<a href=’mailto:” + name + “@” + address + “?subject=” + subject + “&body=” + body + “‘>” + link + “</a>”);

}
</script>

Then, in the part of the code corresponding to where you would like the email link to appear in your page, place this chunk of code, edited to reflect your own email address and without the line breaks you see here:
<script language=”JavaScript” type=”text/javascript”>protectmail(“webmistress”,”hannahwestdesign.com”, “Click here to email”, “RE: I found you at the Southern Oregon Artists Resource and wanted to ask a question”, “Hello Hannah,”);</script>

You can see there is no “@” in the email address, the key feature that tips off the spambots to an address they should harvest. It also gives you the opportunity (as addressmunger does) to put custom text for the link, custom text in the subject line and a greeting in the body of the email that will pop up when a visitor to your site clicks the link.

There is another service online called addressmunger.com. Nice service, very similar technique, and easy to use for those who want to generate some code to use, but as a web designer who is also concerned about the amount of code in a page that is not readable by good web bots (like Google’s) I think it’s a little code-heavy.

Workshop Update – Week One Feedback

Posted March 9, 2013 by Hannah West

The first few workshops in my new roster (image editing & working with WordPress, both for beginners) have gone sooo well this week! I’m getting great feedback on the quantity of information I’m offering, patient and effective instruction, value of the information presented for the price, and even my teaching style. It’s so rewarding to see artists move from apprehension and self-doubt to having fun using their newly acquired skills so quickly, and I’m proud of the progress last week’s participants have already made. Check out my calendar for current workshop dates and, whether you plan to DIY or need to feel more confident when dealing with your own webmaster, let me help you take control of your online presence!

By request of two of last week’s participants, I’m announcing that the Image Editing Practice Session for Beginners has been extended to include two dates each month indefinitely, on Thursdays from 10am – 12:30pm. Those who need help with their image editing skills can drop in for a practice session whenever they can, or join the two current participants for a weekly session where supervised practice will hone your skills and help commit them to memory. I will be happy to add an additional ongoing practice session where you can bring your questions, learn more, and practice your image editing skills with me there to help you on a different day/time, as I’ve heard from several artists who can’t make it on a Thursday.

Please email me or use Doodle to request a new date and/or time and I’ll add it to my calendar.