First I want to say Je suis désolée. It’s been two months of zero activity on this website. No promises that it won’t happen again but I am very determined finish this album. I can’t stress enough that it’s literally the album of a lifetime for me. I’m already done the next design and I’m currently working on the music video. I wanted to provide an update to the design playlist I made at the start of this album journey.
I’ve never been successful on the promotional side of this journey. I’ve had many low points but I know the reason behind the problems is me. I have three big issues: Fear of rejection, insecurity about the quality my “artwork”, and consistency. I really don’t have to get into the many things I tried to do to build an audience and make money with art or some other way to make money online. It’s been constant failures for a very long time. Now that I’m approaching the ten year mark in less than a month it really puts things in perspective. Sometimes I feel it’s insane to keep trying but I know if I can work on the three problems I mentioned above then maybe it’s possible to live a life in pursuit of endless color blends. I need to have more faith in myself. Be my own champion.
So… in saying that I’m going to try something else that I’ve been reading about for the last couple months and that’s NFTs. I think that’s perfect for me for many reasons that I could mention but it will make this blog post extremely long. If it’s not then I least I tried. I also haven’t had the best luck with marketing. At the moment, I feel I am in a better position to market my work better. I’m not dead broke like I was in 2015, when I spent every waking moment trying to build this website and was forced to stop because of the financial/living situation I was in. That could change at any time and that’s also a huge fear I have but if I can’t invest in myself then what’s the point in continuing the journey? I’ve dabbled in paid advertising and it always hurts when I feel like I’m wasting money but every experience is a learning experience. I have to look at things from a different angle. I am always trying to make this work for me. Even after all the failings, I’m still here and fighting. Maybe one day it will. I know this is more a personal battle of wills.
I’m past my initial deadline and by the looks of it the album won’t be out by second deadline either. I’m going to push for another date and that’s July 30th. I have 10 more designs to make and 11 music videos. If I stay focused it’s doable. During this time, I’m going to push myself to do something crazy. In 2015, I attempted a 30 day design challenge. It was very hard but it felt amazing at the end to be successful in completing the challenge. I’m going to try to do something similar. I want to test out making a different kind of speed art music video. I recently discovered it’s the computer that I have that’s the major problem. I always thought it was the screen resolution. I tested making my next design, Âge mûr with a bigger monitor and the quality of the video was still the same. Unless I upgrade my graphics card, my videos will always have standard quality and not look HD. So… I’m going to change things up. I have to make a break from the videos that I normally make for now. I’m willing to test things out even though I do love the style of my videos. Maybe this might not help but I’m curious to see if it does help change things. The videos are going to be shorter and I will use more static images featuring the design process. At the moment, I have no idea how it’s going to look but I’m playing around with some ideas.
So here’s my idea. I’m going to make 90 videos and publish them over a 90 day period. I’m also going to use paid advertising to help market my videos. It’s going to be a small budget. 10 dollars per video. Each video will feature a new design. I will feature my Paris Travel Series art album during this time. I plan to document the journey. If it’s successful, maybe it might help other artists struggling with promoting their work. I know this is going to be a huge undertaking but if I can do 30 days straight then I think I can do this.
I’ve been watching lots of videos to help me figure out the best strategy to help promote my work. I feel overwhelmed and all of it is just a discombobulated mess in my head. I’m going to stuck to what I love and that’s color. Worst case scenario, I added close to 100 new designs to my art portfolio and that’s not a bad thing! One of my first steps is to create a video animation template to follow for each video so it won’t take me too long to make each video.
That’s where I am at right now. My aim is to start this 90 design challenge on my ten year anniversary which is June 1st. I have 18 days to get a jump start on this challenge. Wish me luck!
Oh… the thumbnail features an alternate version of Âge mûr and Je suis de retour means I’m back in french. I hope the grammar is correct. I was thinking it could be Je retourne. One day I’ll be fluent! I know for sure that Je suis désolée is grammatically correct and that means I’m sorry. 😀