You asked to see my process...

It's about to get messy

I put out a poll a few weeks back both here and on YouTube asking what type of content you’d like to see more, and in both cases, the answers were eerily similar. The results were a good mix but the clear leader was more art process/experimental content. Ask and you shall receive… my first art process video in a while:

If you could do me a favor and make sure when you watch this on YouTube to give the video a thumbs up and maybe drop a comment. That would be very helpful, thank you.

Sidebar: During this video, I made an announcement that I’m giving away one art can to one (or maybe two 😉) person(s) who preorders a copy of Mag Bash before the end of April. You have 9 days left, don’t miss out!

---

The Finds

• What are the best spray caps for painting? (I ask myself this question far too often)

• Buzzfeed decides to shut down the most legitimate part of its business. I guess we’ll all just go back to taking quizzes about what kind of cheese fits we are.

• What is design thinking and how can it help you improve how people feel about your work?

• Beautiful Bizarre magazine recently opened its Artists Directory and it might be a good thing for you to check out.

• An art auctioneer pleads guilty to making and selling several fake Basquiat paintings and probably wouldn’t have been caught if he was a graphic designer (You’ll also probably only get the joke if you’re a designer).

• Let’s talk about Rejection.

• FEATURE: RedBubble announces new account tiers and fees that have artists fleeing the platform.

---

New in the Shop

One of my favorite things in the world is distressed typography. I know I'm not alone in this, so I'm sharing TEXTures, a digital asset pack filled with over 100 different typographic textures. Only $10 for a limited time.

---

Seeing Red

You may have read that bullet above about RedBubble and shrugged your shoulders, but every single artist/designer/creator that uses OPP (other people’s platforms) to make and sell their work should be concerned by this decision.

TL;DR: RedBubble wants you to pay for the privilege to use their platform, and perhaps now is the time to start your own print-on-demand business.

If you didn’t read the article, the gist is that RedBubble (probably under pressure by investors to increase revenue) is now separating the digital creators which use their platform into different tiers.

The lowest rung on the ladder is the Standard Tier which segregates new and underperforming (my term, not theirs) users from the Pro and Premium tiers. Those standard users will now be served with a percentage fee based on the number of sales.

Users can be upgraded to Premium or Pro by uploading regularly, sharing quality work, being active on the platform, adding social links, and reaching certain sales thresholds. I’ve added italics to all the things that Red Bubble does not precisely define, making their re-review process difficult to navigate.

SOURCE

The one item on that list above that is the biggest middle finger to its users is Driving direct, high-quality traffic to your RedBubble store (grammar corrected by me). One of the main reasons anyone might want to use RedBubble over other platforms is the site touts that they promote their artists more than their competition, and a good portion of the money they take from each order goes toward those promotional efforts.

RedBubble wants users to drive traffic or pay the price

This will not end here

It’s becoming clear to me that the era of free use of sites, apps, or platforms that we spend our time on is coming to an end. It seems like weekly we’re getting announcements from different corporations offering verified or premium tiers to their business models that take features away from users and give them only to those willing to pay for the privilege.

Other groups are raising prices quietly and expecting people to roll with the changes as the new status quo. As the ambivalence of users continues, more companies will see the opportunity to do the same.

What if instead, we refuse to pay for the privilege of making rich CEOs richer?

When you signed up for this newsletter, you had a chance to download my 7-Day Art Shop for free. That PDF isn’t just a no-nonsense way to help you start your own online shop simply. That booklet is your ticket to independence.

I’ve been operating my Shopify site for many years and I’ve been a partner with Printify for almost as long. Yes, I pay to use Shopify and I have upgraded my Printify account to the premium tier, and I would gladly pay more because these companies help me remain independent and not an indentured servant to any companies looking for ways to take more of my data, my money, and give little in return.

I use Substack and YouTube as my main content platforms, not because they're free (though that is a plus), but because they both give me the opportunity to generate revenue from that content, as opposed to other places that don’t pay creators for their hard work.

I implore you to take this moment seriously and recognize that it’s only the beginning. Just like we pay $11.99 a month for every single entertainment network on our Roku or AppleTV (while still getting served unskippable advertisements that seem to go on longer each time we log on) we will eventually pay for every service we want to use on the internet.

Let’s take this opportunity to devote our time and energy to sites and services with a vested interest in our success. Instead of being forced to promote our work on some company’s platform in order to meet their qualifications, we will promote to our fans and collectors to make sales directly from our shop.

Declare your independence and start something today! Comment below and share your declaration.

---

That’s going to do it for this one.

See you next time.

Extra

9 Days and Counting!

---

*This publication is an affiliate partner with and not directly sponsored by Shopify, Envato, Printify, and others. I am a loyal customer of all these services and would recommend them to my grandmother!