The Artist Author Notes

Behind the Scenes of an Artist, Author, Small Business & Traveler

Reviews & Tutorials Naomi VanDoren Reviews & Tutorials Naomi VanDoren

How to Design an ARTIST Portfolio Website

How to Design an ARTIST Portfolio Website As a professional artist, you need to have an online space that is yours to showcase your artwork and reflects your goals as an artist, illustrator or creative.

In this video I take you through some of the steps to set up a website and a few best practices in building an artist portfolio website.

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Writing Naomi VanDoren Writing Naomi VanDoren

Worldbuilding - Narrative

When we last left off in this worldbuilding series I shared a little of the "why" behind starting my own world.

Today I want to continue onto the how I found seeds of my story and started crafting a narrative. It's one thing to have a desire to create a world, to understand your "why" around building it, but many flounder while trying to find a concrete “something”  to attach their “why” to. This is where narrative and story come in.

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Writing Naomi VanDoren Writing Naomi VanDoren

Worldbuilding - Finding your "Why"

The word "worldbuilding" can feel a bit all-encompassing, depending on who you're talking to it can mean a whole set of different things. To me, worldbuilding means crafting a fictional world, including a cast of well-rounded characters, that is believable and inviting.

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Events Naomi VanDoren Events Naomi VanDoren

Traveling to Conventions by Airplane

Hi! I'm excited to share that I've written a guest blog post for the One Fantastic Week blog, a business and art focused community that I am apart of.

Since I share frequently my resources in how I run my business I think you will find this educational, especially if you are thinking about going to any sort of show or convention further away.

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Reviews & Tutorials, Travel Naomi VanDoren Reviews & Tutorials, Travel Naomi VanDoren

My Favorite Travel Art Supplies

Since the beginning, I've been creating artwork on the road. My first watercolor palette was a simple travel set I picked up on a whim. Travel and being able to work while mobile has shaped so much of my process and how I work I decided it was about time I create a list of some of my favorite supplies that I use on the road.

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Events Naomi VanDoren Events Naomi VanDoren

The Harvest Festival - Show Wrap-up

This fall I took on a whole new type of art show, The Harvest Festival, and I wanted to share a little bit of my experience with you.

As an independent artist that is building an audience and making a fair portion of my income from shows like this I think it's important to share my own takeaways in the hopes that someone else can learn from my experiences. If you follow my YouTube channel you already know that I'm fairly candid with the information I share and I hope to be able to bring that same kind of candor here to my blog as well.

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Events Naomi VanDoren Events Naomi VanDoren

Illuxcon 2017

This year was my third year attending one of my favorite art events of the year, Illuxcon.

Illuxcon is it's own kind of show. It's hard to describe because there are few shows that I've found that are similar to it. The best that I can do is use their own words. Illuxcon is:

A ground-breaking art show, symposium, and celebration dedicated solely to imaginative realism—bringing artists, students, collectors, and art fans together for an annual gathering intended to inspire and create further awareness and zeal for imaginative realism and all that’s encompassed in the realm of the fantastic.
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Events, Business & Marketing, Travel Naomi VanDoren Events, Business & Marketing, Travel Naomi VanDoren

Traveling to Conventions by Airplane

Growing up, we traveled and moved a lot as a family, packing our lives up into a handful of trunks to move between countries. This constant packing and unpacking has made me efficient at squeezing my life into a suitcase.

One of my early experiences traveling to a show was for an event while I was still living in Japan. At the time we didn't own a car, and my only option for getting there was public transportation.

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Travel Anson VanDoren Travel Anson VanDoren

Europe Day 4 – Rome

Today was the first day we really wished we had planned a bit better on this trip. We’ve intentionally kept this trip from becoming itinerary-driven by only planning out one day in advance. We wanted it to stay restful, and not always feel like we had to meet our next wicket. Today, though, we arrived at Saint Peter’s Basilica hoping to be able to attend Sunday Mass with the Pope only to find out a few things:

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