Imagekind Blog | Buy, Sell, Create and Discuss Art

Joe Barrouk, the founder of A Singular Creation, shares his insights into why he does, what he does. He is passionate about art and providing tools, resources and a community to share those with others. A Singular Creation includes a place for “art contests and competitions, call for entries, juried art exhibitions, art events, art workshops and classes, art shows, fairs and festivals and other opportunities for artists and photographers. We also have several options for artists, galleries and art businesses to submit an art related announcement of any kind.” Continue reading to see what drives Joe and A Singular Creation to keep going.

Image: Dawn of the Trees by Carmen Cordelia
http://ccordelia.imagekind.com

Why do you do this? Because I love art. That is the reason. Many people ask why I do what I do – why I spend so much time building a free site for artists with no plans of ever charging any fees. I tell them I do it because I can. I do it because someone should, because it needs to be done. Some other art sites out there ask me: Well how do you make money? My answer is: I don’t. This site is not about making money. It’s about building a community where artists can collaborate with other artists, get advice, learn, show their art, find opportunities, have fun and get to know other artists. That’s it. No strings. Don’t you wish everything could be that simple?

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Imagekind’s First Moments Contest

How many times have you recounted baby’s first steps or junior’s first day of school to family and friends? They are stories that you love to tell, right? And we’re sure you have photos to prove it.

Now you can capture and share those precious memories with Imagekind’s Story Frames. Between now and March 15th, Imagekind invites you to send 2 or 3 digital photos of your child’s “firsts” - first day of school, baby’s first bites, first trip to the beach, first time meeting Grandma, that together tell a great story. It could be a collection of different “firsts” or a few shots of one great moment. We’ll choose four lucky winners whose photos tell the best story to receive a custom Story Frame worth $100. To enter, simply email us your digital photos along with a brief explanation to firstmoments@imagekind.com

Send in Your Photos

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Image: Seattle at Night by Rick Takagi

What?!?! You’re in Seattle and say you’re bored this weekend?!?

In our ever-increasing-attempt to build a genuine arts community we want to try and bring you useful and interesting news and events. We are starting out with just our little home town for now but we hope to soon expand our gaze and reach to bring you info from wherever our members might reside. If it’s another city, state or, yes, even country, we would love to hear about it! So, post a link or let us know!

Read on to see some pretty amazing things happening around the Seattle art scene. All of these were compiled by our newest team member here at Imagekind, our intern Grace! You will probably be hearing more from her in the coming weeks, so take the chance now to say hello!

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Congratulations to artist Lisa Willis for submitting the wining entry to Imagekind’s “Create your Heart Out” art contest. Her image, All You Need is Love, was selected to be featured in Imagekind’s Valentines Day promo email. You can check out all the amazing submissions at the Imagekind forum. Thank you to all the artists who entered their work!

If you missed the promo email, make sure you subscribe to the Imagekind newsletter to ensure you receive all the important news, updates, discounts and sales. You can sign up for the newsletter on the Imagekind homepage.

Valentines promo includes Free Ground Shipping on all orders over $15 and expires February 7, 2008 at 10pm PST. Use promo code LOVE2008 at checkout.

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Thanks for all of your great submissions for the art contest, Create your Heart Out! We had an amazing number of fantastic artists submit their heart and heart-inspired artwork and we can’t wait to share the winner of the contest with you. So, stay alert for Imagekind’s Valentine Day promo email highlighting the selected artists’ work.

We had a lot of fun putting this together and even more fun checking out all the great work. We hope to bring you more fun and creative contests in the future so more artists can participate, share and show their artwork! So, keep creating!

A huge thanks to all the artists who participated in the contest. With nearly 4,000 views, we think this was a huge success and hope you had just as much fun with it as we did. But now the hard part comes: choosing which one of the images to feature! Wish us luck in this difficult task!

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Want to bare your heart to thousands of shoppers?

Submit your favorite Heart or Heart Inspired image and one lucky artists’ work will be featured in our Valentine’s promotional email sent to all of our Shoppers. Any medium will do. The winning image will be selected by our Marketing and Design team. So get busy and send us your Heart inspired work today! We can’t wait to see what you create!

Entry Requirements are as follows:

• Entries should be posted on the Imagekind Forum thread “Create Your Heart Out.”
• Forum Post must include a JPEG of entry and link to the work in your gallery.
• Limit two entries per person.
• Contest expires on Monday, January 28.
• All entries must be the final version, no works in progress.

Get involved and feel free to comment below. Just make sure to post your work in the forum thread!

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In yet another endeavor to expand and promote a vibrant online arts community, Imagekind is excited to announce its partnership with EBSQ for it’s upcoming juried show ”The Art of the Equestrian“. All Imagekind artists are encouraged to join in on the fun and add an entry. One winner will be chosen, and we are happy to provide some pretty sweet prizes! And of course, all submissions will be available as museum quality art prints on Imagekind - offered, as always, at the artist’s own price.

If you are not an EBSQ artist, you should learn more and sign up. For those of you who already members of EBSQ, here is the rundown. Over the entire month of October EBSQ is featuring a contest that centers on the theme of the equestrian. Now, keep in mind, just because your art contains a horse, doesn’t guarantee it is eligible for this contest. Horse art is great, and can be pretty amazing. However, this particular contest requires not only a horse, but a rider as well. You can find the official definition of equestrian right here. The show is open for entries as of today, and the deadline is October 25, so make sure you get your submission in! All artwork will be featured in special page on Imagekind for the month of November.

Once you have the art you want to submit for the contest, it will be featured on both EBSQ and Imagekind, so make sure you are signed up with us, or your entry won’t be featured. After October 25, one artist will be selected and win the following prizes:

• A $100 gift certificate, good for anything you can create or buy on Imagekind.
• A free one-year Imagekind Platinum account(note: If you already have a Platinum account, we will simply add this on to your current membership.)
• A free media kit of Imagekind’s fine art paper and canvas samples.
• A free print on your choice of paper at any size your digital file will allow.
• Your profile featured on Imagekind’s homepage for one week.

Make sure you follow the requirements and sign up correctly. As stated on the EBSQ entry form:

An artist’s statement is required with every entry. Tell us about your materials, process and something about why you chose to represent your subject in the manner or media that you did. Your statement is an important element in presenting your work online and helps make your work more accessible for the viewer. As texture or other small elements may be pivotal to the piece, detail shots are encouraged.

Keep in mind, all work must be shown on both EBSQ and Imagekind to be eligible.  So make sure your work is recognized - include “ebsq” and “equestrian” in your tags on Imagekind.

We think that about covers it.  Just follow the directions found on both the EBSQ blog post and Prospectus. Send any other questions over to edu@ebsqart.com.

We really look forward to seeing some of our amazingly talented members show off their work. Good luck everyone and let the race begin!

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Back in April, we introduced one of our friends in online art, the A Singular Creation Art Community.

Since then, Joe Barrouk from A Singular Creation has gotten an art contest running that seems pretty cool. Each month, he picks a different theme and lets the artists rip. So far, some of the topics have been “Faces and Emotions”, “World of Nature”, and “Nude”.

Take a look at the past winners or register free .  

If you end up joining the contest and winning, Joe has some cool prizes he’s giving away, including a 1-year platinum subscription at the best darn site for selling art online ever, Imagekind.

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Back in June Imagekind announced a non-profit giveaway to brighten up a charity in need that we called the Art Inspires Non-profit Makeover. Our blog post and press release on the subject made it far and wide, and the event happened to get this 15 seconds of fame (literally) on the popular local talk show Northwest Afternoon. Here’s the clip, with Imagekind’s President, Kevin Saliba, front and center:

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We got a huge response, and after sorting through a bundle of applications we selected a very worthy winner, out of many very worthy candidates. We chose to sponsor a terrific Seattle charity called FareStart. They have a wonderful mission:

FareStart provides a community that transforms lives by empowering homeless and disadvantaged men, women, and families to achieve self-sufficiency through life skills, job training and employment in the food service industry.

And, though their restaurant has a gorgeous interior, all the classroom walls were bare, and ready for a little artistic inspiration. Continue reading for some shots of the big reveal as Imagekind gets to work for this worthy cause.

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Did you know there is a neat way to discover a wide range of standout work on Imagekind that has been hand-picked to catch your eyeballs and make you think? There is, and we call it our Curator’s Picks. These are located in our Shop section, under both Member Art, and Museum Art. They usually showcase a collection of different styles based on changing themes - which we tend to put a little editorial effort toward, so we thought we’d up the ante and make these sets a bit more interactive.

Thus the Curator’s Picks Contest is born!

Here’s how it works:

• The contest is based around the Curators Picks for Member Art only right now. You can view those in our Shop section of the site, under the sub-section Member Art.
• These picks are put together with a common theme in mind - your job is to guess that theme, or get as close as possible! These themes are usually a bit more detailed than they might first appear, for example, here is the current set:

• The theme for the above collection isn’t as simple as “music”, or even “musical instruments”. This set is “closeup musical instrument photography with shadows“. Not all themes will be this intricate , but they will definitely contain more than one trait - which you will find clues to in the image subjects, and their titles, and even how the collection as a whole goes together.
• When you think you’ve got the right answer, go to the Imagekind Forum and join the corresponding discussion under the category Contest - Curator’s Picks. There you can post your best guess…
• But! That’s not quite everything! In addition to your best guess for the theme, you also need to go out and find another work of art on Imagekind that fits in the theme, and post that link along with your guess!
• The winner is the first member with the closest guess. You can feel free to talk all about the contest or the set, but you can only make 1 official entry for each time. You can edit that entry too, but that will reset your entry time - so make those guesses count!
• Sound fun? We hope so, because the winner will get a promo good for $25 off on any Imagekind order!

Each time the sets change you’ve got a new chance to win, so keep your eye out! The first set that is eligible for the contest will be going up today!

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