I’m excited to announce that I launched my first Kickstarter project this week!  Rather than just shamelessly plug it here, I thought I’d talk about my journey through the conception, promotion, and closure of this campaign.

I’m an absolute newbie at this, so I’m bound to learn a lot and hope other artists considering Kickstarter might learn something from my experience too!

Check out my project here!

Why Kickstarter?

I’ll be honest, I would never have thought of using Kickstarter for funding paintings, at first.  The site was originally founded to ‘kickstart’ projects that would not otherwise get off the ground.  I’ll still be able to make these paintings.

What finally encouraged me to pursue this series via Kickstarter was the fact that having an extra infusion of income would actually help me be able to worry less about pursuing other freelance work so that I can create these paintings faster while also aiding me in maximizing the potential quality of this series (ie. afford models to have more variety than my own visage, afford updating old supplies, etc.).

Kickstarter also reaches a potential worldwide audience I didn’t have access to before.  This project also represents a chance for me to not just maximize the series’ potential, but also provide an opportunity to offer very unique limited items to my collectors, which is mutually beneficial to us both.

I also saw other artists using the Kickstarter format to similar effect with their own series of paintings which really motivated me to give it a try at least once.  Echo Chernik used Kickstarter to fund her Winged Women series so that she might be able to have more time off from her packed schedule to invest in this Kickstarter-only personal project.  Sam Flegal also used Kickstarter as a boost for his Norse Mythology series of paintings for similar reasons.

Preparing for the Project