How to Grow an Audience by Creating Eye-Catching Content

Morning artrepreneurs! Welcome to another edition of the Stay Sketchy newsletter.

🛠️ What’s with all the people in engineering roles quitting their jobs to become full-time artists and graphic designers? We’ve interviewed a bunch already and today we’ve got another one!

This week we’ve got:

Nick Bultman - Abstract Artist, Velocity Painter

From making stick figure animations for his own music videos as a kid to founding new styles of abstract art and hosting solo exhibitions at prestigious galleries overseas - Nick Bultman has come a long way.

Growing up, Nick was often reminded that he needed a “good” job that paid well.

His childhood hobbies and interests - the doodling and making music - were just that: hobbies.

At least that’s how he had grown to view them.

Nick eventually took an interest in business and engineering, and found a bachelor’s program at Cal Poly called Industrial Technology that suited those interests perfectly.

The major still had a fair amount of creativity involved, and it taught him things like how to manufacture a product at scale and sell it for profit. He got to use lots of specialized equipment and learned all about how to tell if there was actual demand for a product.

After school he moved around between quality and manufacturing engineering positions before eventually ending up supervising a team of material analysts.

Feeling a stronger pull towards creative and sales-oriented roles, Nick transitioned into sales which allowed him a bit more expressive freedom at work and ultimately aligned more closely with his personal interests.

After buying a house in 2020, Nick began cooking up ideas for side projects he could kick off in his new garage.

He started making pour painting videos for his YouTube channel, and slowly over time, he evolved the popular art style he started with into the much more unique art form he’s known for today - velocity painting.

Now, Nick can proudly say:

• He’s an internationally recognized abstract artist.

• His art has been featured in magazines like Rooster, Magzoid, & Squaremile.

• He’s been featured on local television as well as several notable podcasts.

• His art has been shown & sold at galleries like Red Eight and Maverick’s Gallery.

• He has over 1M+ followers across social media platforms.

• He coined the term “velocity painting” (pretty good conversation starter when asked ‘What do you do?’).

Mini Gallery

To see more of Nick’s work, visit his website or Instagram account.

Artist Insights

Nick’s a really down-to-earth guy that was eager to chat with us about his unique art style, and what’s contributed to the level of success he currently enjoys. From his home in Arizona, he shared the following insights.

🔹 Produce Eye-Catching Content

Think of the type of content that makes you stop scrolling.

Nick describes this as content that “WOWs” you, and it’s exactly what he tries to produce when making videos for social media.

Instead of following cringey trends just to meet a perceived content quota that might appeal to the Instagram algorithm, focus on producing quality content that will make people stop, watch, and share.

Nick’s fortunate enough to have discovered a very unique painting process that can’t help but grab a viewer’s attention.

Think about what it is about your creative process that sets you apart.

Maybe you set up your art supplies in an interesting way. Maybe you do something that’s oddly satisfying to watch. Maybe there’s always some step of your creative process that seems bizarre or will make people wonder what you’re doing if you show it to them out of context.

Whatever it is, make sure your video starts with something that WOWs the viewer and makes them watch to the end. Because if they do, they’ll see your art is great and will share it with a friend or throw you a follow!

🔹 Consider a More Professional Presentation on Social Media

Nick keeps all his static images and videos separated on Instagram (did you know you could do that?).

Instead of behind the scenes content or videos for paid partnerships being scattered amongst photos of his finished work, Nick has opted to keep the “Posts” tab of his Instagram profile simple.

Fans can go there to quickly & easily see all his completed works. Each has a caption and an up-to-date message stating whether or not the piece is still available or if it has sold.

Followers can then swipe over to the “Reels” tab to see process content, behind the scenes, and more in video form.

Nick says that this helps his audience quickly view his work and understand what it is he creates as soon as they land on his profile.

Even if they initially find him from one of his Reels, being immediately shown his entire portfolio after traveling to his profile (with no other distractions) may increases chances of a sale.

🔹 Recycle the Raw Footage and Editing Styles that Work

Sometimes it’s not about what’s in the video as much as how the video is edited and put together.

Nick might film a 20-minute video of him painting on his phone only to use 20 seconds of it in a Reel or TikTok.

If a few short sections of different video clips stitched together with some cool music ends up going viral, there’s no reason he can’t recycle the same editing style and simply use portions of those same 20 minute videos he didn’t use the first time around.

Don’t pretend all the raw footage you work so hard recording can only be accessed once.

Different sections of those videos can be used in fun new ways (or the same old ones) with different audios (or the same one that performed so well the first time).

The point is, don’t just move on to something totally different when you finally find a content style that works for you. Instead, see if you can repeat it again with the same level of success.

Nick’s Tech Stack

Creative Process

• Procreate for rendering different design configurations, layers, and effects.

• Nomad Sculpt for rendering glass/metal/environmental effects.

Staging & Mockups

• Smartist, Artstage, and Picsart for digitally transposing art in different settings, lights environments, from different angles.

Video Editing

• Capcut Pro - “Best mobile video editor on the market.” Constantly updating with newest features.

• Descript - Podcast level audio quality without having a nice mic.

Business & Admin

• Shopify is Nick’s all-in-one operational option when it comes to running his website, collecting payment, managing order timelines, showcase paintings, doing email marketing, and analyzing sales.

• Google Sheets for tracking expenses and orders with his team.

• Canva for creating commissions invoices, special projects, media kits, and list of originals and their pricing.

• Gusto for running payroll.

Suggested Resources

• 📕 The Creative Act by Rick Rubin - A book that illuminates the artist's path as one we all can follow, offering wisdom to create moments of exhilaration and transcendence in your career.

• 🎙️ Clean Break - A podcast dedicated to helping gallerists and artists find success in the modern era of tech and social media.

• 🎙️ Artsy AF by Andrew Norris - A podcast that explores the nuances of art, creativity and business, interviewing painters, musicians, creative entrepreneurs and more.

A Sleek Portfolio Tool You May Already Be Paying For

If you’re looking to build yourself an online portfolio and haven’t gotten started yet, you may already be paying for one of the best portfolio builders out there.

Adobe Portfolio is Adobe’s portfolio building platform that helps artists and designers create professional-looking websites to showcase their work.

A featured artist from a couple weeks ago, Fiorella Granda, actually uses this as her primary website.

While the tool isn’t free by itself, it comes as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. So, if you’re already subscribed, you’re good to start building!

Here’s just some of what makes it useful:

• Customizable Themes: Users can choose from various themes that can be personalized to match their style.

• Responsive Design: Ensures that portfolios look great on devices of all sizes, from desktops to smartphones.

• Integration with Adobe Creative Cloud: Seamless connection with Behance and Adobe Lightroom allows easy importation of existing projects.

• Domain Connection: Users can link their own domain names to their Adobe Portfolio for a professional look.

• Password Protection: Offers the ability to protect pages or entire websites with passwords, useful for showing work to select audiences.

• No Coding Required: The platform is designed for ease, requiring no coding knowledge to set up a polished website.

Their site also features tons of example portfolios to help get the creative juices flowing.

Art Business News (that isn’t a snooze)

• Own your own Warhol 🖼️ - Have you guys heard of Masterworks? It’s the investment platform that allows you to buy a fractional interest in famous (and very pricey) works of art - the idea being that the team at Masterworks buys and sells the artwork for you at a profit. With a track record of 9 - 39% net annualized returns, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. Benzinga just published an in-depth review of the platform if you’re interested in reading more.

• Art this autumn 🍂 - Looking for something art-related to do this Fall? This Artsy article details all notable art markets & auctions occurring around the world for the final four months of 2024. Check it out to see if any are near you.

Thanks for checking out another edition of Stay Sketchy. Catch you next week! ✌️

As an Amazon Associate and affiliate of various partnership programs, the owner of this publication may receive commissions to linked products or services in this newsletter at no additional expense to the reader.