West Midtown Atlanta Website Design for Studio Commissions

Shooting a canvas by the window with the phone you already own

Soft light from one side and a phone held square to the work will get you portfolio photos a buyer can trust. Studio strobes can wait until the site starts earning.

• A window with bright, indirect light, ideally one that skips the harsh afternoon sun
• A sheet of white foam board to bounce light into the shadow side
• Painter's tape to mark where the easel and your feet go, so every shoot matches the last one
• A cheap gray card, or a clean sheet of white printer paper, to check color later
• A small tripod or a stack of art books, since a still phone beats a steady hand
• Your phone, with every filter switched off, so the camera app doesn't 'improve' a sky you spent three days mixing.

1. Hang the piece flat and level Put it on a wall or easel at about chest height. A level app on your phone keeps the edges from leaning in the photo.
2. Square up the phone Stand straight in front of the center of the work. If the top edge looks wider than the bottom, you're tilted, and the canvas turns into a trapezoid.
3. Skip the flash and the fancy modes Portrait and beauty modes blur and smooth things you worked hard on. Use the plain photo mode and tap the piece to set focus and brightness.
4. Take one full frame, then the details Get the whole piece with a thin strip of wall around it. Then move in on brushwork, your signature and any texture a buyer would want to touch.
5. Hold the phone next to the real thing Compare the screen with the work in the same light. If the whites look blue or yellow, fix the white balance using your gray card shot before you crop.

Launch with honest phone photos this month. A pro shoot can come in spring. A clean phone image of the real piece sells better than a gap on the page. When you do hire a photographer later, we can swap the new images in one collection at a time, and nothing else about the site has to change. If a photo isn't quite right, send it anyway and we'll tell you what to reshoot.

Eighteen inches or six feet? Settle the size question up front

On a phone, a small study and a wall-sized canvas look exactly the same size. Give every piece its measurements and at least one picture that shows scale.

Size can quietly stop an inquiry before it starts. Someone loves a piece, can't picture it above their couch and moves on without writing. We put the measurements right under the title on every piece page, in the same spot and the same order, so nobody has to hunt. Pick one order with us, such as height by width by depth, and we'll use it everywhere.

For bigger work, we'd pair the measurements with one photo that has something familiar in the frame. A doorway works. So does a dining chair or you. That single shot answers more questions than a paragraph could, and it tends to flush out the buyers who were really measuring their wall the whole time.

Are room mockups honest enough to use?

They can be, as long as they're labeled. A small line such as 'shown in a sample room' keeps expectations straight. We'd also keep at least one real photo on the same page, so buyers see the true surface and color.

Should I list the framed size or the image size?

List both when they differ. A framed piece hangs at its outside size, and that's the number people use to plan a wall. Say plainly whether the frame is part of the price.

Heavy files, light pages: exporting images that stay crisp

Export each image in a modern format, a bit larger than the biggest spot it fills. The site can then hand phones smaller copies, so your work stays sharp and pages stay quick.

The file straight off your phone or camera is usually far bigger than any screen needs. Upload it untouched and a buyer on cell data watches your gallery paint in slowly, stripe by stripe. Plenty of people won't wait around for the good part.

Here's how we set up a portfolio so it doesn't have to pick between sharp and quick. We keep one large master of each piece for the zoom view. The site then makes smaller copies on its own and gives each visitor the one that fits their screen. You upload once, and the phone in someone's hand gets a file sized for that phone.

• Crop to the edges of the work, and leave the wall out unless it's there to show scale
• Choose sRGB if your editing app asks for a color profile, since it's the safe pick for screens
• Rename each file after the piece, like blue-heron-oil-on-linen.jpg, before it goes anywhere near the site
• Keep your full-size originals in a folder of your own, since we only need the web copies
• Save a close-up crop as its own file, so it only loads when someone taps to zoom

Describing a painting to a visitor who can't see it

Alt text for art should name what's in the piece in a sentence or so. Let the caption carry the medium and size, and keep any longer description beside the image.

• Weak: 'painting' or 'PXL_20260412_153022.' Better: 'Blue heron standing in a flooded rail yard at dusk.'
• Weak: 'Atlanta art West Midtown artist buy painting.' Better: what you'd tell a friend on the phone who asked what's in the picture.
• Weak: 'A beautiful, moving piece.' Better: what's in the frame, since praise gives a listener nothing to picture.
• Weak: the exact title printed right under the image. Better: the title's subject plus one detail the title leaves out.

We write alt text with you, piece by piece, because you know what's in the work better than we ever will. A person using a screen reader to browse your portfolio deserves the same first impression a sighted buyer gets from a thumbnail. Search engines read these lines too, so a good one helps people find the piece. Still, we write each one for the listener first.

Does every image on the site need a description?

Photos of your actual work do. A purely decorative image, like a paint-splatter border, can be marked so screen readers skip it. We sort those out together while we build the gallery.

Should the alt text mention the price?

Leave it out. Prices change and belong in the caption, where every visitor sees the same number. We keep the alt text about what the picture shows.

What really guards your images once they're online

Copyright belongs to you from the moment you make the work. Registering it is what gives you real options when someone copies it, and sensible file sizes help too.

We're web people, so treat this as a map and check the legal turns with an attorney. On our side, we keep uploaded images big enough to admire and too small to print well at poster size. The watermark question is yours to answer, and we'll build the gallery either way.

If a copy does turn up, the Copyright Office also runs the Copyright Claims Board. It's a voluntary small-claims option that both sides have to agree to use. To bring a claim there, you need a registration or at least a filed application for the work.

The artist statement, rewritten for someone picturing their living room

Keep the statement you use for grants, and write a short plain one for buyers. Say what you make and what pulls you toward it, in words you'd use at an open studio.

A grant panel reads the first version happily. A couple furnishing a new condo usually stops at 'liminal.' The rewrite still sounds like the same painter. It just swaps big ideas for things a buyer can see in their head, like what's in the paintings and how big they run. Then it ends with a door they can walk through.

We usually keep both versions on the site. The long one lives on a CV or press page for galleries and grant forms. The short one goes on the home page and About page, where buyers land. If you're not sure yours is plain enough, read it aloud to a friend who doesn't make art and watch for the moment their eyes drift.

• Name the medium and the subject in your first sentence
• Give a size range and a rough time per piece, so buyers can plan
• Mention one real place or habit that shows up in the work
• Close with one next step, whether that's available pieces, a commission or a studio visit

Put the commission rules in writing before the first inquiry lands

Write down how a commission works from first message to delivery, including when money changes hands. Buyers find it far easier to say yes when they can see every stage ahead.

1. First message The buyer sends the form with a size and a rough budget, plus a photo of the wall if they have one. You reply with a yes or a question.
2. Short call or studio visit You talk through ideas and look at past pieces together. This is where you both find out if it's a good fit.
3. Sketch or mockup You share a rough idea. Say up front how many rounds of changes come included before extra charges start.
4. Deposit If you take one, say how much, whether any of it comes back if things fall through and what it pays for.
5. Progress photos One or two updates keep a buyer excited and cut down on 'how's it going?' messages.
6. Final payment and handoff Say when the balance is due and whether you deliver the piece or hold it for pickup at the studio.

None of these rules are ours to set. Your prices and deposit terms belong to you, and they'll differ from the painter two doors down. What we do is give them a page with one plain heading per stage, so a person who's never commissioned anything can follow along. Then we link the commission form straight to it.

A process page also spares you some awkward emails. When a buyer asks for a fourth round of changes, you can point kindly to what's written instead of haggling from scratch. It's a lot easier to hold a limit you wrote down months ago, on a calm day, with a cup of coffee.

West Midtown, the Westside or the Artery? Naming your corner for strangers

People use several names for these few blocks. Pick one for your headings and mention the others once. Then point visitors to parking help they can actually use.

We'd write your headings and directions with West Midtown, since that's the name Atlanta's visitor bureau uses for the district. Then we'd add one honest line, something like 'on the Westside, near the Marietta Street Artery,' if that's true for your studio. That line catches the collector who grew up saying Westside and would scroll right past a name they don't use. Once is plenty, though. Cramming every variation into every heading reads like a robot wrote it.

Big shared buildings raise the stakes. The visitor bureau counts four arts centers in West Midtown, the Goat Farm and King Plow Arts Center among them. At a sprawling complex like the Goat Farm, 'come to my open studio' leaves a guest wandering between buildings. We'd have your event page say which door is yours on that day, because it isn't always the one you use on a Tuesday.

• The date and hours written out, with the year, so an old post never fools anyone
• Which door is open for the event, if it's different from your usual entrance
• A link to that parking map, plus the deck or lot you'd pick yourself
• Whether work is for sale on the spot and how you take payment
• A mailing-list sign-up for anyone who can't make it this time
• After the weekend, a short recap with photos and the next date

The five counts that tell you the site is selling art

Count commission forms, questions about specific pieces, list sign-ups, visits from your Instagram link and taps on directions. Those five show whether the site moves people toward buying.

Pageviews feel nice, though they've never paid a studio's rent. So we keep our eyes on a handful of actions that sit close to a sale. An artist selling at gallery prices might get only a few forms in a month, and that can be perfectly healthy. The better sign is when those forms arrive with a size and a budget already filled in, because that person is ready to talk.

We'd suggest looking at these counts after the first month and again after your next open studio. Event weekends put the most strain on a visit page, so that's when we'd look closest.

Midnight uploads and print shops: what working artists ask

Keeping the site current on your own and selling prints are two big questions for any working artist. Here's where we land on both, plus three more.

Can I add new work myself without calling you?

Yes. We set up the portfolio so adding a piece means filling in a title, size, medium, price line and photo, then pressing publish. We'd show you how on a video call before launch, with steps short enough to follow at midnight after a long day in the studio.

Should prints sell on my site or through a print-on-demand service?

Volume decides this one, so we'd start by looking at how many prints you sold last season. If you sell a few a month, linking to a print service you trust keeps packing off your plate. If prints are a real share of your income, selling them on your own site keeps buyers and their email addresses with you.

I already have a link-in-bio page. Why would I need a whole website?

A link page is a handy signpost, and you can keep it. It can't hold full piece pages with sizes and prices, and it won't collect a proper commission brief. Your site does that work, and the link page simply points people to it.

Can the site launch before every piece is photographed?

Yes, and we'd encourage it. Launch with your strongest dozen pieces and a working commission page, then add collections as you shoot them. Sold work can live in a clearly marked archive, so buyers still see your range.

Do I really need my own domain name?

Yes, if you can get it. We'd go with your own name or your studio's name. It stays yours if you ever switch website builders. An address owned by a platform can vanish the day that platform changes its plans.