By now, most have heard of the hugely popular social network - visual book marking service Pinterest. Pinterest is one of the most visual sites on the net, making it perfect for artists. Adding to this is the fact that most pinners are obviously visually inclined. They use Pinterest because they love the amazing images contained within.
Pinterest users love scanning through the huge array of imagery, and collecting (repinning) pictures for their own boards.
Pinterest boards are essentially albums of images, organized by topic similar to a scrapbook. This article discusses what Pinterest boards are all about, how to create them, and a list of ideas for boards artists can make.
Before moving on, you ay be interested in our previous articles about Pinterest:
Pinterest Art – Online Pinboarding
How to Block Pinterest
Creating Pinterest boards
Boards are Pinterest’s way of categorizing groups of images according to a topic. Boards can be followed, which means followers will be notified when additional images are added to the collection.
When creating a board, there are 3 important things to pay attention to – the name, description and category. Choose a short descriptive name based on keywords – words people normally use when searching for something. These words will help others identify what’s included on your board. The description should be thorough and also based on keywords. The description appears at the top of your board under the title, so make it count. Remember. a good title and description will help your pins appear when people do searches at Pinterest. The category also serves the same purpose.
The description may also be a good place to enter your main portfolio URL, though it will not be clickable.
What boards should artist’s create?
The most obvious board is a collection of the artist’s works. Other boards can be titled such things as Inspiration, Art I Like and In Progress Paintings. For inspiration boards, you can even get more specific. For example, if you are inspired by wildlife or nature, make specific boards and collect images based on these. It is important to note that a few basic boards are sufficient to start on Pinterest. Through browsing other’s images and repinning, you may find the need to create additional collections to match the topic. Interestingly, a new board can be quickly made while repinning.
Here is a list of ideas for Pinterest boards:
Artist Portfolio – Create a collection of your best artworks to be presented to potential art buyers.
- Inspiring Quotes – Quotations from other artists and famous people on inspiration, success, motivation, etc.
- Nature – Nature is the inspiration for many artists, and Pinterest is loaded with pictures of things from nature – wildlife, weather, ocean, skies, sunsets, etc.
- Boards according to medium – If you use different mediums, it may be useful to categorize them separately. Eg. Oil Painting, Acrylic Painting, Graphite Drawing, Sculpture, Sketches, Digital Art, Photography, etc.
- Themes – Use separate titles to organize differently themed artworks.
- Art exhibitions – Boards can be organized by exhibitions, and include art from past and present.
- Art I Like – Proper Pinterest etiquette entails not pinning just all your own content. There should be boards specifically for posting the work of other artists. This can optionally be organized by genre, medium or theme.
- Places – Pin places you have visited.
- Art Promotion and tips – Include pins from various art promotion articles found online. This is a great place to pin posts from Artpromotivate!
- Prints – If you have prints through sites such as Fine Art America and Saatchi Online, it may be a good idea to make a board dedicated to your prints and posting your images there. Be sure to pin from the source, so that the image will be clickable, and also include the source link in the description.
- More Ideas? - If you have any ideas for interesting Pinterest boards, you are welcome to let us know in the comments.
How to Create a Pinterest Board
If you are new to Pinterest, you may be interested in finding out how to create a board.
Board Collection Page
The most obvious place would be on the board collection page. Hover your mouse cursor over the down arrow to the right of your name at the top.
This reveals a menu – click Your Boards within this menu.
Click the Create a Board icon.
A popup appears to enter the name, description and category.
Boards are automatically set to public, to be found elsewhere at Pinterest. If you only want your board seen by yourself, set the Secret setting here to Yes. It’s important to note that Secret boards can be set to Public anytime, but once they are they cannot be reversed to Secret.
Create Boards when Pinning
After clicking the Pin It button, hit the little down arrow to the right of your board name. A box appears at the top of this menu to enter a board name. Click Create, and enter your board details.
As you can see, Pinterest makes it very easy to create boards and share your pins.
To follow me on Pinterest , please go here:
Stay tuned as we continue this Pinterest series, and please subscribe or follow on Facebook if you do not want to miss any posts.
It should be noted Graham, Pinterest has a very strict policy about nudity in art. As an art historian I see beyond the nudity even in figurines such as the Venus of Villendorph, but was warned if I didn't remove everything that showed a breast, or even the cheeks of a ballet dancer my account would be removed. It has rather taken the fun out of the art collecting because I must be so very careful. A piece with too much cleavage is now a victim of their censure.
ReplyDeleteThanks Betty for the heads up. That pretty much puts Pinterest out for me.
DeleteWell pinterest is public young ppl have access so there should b no nudity thanks i think its a good policy keeps the pervs away
ReplyDeleteMy reservation about Pinterest as an artist is that it's all just about digital images not about art as conveyed by digital images. Even when I view people's art collections there I don't have any sense that this is an actual painting, drawing or whatever with a physical size and presence using specific materials in a creative way.
ReplyDeleteMy preference is for Artstack where such aspects are encouraged. The location, date the piece was made etc are all asked for there and using this data it's much more possible I find to make helpful discoveries as well as connections with other like minded artists and art lovers.
Thanks for that tip, Tom! As a result I've just joined Artstack :)
Delete