Affordable Hosting For Art Sites

Use code FRIENDME to get 15% off any web hosting plan at A Small Orange

For those who are looking for web hosting for an art site, or any website for that matter, I thought that I'd  give the web host I use for my art site a plug, and it's not just because they give me a credit on my invoice for each customer I bring them. I use A Small Orange Web Hosting because it's quite affordable, only $35 per year, that's lower than what most web hosts charge even on promotional offers. I also like the fact that unlike other web hosts I don't have to prepay for several years of hosting to get the lower price, I just pay the $35 yearly and that's it.

A Small Orange is able to charge lower prices because it doesn't oversell bandwidth.  If you have been shopping around for web hosts you may have noticed many offer unlimited bandwidth on all their hosting plans. Bandwidth is the amount of data that's transferred each month between a website and the computers accessing it, so the more traffic a site gets the more bandwidth will be used. But the fact is no website needs unlimited bandwidth, web hosts know this but offer it any way because people are unsure of how much bandwidth their site will use and so pay a higher price needlessly since the average website doesn't use more than 2-3 gigs of bandwidth a month.

The $35 plan at a A Small Orange gives 5 gigs of bandwidth per month which is plenty, I have two sites on a single $35 plan and only use a small percent of my allotted bandwidth. But if you think that may not be enough for your website, they have other plans too that offer more bandwidth, the next one up is $50 a year with 20 gigs of bandwidth per month (the higher priced plans also give you 2 months free hosting and free domain name for a year if you pay for an annual plan).

Another thing I like about this web host is that they are up front about how much you will be paying for their web hosting service . Some web hosts  try to hide the real price  of their web hosting and you get an unpleasant surprise when it's time to renew, as I found out with my previous web host.

Some other things worth mentioning about A Small Orange, fantastic customer service and lots of payment options available including check and money order!

Whether you want a personal site, ecommerce,  build a site from scratch or make one with Wordpress, this web host has all the stuff higher priced hosts have. I've been happy having them as my web host provider and hope you give them a try and see for yourself that I'm not talking fruit!

Oh almost forgot, purchase any plan through the links in this post and use code FRIENDME to get 15% off your first invoice.

How I Secure Watercolor Paper

Unless you use a watercolor block you will most likely need to secure all four sides of the watercolor paper with masking tape to keep it from buckling while you are painting.

To keep watercolor paper from buckling while I'm painting I tape it down with masking tape to a "paint board" I made from the back board of a used up art paper pad which I covered with kitchen cupboard lining. The lining makes the masking tape easy to remove  when I'm finished the painting, and the board is easy to wipe clean of any paint. Even acrylic paint comes off with a little stiff scrubbing.

It's simple to make, cut the lining a little bigger than the board on all sides so that you can overlap the edges, smooth it out and you're done! I've made several of them just in case I'm working on two watercolors at the same time. And I made a smaller one for my smaller paintings.

How To Frame Watercolors

Did you ever want to know how to frame and care for watercolor paintings? Here are some tips:

Because of the delicate nature of watercolors they should be framed under glass and they should be matted so that the painting does not come into contact with the glass.

Regardless of how resistant the paint is to fading, watercolors should not be put into direct sunlight, they should also not be placed in rooms with high humidity because that may cause the paper to buckle over time.

And that folks is it. My watercolor paintings are standard sizes and are sold matted with foamcore backing so that you can easily frame it yourself without the need of taking it to a framer.

Keeping Acrylic Palette From Drying

I've read many times that one of the challenges some artists face when starting to paint in acrylics is their fast drying time. This lead me to believe that they dry the moment they are put to canvas. That's not the case at all, there is at least a few minutes to work and manipulate the paint before it drys on the painting surface. This may not be the ideal situation for those accustomed to painting wet into wet but for me it's just right since I don't like waiting around for paint to dry before I can get into painting more detail.

However acrylics quick drying time does pose a problem with keeping the paint workable on the palette. Here's how to keep the palette wet while painting and still workable several days later:

For your painting palette use a shallow plastic container with a lid that shuts tight(think tupperware).

Line the container with a sheet or two of damp paper towels and on top place down some parchment paper which will serve as your painting palette. The kind used for baking, not the stuff ancient manuscripts are written on. Yeah, I know you knew but I couldn't resist.

When you are done painting for the day, spray a light mist over the paint and close the container with the lid. This will keep the paint wet for 3 or 4 days.