14 Free Places to Promote Your Art Online

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Many artists seem to struggle with promoting their art. We are shy creatures by nature and usually avoid the spotlight. But promoting yourself does not need to be difficult.

Promoting yourself means much more than just trying to sell your art. In fact, I think trying to sell your art should be the last thing on your mind (even if that is what you plan to do). Rather, by promoting yourself I mean connecting with people.

If you connect with people on a meaningful level, then everything else will fall into play (people will follow you, ask you about your art and maybe even buy your art).

But don’t you need a large marketing budget to promote yourself? Of course not. Here are 14 places you can promote your art for free. I suggest you do not even attempt paid advertising until you have exhausted and started to gain traction with the free methods. Think of paid advertising as a sales multiplier, not a sales creator.

Anyway, let’s get into it. If you have any free places you like to promote your art online, please share them at the end in the comment section.

(Before diving into this post, make sure to download a free copy of my Beginner's Guide to Painting.)

1. Facebook Page & Groups

Facebook is the first network that comes to mind for promoting your art. Facebook is the largest social media platform with over 2 billion users and growing.

However, Facebook is gradually becoming a ‘pay-to-play’ platform, with organic reach being crippled in order to push you toward paid advertising. This is where Facebook Groups come into play.

A great Facebook Group provides you with a community of like-minded artists who may be interested in your art. Do not spam and be careful which groups you join. Some Groups will have no engagement and are not worth joining. Check to see how many people post per day and what the engagement is like on each post to determine if it is worth contributing.

You can even leverage Facebook Groups to grow your own page.

2. Instagram

Instagram is a picture-based social platform that still seems to have a great organic reach (unlike Facebook).

There are a few great things about Instagram for artists:

  • It is picture-based, so this is obviously the perfect environment for you to promote yourself as an artist.
  • You do not need to pay for advertising to reach a huge audience.
  • You can connect directly with buyers. Some artists have made a living just from selling on Instagram.
  • You can use hashtags to target people who are interested in your niche (for example, I would like to show my art to people who are interested in impressionist landscape paintings, so I could use hashtags #impressionist and #landscape).

3. Wetcanvas Forums

Wetcanvas is an engaged community of artists and the only art forum I participate in. Remember, many people who buy art are also artists themselves, so there is no harm in posting photos of your art on forums like Wetcanvas. At the very least you can connect with like-minded artists and get some valuable feedback.

I have mixed thoughts on Reddit but it has the potential to get you in front of a huge audience so it needs a mention. The key to Reddit is honest and high-quality posts. If you blatantly promote yourself, you will get shut down by the community. But if you post honest photos of your artworks, you can get exposure to many thousands of people.

5. Pinterest

Pinterest is a relative newcomer compared to Facebook and Instagram but it has the potential to drive some serious traffic to your art website. Pinterest is like a visual search engine. You can take a photo of your finished painting and pin it to Pinterest. People can then like or re-pin your content.

The great thing about Pinterest is the chance for your content to go viral and reach a huge audience.

6. Deviant Art

Deviant Art is more so for concept and digital artists but it is a huge community and is worth mentioning. You can create a free account on Deviant Art and post photos of your artworks with links back to your own website.

7. Your Website & Blog

This is an obvious one, but so many artists still seem to lack an art website. Your art website should be like your personal hub for everything you are doing and the first place you post photos of your artwork.

8. Steemit

Steemit is an interesting new player on the block where you can get paid to post (yes you read that correctly). But don’t get too excited, it is difficult to make any meaningful cash unless you post very frequently. But it is an active community and as it is a relatively new platform, you have a chance to get in before the crowd.

9. Youtube (for progress shots)

A great way to gain exposure as an artist is to film yourself creating your art and posting videos to Youtube. This also may give opportunities to become an art teacher.

10. Google Plus

Google Plus is a huge social platform that is similar to Facebook. There are communities in which you can join and promote your artwork. I personally do not use it as I was not able to get any traction, but others may have more success.

11. Flickr

Flickr is an image-sharing website where you can upload photos of your artwork. It has been around for some time so you may find it difficult to get any exposure from this platform.

12. Saatchi Art

You can set up a free account on Saatchi Art and post your artwork. If you upload high-quality photos, you can even sell prints. The problem with Saatchi Art is that unless you are active and/or lucky, it is difficult to get exposure due to the number of artists competing for attention.

13. Fine Art America

Much the same as Saatchi Art. You can sign up for a free account with Fine Art America and post your artwork (you do not need to be located in America to sign up for an account). I would not expect much exposure from this platform but it may be worth setting up a free profile so you can get some links back to your website and other socials.

14. Guest Posts

You can try to be featured on large blogs that already have a huge readership. This can be time-consuming though and there is no guarantee of success. This also suits more modern styles of art.

Summary

I always say you should create art for yourself first and foremost. But there is also no harm in promoting yourself to the rest of the world. Why keep your art to yourself?

Promoting your art will help you connect with like-minded people from all over the world. We live in a time when promoting yourself has never been easier. You can literally upload a photo and have exposure to thousands, even millions of people around the world.

Good luck!

Want to Learn More?

You might be interested in my Painting Academy course. I’ll walk you through the time-tested fundamentals of painting. It’s perfect for absolute beginner to intermediate painters.

Thanks for Reading!

I appreciate you taking the time to read this post and I hope you found it helpful. Feel free to share it with friends.

Happy painting!

Dan Scott

Draw Paint Academy

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60 comments on “14 Free Places to Promote Your Art Online”

  1. I added my art to a lot of the top sites like redbubble and society6 but I’ve gotten the most success from blogging about my art. I do keyword research and and follow great seo strategies to form short 800 word blogs that get ranked in google and get seen by people searching for the keywords that I have in my blog. This is nothing new but just letting everyone know that it’s a method you should add to your tool box. You can take a look at a blog that I wrote about one of my paintings that is selling really well here.

    https://smartworkdesigns.com/wine-art-paintings#more-642

    Reply

  4. Hey!
    Your blog is really awesome and full with information. I too have similar content, I hope my comment will add value to your blog. I have written a content about how to promote your artworks online. Follow this easy steps to promote your art and get it sold. https://bit.ly/2SO9RZX

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  8. My daughter has interest in drawing and painting, so far she is going to learn in our society, but we want to get her for advance courses, please guide….

    Thanks & Regards

    Reply

  14. Thanks for making everything easy for me..it has helped me t find that there is someone out there that do understand our work & a willing t help us expand our business ideas thanks very much.

    Reply

  16. This is a good list! I’ve tried to use some of them as an emerging artist myself. I find that the hardest part is just consistency. Some of these sites, like Instagram, really reward consistency and punish irregularity. Taking progress shots are also difficult because a lot of the time, I just get into the flow and completely forget to track my progress to show on my website/social media. So even though I made progress, I don’t have much to show for it.

    With the new year, I definitely will look at this again to keep myself on track.

    Reply

  18. I want a website that’s safe for kids to post their work. So far I’m finding nothing. would there be by any chance a safe website for students to post their art?

    Reply

  21. My Grandaughter loves art and is going to a collage that features art. I have some of her drawings. Where can i post them.

    Reply

  23. Hi Dan,
    Thanks for the list of websites to post art. I make beautiful stick-pins and am wondering what site you would suggest is best for me to post pictures of them. Selling them is not really on my list. I’m afraid that I like them too much.
    Thanks,
    …… john

    Reply

  24. Hi Dan,
    I haven’t had a website for several years (~15). It’s too much of a pain. I am Instagram though. I would like to get as many people as possible looking at them, and can’t quite figure out how to do that. Thanks again for your help.
    …… john

    Reply

  26. Hey John I read this a few days ago and I posted this on Deviant Art and I have had some success (More than I thought I would get) and I want to thank you for this. You a gift to this world Dan. Thank so much.

    Reply

  28. Hi Dan,

    I came across this and found it very insightful. I’ve been trying to understand how to effectively promote my art. I’ve had art websites in the past, but didn’t think to see them as like a personal hub where I post everything I am doing as well as first photos of my art. That second part stood out, as one thing I’ve struggled with is prioritizing where to maintain my current art progress. By making various online accounts on multiple platforms, it would get overwhelming to keep up with them all.

    Thank you for this!

    Harvey

    Reply

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  32. I want to find a place to exhibit my drawings and I am also searching a way to sell my art . Please let me know more information about the art products market around the world.

    Reply

  39. Can I show you guys a picture , only if I could it’s really cool it’s in “gacha life” if you ever heard of it it’s a app ,it’s a game and You can make your own characters. I drew the picture so that’s all

    Reply

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