Member of the Week: Ruth Collis, A Secret Belief for Success - How to Sell Art Online

Each week TAA features a member of The Abundant Artist Association. This week’s featured member is Ruth Collis- check out her story and her work for some great inspiration!

How would you describe your art to your ideal collector?

I found great fascination the day I discovered cake decorating tips on the end of a paint tube in the art supply store long ago, and have since been able to make highly 3-dimensional acrylic sculptured coral and floral paintings with thick paint and pastry tips.

What motivates you during slow seasons?

When you keep your inspirations full, it is never slow. Inspirations create new things that customers will want. One of my inspirations is looking at the design of fine homes around me and how to incorporate that in my paintings, or the sea life and rock textures around.

Another thing I do for endless work and income is turn all the footage of my paintings and secrets discovered, into a video course or quick tutorial for students. There’s always the list of endless ideas I keep recording too.

How did you settle on your current way of working?

It was my dream to madly study how to make a strip of paint dry on a non-stick surface back before many ways became popular. If I could figure out what that could be, then I could peel the dried strip of paint off & form a rose made entirely out of paint, then put it with others in a painting & would amaze people on what is possible with paint alone! This discovery brought about my style of using a “Separate Drying Layer” to sculpt many paint forms!

Gel Roses, Ruth Collis

What is one mistake you’ve learned an important lesson from in your business?

To have a commission contract. I spent 3 months making a highly dimensional piece and working out all the kinks for the prospect to not put her money where her mouth was.

Energy, Ruth Collis

Instead of seeing it as 3 months of my life just wasted, it was also another example of how you learn the most from your most challenging pieces. This one revealed how I can get MUCH more sculpted height by adding already dried paint than waiting endlessly for layers & layers of wet paint to dry. I keep a growing supply of already dried paint scraps to sculpt with called the “Paint Scrap Junkyard” that turned out to not waste paint in our landfills and I also invented a way to evaporate water out of used paint water to prevent paint particle buildup in plumbing over time.

3D Pipe Coral Abstract, Ruth Collis

Video showing it Rotating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02A6d3P5XHs&t=31s

This led to another use for my layers of palette paint… when using a non-stick surface, that enabled whole thick skins of paint to be peeled off & rolled into a pipe coral shape which made the classiest sculpture, and turning it into an online video course has enrolled over 3,184 students.

What was your greatest success from the past year?

My greatest success interestingly has nothing to do with art at all, that people seem to care the least about, but this secret has given me the most success in all areas of my life. It is using Intentional Imagining for what I did want when that didn’t exist yet. It was learning about a universal law of feeling and focus that says, “What you focus on with intent and great feeling, you attract more of that thing in your life.” I am still making myself aware of turning my negative focus into how I do want life to be, but through learning and applying a lot of extra tricks, I have been able to turn a miserable life around to one of my dreams…

Prison cell of a room into freedom of having my own apartment
Noise everywhere into peace & quiet
Scorching environment to pleasant living and by the beach!
Graffiti, trash, & stinky oil spills to living in breathtaking scenery of inspiration
Always feeling out of place to finding I fit much better in the world I created
Unhappy relationships into better fitting ones
Resistance into support
Debt into freedom & high credit score
My own art on the walls where I live for once and turned my own apartment into my own studio and gallery
Hassle of car rentals every time I wanted to go out, to having gas saving vehicles of my own to greet people in, and ability to transport my bigger art to events now

My whole life has turned around from using this Intentional Imagining. “Our thoughts become our eventual reality” is so true and when one takes responsibility for what happens in their world, only then the power changes to be on your hands. I have gone from homeless to relying on myself the more I learn from these principles that has given me the greatest of art success and ability to move to the place of my dreams in Pismo Beach, California where I hope to share these phenomenal 3-dimensional discoveries, and build art exhibits and gardens for touring.

Some additional insights I would add:

See calamity as success.

A thief stole $12,000 I borrowed yet never delivered the tiny home. This led me to a debt elimination program where I owe nothing now, and I live in a much better dreamy apartment that fits me and with a patio to start my gardens.
My car was wrecked first 5 days of moving to paradise, but that led to a payout and better car.
My shoulder got injured at work that led to much paid time off, a settlement, and big leap into the art career of my dreams.

Keep focus on the dreams realized and not the fears.

Having supportive people around you is part of this, and not those resistant to your ideals as a main focus. Make a vision board and put your dreams up in constant sight, and print your own positive sayings of where you want to be and think of already having that, and it will eventually happen.

Always add to your education.

Invest in yourself and learn from a teacher who is where you want to be with your style of painting that can save you great time; and also invest in good marketing courses to help you get your art out there and noticed in ways you never imagined, like this How To Sell Your Art Online, from The Abundant Artist.

Ruth Collis offers originals available for purchase on her website and online instruction for students. She has been painting since 1998 and finds inspiration in fun tools like cake decorating tips to get highly sculpted forms in thick paint easily. She has many paint inventions for our time in history, and her continual testing reveals new discoveries she shares in her instructional video courses since 2014. She has authored many books, and now sells originals to homeowners and businesses. She is an international artist and has started the beginning stages of building her Art & Gardens for tours in her inspiring town of Pismo Beach, California and the surrounding area of where she lives. You can see her art at http://www.SculptedPaint.com