My face gets more engagement than my paintings do
Last week I posted a short video of myself in the studio talking about a portrait I'm working on, just rambling about how I keep overworking the eyes and having to scrape back layers. Nothing polished. It got three times the likes and comments of the finished painting I posted two days before.
This keeps happening. A photo of me mixing skin tones on a palette knife, me standing next to a piece talking about a sitter's posture, even just a shot of my paint-stained hands. All of it outperforms the actual work.
Part of me gets it. People connect with people. But I came up doing sign painting, not performing. The work should carry itself, right? Or is that just stubbornness.
How do you all balance showing yourself versus showing the art? Does the personal stuff actually lead to sales or just vanity metrics?
This resonates with me a lot. I spent a long time thinking the finished piece should do all the talking, and honestly it felt almost wrong when a messy process clip got way more traction than something I'd spent days polishing. But what finally clicked for me is that people genuinely want to feel like they know the person making the work. They're not just scrolling for a pretty image, they're looking for a human connection. I've noticed the comments that get the most energy on my stuff are things like "good to see you" or "missed these updates," not deep critiques of the rendering. The art still matters, but pairing it with moments of you talking through decisions, showing the scraping back and the fumbling, that's what builds the kind of relationship where someone eventually wants to own a piece. Both things feed each other. I don't think it's performing so much as just letting people in.