ArtByRami in 2009

I made a comeback to my passion of oil painting in April 2009; my first abstract oil painting was “Intensity”. I plan to keep it and not sell it.  “Dawn” which was sold shortly after I finished it, was my first landscape for years.

After long inner debate with myself whether to continue the road of my passion, I finally decided to pursue it seriously and aggressively. I am so happy that I made a comeback to my passion despite the known difficulties and challenges that most emerging artists face in their career.

I must mention an online friend and mentor that has kept me going by providing me with great supportive feedback, his name is Andrew, I have never met him, we communicate through email only. I was thrilled when I first received an email from him, full of positive support for my art, along with lots of constructive criticism. Andrew is an artist himself, I do thank him and wish him all the success in his art career.

Being a programmer, I decided to go online with my art, so I created a simple looking web site named it www.artbyrami.com, the major challenge I faced with my site is how to get visitors on a daily basis, I launched my site in June 2009.

The number of visitors in June was 358, in July jumped to 628, in August jumped to 1348, in September 1106, in October 1161, in November 1313 and in December I expect about 1500 visitors.

I also must mention that the number of countries of visitors to my site has increased more than 10 times; I currently get visitors from more than 80 countries around the globe.

I got most of my tips to increase my traffic to my site via an wonderful online resource for emerging artists called empty easele

I am so happy and proud to have launched my art site to promote my art internationally and locally.

I’m expanding my site to completely translate it into French and possibly a third language as well by early 2010.

To promote my art, I joined BoundlessGallery, a site that specializes in selling art online, It has been a challenge to compete with established best selling artist, however, so far my experience has been positive and I finally made a sale [Black and White Fusion] to an art collector in the USA.

I also joined fan Art Review a great site to have my art reviewed and criticized, I must say, I was very excited with the idea and I managed to be among the first 10 best artists and best art reviewers, however, the amount of time I had to put on this site alone was extremely unrealistic so I decided to give it a lesser priority.

I also joined other art websites like Artslant, CultureInside…, to promote my art and introduce my name out there as an emerging artist.

I had my first outdoor art exhibit last August 2009, at Sunny side beach, downtown, Toronto, Canada , it was a great experience for me, I learned a lot and met great artists and art lovers.

I had my second art show in Guelph, Ontario, Canada in October 2009, the show went pretty well, I met amazing and talented artists, I also met some of my art fans who knew me only through my web site.

I joined few online art completions; I won 2 awards so far and got amazing reviews about my award winning paintings [Garden Bliss & Swirling Spirit] from well talented and famous art jurors and art professors. The 2 awards were followed with 2 press releases within the local media of the city of Toronto.

I was excited and humbled to receive a request from World Wide Art Books to give me the opportunity to participate in “International Contemporary Masters” Volume IV.

I am also a sponsor within the World Wide Art Books organization.

I also got an invitation from Nevada Art museum to exhibit  from June to August of 2010 

I am so satisfied and pleased with my 2009 accomplishments in my art domain, I have big hopes and great plans for 2010 and the following years, please visit my site  www.artbyrami.com on a regular basis or join my mailing list for updates.

If you are in Toronto Feb 2010, please join me at the Toronto Convention Center, where I’ll be exhibiting from Feb 25 till Feb 28 2010.

I wish all of you a great and prosperous new year.

My 2009 Art Journey On Vedeo