Sharing is caring... except when it isn't.

So this week I had an article pop up in my newsfeed from a page I follow called Kind Springs. The article featured this piece of art, my piece of art. Except that I wasn't credited as the artist. I posted this piece on my blog back before I started adding the website watermark to all my images. Someone copied it off my site and started using it. To any beginning artists reading this, I would advise that you start watermarking right away and not wait like I did. Because a friend of mine did a reverse image search and found that this image has been popping up all over the web, uncredited or worse yet, mis-credited. The last time this happened, I contacted the person and let her know that by the way, that is my image and I am quite happy to have you use it, but please credit me as the artist. Here response was just to take the image down. Not what I was going for.

The topic of art use has been covered by many great artists before me and will continue to be covered by many more after this. But for the record, if you see a piece of art that you love and you want to use it on your blog or website, the common courtesy is to credit the artist and link back to their online store or website. Taking this a step further, you could send the artist an email and let her know you are planning to use the images in a post, which could result in the artist promoting your post to her circle. It's all about building relationships. Plus, it is just not good karma to take something off an artists site and use it without their permission.

Now I will get down off my soap box and get back to making art.

Love, kindness and gratitude,