With the current situation where we have to quarantine, self isolate and social distance, keeping social is obviously something we are finding hard to do.

This is where social media can help. I know quite a few people are suspicious of using social media, but I’m actually a big fan of it. You just need to be aware of what you are doing and posting to stay safe.

My own personal recommendations are, don’t post personal information or family information. Always take with a pinch of salt, posts from unknown sources. If you don’t like a post, block them or scroll on past. Don’t get drawn in to political or reglious “debates”, they are never debates, they just turn nasty! 

Heck, that all sounds very negative, but the positives are, keeping in touch with family from different parts of the country, finding new ideas, finding like minded people from around the world, being able to be inspired by others, show off your art to others, even sell if you want to.

TAS has had a Facebook page for quite some years, and has been mostly run by Karen de la Harpe (thank you Karen). The page is a great way of promoting TAS to the wider Facebook audience, and can be viewed and liked by anyone, which is good for TAS.

But to add to this, and for TAS members benefit, we have now created a TAS Group as part of the Facebook page, many thanks to Ali Cooper for suggesting it, and helping me set it up. The benefit of the group, is that we can control who joins, and that will only be TAS members. 

The idea of the group (and again this is all down to Ali), is that we have a place to share WIPs, completed work, catch up with each other, chat about art, chat about being creative etc, etc. I have put in place a few rules, which mirror my comments above, no politcal or relgious debates please.

I do urge you to consider joining Facebook and joing the group, it will be a great way of keeping in contact over the next few weeks/months.

Link to our Facebook page is:  https://www.facebook.com/TivertonArtSociety/

Other Social Media you may like to use

Twitter: great for for following like minded people, but can get a bit intense with people sharing others comments. (https://twitter.com/?lang=en-gb)

Instagram: Ideal for artists and creators, you can showcase your work and be inspired by others. Again, excellent if you are looking a for niche subject. (https://www.instagram.com/)

Pinterest: Another excellent platform for visual artists and creators. Ok, not so much social interaction with this one, but fantastic for collecting visual ideas, references, and a showcase for your art/creations etc. (https://www.pinterest.co.uk/)

YouTube: Fantastic for learning new skills and picking up ideas, and much much more, many an hour can be lost watching great inspiring content! (https://www.youtube.com/)

For interest, I have 1 Twitter account (not art related, but aviation niche), 3 Instagram accounts (one for art/illustration, one for photography and one for a fun cute toy photos, don’t ask!) , 2 Pinterest accounts (one for collecting references and one to help promote my art/illustration/creative works) and 2 YouTube accounts (just starting to get in to video creation, as I have to do that as part of my full time job, so one is used for practice videos, and the other for creativity videos).

If you are selling your art/crafts, all of the above, including Facebook can be used to help market your work.

I hope this has been of some help.
Stay safe and keep well.