Being an artist myself, I’ve often wondered about the best sites to upload art. Like any other artist, I want to promote my art and get it out there – in the best place to post art. In this article, I talk about the best art websites for artists, including the best social media for artists 2024 and art sharing websites like DeviantArt and Behance. Read on to find out where you can post your art online, from Instagram over Saatchi Art to Etsy and ArtStation!
Should I post my art online?
In my opinion, sharing your work with others online is absolutely worth it.
It doesn’t matter if you just got started with creating art or if you’re already into it for a couple of years. It doesn’t matter how advanced your skills are or if you’re still trying things out. And it doesn’t matter what genre of art you’re in either!
Uploading your artwork online can help other people find you and get inspired by your works. In return, you can also find like-minded artists, chat with them, and let yourself be inspired by their works!
Eventually, you’ll gain more confidence in your art and be able to build an audience. You can start promoting your artworks and maybe even get in touch with potential buyers.
One other thing you might worry about is, ‘What if people don’t like my work?’ Chances are you already caught yourself thinking, ‘Why is my picture not getting as many likes as XY’s picture?’
Well, the first thing to do is stop thinking that way: Never compare yourself to anybody else! Never judge your work based on the likes that it gets!
I’m talking more about why the number of likes is not an indicator of how good your work is in the → 10 DOs & DON’Ts For Artists Posting Art On Instagram.
For now, you should remember this:
I absolutely love that piece of poetry. Because it’s true.
(Btw, I don’t know who wrote it. If you do, let me know. I’ll credit and link back!)
When you create art, you should never ask yourself:
Instead, you should ask yourself:
OK! Now, with the right mindset, let’s have a look at the many sites where you can upload your art online.
Where should I post my art online?
Many artists wonder, ‘Where is the best place to post art?’ In fact, I think there’s no ‘best place’ to showcase and sell your art.
Nowadays, there are heaps of sites out there to upload your art. The main difference is that some are social media platforms and others are online art communities.
Both types of platforms will allow you to showcase and promote your art, and eventually get some sales. On both types of platforms, you’ll be able to connect with other artists and like-minded people.
So whether you post your art on social media or special art websites will not make such a huge difference at the end of the day.
Before we start looking at the best sites to upload art, there’s one other thing you should keep in mind: it’s important to protect your art from getting stolen when showcasing it on the web.
Protecting your art online
The moment you upload your art to any site, there will always be people trying to ‘steal’ your images. This may include using your image on their website without asking your permission or without crediting you.
People might alter your image and then post it on another platform, pretending to be the creator of it. Or somebody might cut out stuff from your image and make it available as a resource for free!
Believe me, I’ve seen it all happen to my pictures.
As an artist, you want to protect your work against such things. There are different ways to do that. For example, you can upload only low-resolution images of your work. Such images still look nice but they don’t easily scale up to larger sizes and can’t just be printed out and hung on a wall.
However, the best protection, in my opinion, is to watermark your artworks. I’ve written a post about the best ways to protect your art online. Feel free to check it out to learn more.
Okay, with that said, let’s start our roundup of the best sites to upload art by having a look at the best social media for artists!
Which social media is best for artists?
If you had asked me that question in 2022, I might have said that the best social media for artists are perhaps still Instagram and Facebook. Why?
Because both Instagram and Facebook are picture-based social platforms that used to have a good organic reach. Meaning you were able to reach a lot of real life people on these networks.
However, now we are in 2024 and things have changed significantly. Especially the latest changes in Instagram’s algorithm make it harder and harder for users to grow an audience.
This is even more so when you have a small art account or when you are just getting started on the platform. But I also see more and more artists with large followings complain about the “new Instagram” and leave the network altogether.
Well, and then there’s still Instagram’s understanding of art… Have a look at my “Social Art Dilemma” and you’ll know what I mean.
If Instagram and Facebook still work for you, fine. Go for it. But it may be a good idea to start looking for a social media alternative, as you can never be sure where things are going.
I’ve discovered that Pinterest is such a greater option as compared to Instagram and Facebook. So let’s start there.
Pinterest is the new Instagram when it comes to posting your art online. It’s a picture-based platform just like Insta. But contrary to Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest works like a visual search engine.
It’s basically Google for pictures. And just like Google, it has the potential to drive some serious traffic to your artist website. With about 150 million Pinterest users monthly, a huge number of people can find your Pin and discover your artwork.
The good thing is that Pinterest Pins have a much longer lifespan than any other social media posts. Your pins will always be available and searchable, as long as you keep your Pinterest account active.
Plus, when posting regularly on Pinterest, your efforts will actually be rewarded with a visible growth in your organic reach—something that doesn’t happen on Instagram and Facebook anymore so easily…
So how does Pinterest work?
Just like on any other platform, you create a free account on Pinterest. Then you share ‘pinned’ images with your followers. You can take a picture of your artwork and pin it to Pinterest. People can like and re-pin the image.
You can also pin an image from any other website. Many platforms have a quick Pin button next to each picture, but you can also add a “Pin It” extension to your browser. You can then simply click that Pin button and share pictures from any website, including your own.
Whenever you pin an image, you’ll automatically share the link to website it’s on. That’s a great thing because it allows you to direct people to your website.
Besides, Pinterest lets you create Pinboards for specific topics. Let’s say you can make a Pinboard for Surreal Art. You can then post surreal works of other artists to that board and mix it with surreal artworks of your own.
This is an excellent way to interconnect with other artists and promote your own art simultaneously!
Instagram has been on the rise since 2010 when smartphones started flooding the market. There are around 500 million users on Instagram who share about 95 million photos every day.
Instagram is an entirely picture-based platform (even though people also post text in form of pictures). That’s a great thing for artists, because its picture-based nature can help you a lot in promoting your art. However…
In recent months, Instagram has come up with many new features that do not necessary suit visual artists. Now, there’s Reels, Stories, IG TV, … But like any other social media platform, Instagram wants to promote its latest features, so the algorithm prioritizes accounts that make use of them.
But here’s the thing: not every artist feels comfortable turning their art into video or speaking to a camera. As a result, they are losing the favor of IG’s algorithm.
One other thing you need to know when posting art on Instagram: headshots and details get more attention than images showing large sceneries.
Unfortunately, Instagram’s layout gets people scrolling down through the posts and discourages them from looking longer at one post. The more close-up pictures you post, the more views and likes you’ll eventually get.
Nevertheless, there are still plenty of artists, art lovers, art magazines and galleries on the platform. So if you still want to give Instagram a shot, here’s some further reading for you:
With around 2 billion users, Facebook is currently the largest social network out there. However, while Facebook surely belonged to the best sites to upload art in the past, it has lost quite some steam and some voices proclaim that Facebook’s days of glory are over.
You’ve surely noticed that Facebook’s algorithm significantly restricts the variety of posts you see. Even if you have – let’s say – a thousand friends on your profile, it’s always the posts of around the same 10 people that pop up on your newsfeed.
If you’ve liked a fan page or joined a group, you will notice at some point that you don’t get to see any of their posts anymore! That’s because Facebook is restricting their reach.
Create a Personal FB Page and Join Art Groups
Your best take on Facebook is probably to make a personal site for your art (not a fan page) and then join some art groups.
There are many great art groups for all types of art and from all over the world. Some also provide tutorials. You can be part of a community of like-minded people who are interested in the same art as you are.
Before you join a group, always check how active the group actually is. Some groups may have a huge amount of members but low engagement. You can see that by looking at the posts in the group. Do members post regularly? Do their posts get a good number of likes and comments? In some groups, you can also see the view count for each post.
If likes and comments are low, there’s not much engagement in the group going on. You probably don’t want to waste time and effort posting in this group. Groups with good engagement always have a good number of likes and comments for each post and their members submit artwork regularly.
Tumblr.
The fourth social media channel among the best sites to upload art is Tumblr. Tumblr is a blogging-style network that hosts over 332 million blogs. Its members create more than 40 million posts every day.
Even though these are pretty amazing numbers, you might not find it easy to gain exposure on the platform as an artist. That’s partly because Tumblr is not just picture-based, such as Instagram and Pinterest. People can share anything: texts, quotes, photos, music, videos, links, etc.
Tumblr has a reblog feature that allows you to share other people’s posts with your followers. Just like on a blog, you can customize your home theme and make it a nice place to showcase your work.
There are also artists and art-lovers on Tumblr who regularly post other artists’ works. Some of these accounts have accumulated quite a big following and allow artists to submit work. If you submit artwork to such an account and it gets featured, you may get a nice boost for your profile.
Conclusion: Tumblr is not as optimal for visual artists as picture-based social media, but it’s definitely worth a try.
Twitter / X
Twitter, or more recently X since Elon Musk took it over in 2023, does not really rank among the best sites to upload art, especially if it’s visual art.
Twitter is rather a text-based platform allowing users to send out ‘tweets’ with 280 characters at the most. Even though it has the option to add pictures, videos, and audio to messages, it’s still focused on text Tweets.
Since its market launch in 2006, Twitter has been growing to 155+ million users that tweet about 1 billion messages a month.
Basically anybody and everybody is on Twitter today: from politicians to celebrities to poets to book authors to your neighbor next door.
There’s of course lots of visual artists on Twitter, too. You can search for your favorite artists or art genre (via related keywords) and follow those people. Still, Instagram and Pinterest are better places for artists, since it’s where people go to look at pictures.
On Twitter, the sheer masses of users and the enormous amount of messages sent every minute will make it hard to create a meaningful following in the medium run. To get noticed, a minimum of 3 tweets a day is recommended.
However, there’s no harm in creating a free Twitter account and trying your luck. You can put a link to another website of yours in your profile section to draw more people over to that site. You can also cross-post from your Instagram and Tumblr accounts and attract more attention to these.
Threads
Threads is the newest kid on the block in the social media landscape. It belongs by Meta, the company that also owns Instagram and Facebook.
Threads is basically Meta’s response to Twitter / X. It’s very similar to Twitter—both from the look and feel and from its workings.
Just like Twitter, Threads is mainly a text-focused platform, but users can also post images and videos and interact through replies, reposts, and likes.
The application is intended for mobile devices. There’s also a web version available, but it comes with limited functionality and requires you to install a mobile app first.
When Threads was launched at the beginning of July 2023, it quickly gained over 100 million users in the first few days. However, as quickly as gained, the app had lost 80% of its daily active users by the end of the month… This already speaks volumes about the popularity of Threads.
To sign up for Threads, you’ll need to have an Instagram account, and Instagram is pushing users hard to hop on Threads, making it a prerequisite to gain (or maintain) their reach on Insta.
Can we count Threads among the best sites to upload art?
Well, first of all, Twitter / X is not necessarily the best platform for artists because of its primarily text-based nature, and Threads is very much like Twitter. Then, add to that Threads’ rapidly declining user numbers and Meta’s aggressive effort to drive Instagram users over to Threads.
Lastly, we all know that both Facebook and Instagram got significantly worse: increasingly frequent and obscure algorithmic changes, an overwhelming amount of ads clogging up your your feed, and a brazen number of “Boost post” suggestions on IG, pushing you to pay for exposure.
With all of that in mind, I think it’s safe to say that Threads might not be the best app to upload your art in the first place.
If you want to know my entire take on Threads being worth it for artists, check out the below post:
What are the best art websites for artists?
There are quite a few online art sharing sites that are specifically designed for artists to post their art and connect with each other. The best known among them is probably DeviantArt.
The number of art sharing websites like DeviantArt is growing almost by the day. But many of these art sites disappear relatively fast or just don’t manage to build a large enough community with great engagement. (Just think of Shadowness.com…)
So let’s go ahead and look at some of the top art communities out there where you can submit artwork.
DeviantArt
DeviantArt is one of the oldest and still the largest network for artists to share and promote their works. It was founded in 2000 and counts more than 38 million members.
DA’s members, known as ‘Deviants’, upload over 160,000 artworks every day. Over 65 million people visit the website monthly. That makes DeviantArt still one of the best sites to upload art!
You’ll find all types of art there. Lots of it is digital art, concept art, anime, cartoons and manga. But there’s also photography, painting, sculpture, drawing, pixel art, and much more.
Deviants and Deviations
You can create a free account and become part of the deviants. When you upload your deviations (your artworks) to the platform, other member can ‘fave’ and add them to their collections.
Your works will then not only show up on your own profile but also in other members’ collections. That’s a great way to give each other more exposure.
On the flipside, DeviantArt has been losing much of its original flair. A decade ago, DeviantArt used to have a very active and supportive community of artists commenting on each other’s works and giving authentic feedback.
Unfortunately, the days of genuine engagement on DeviantArt are over. Many artists have left the platform and others are just not getting actively involved anymore because they don’t see the point of doing so in the all lethargic atmosphere.
However, I still recommend you create a free account on DeviantArt and start submitting your artworks. With its huge user base and mainstream fame, it still remains one of the best sites to upload art for any artist.
You can link back to your own website on your DA profile or under your deviations and thus drive some traffic to your site.
Behance
Behance is probably the second largest community for artists to showcase and discover creative works of all types. You can sign up for a free account and start uploading your works.
Most page views on Behance are said to come from non-members of the community. Many companies browse the network to discover talent and hire artists for creative commissions.
Behance offers you the option to select up to three categories that fit the genre of your work. People can then select their favorite category and browse through the works.
I wouldn’t expect fast results in networking and feedback on the platform, though. The number of artists competing for jobs and the huge amount of outside views will make it take more time for you to get interaction and exposure.
Galleries and Projects
Nevertheless, Behance is actively supporting artists to maximize exposure. Moderators can select specific works of your portfolio that they deem noteworthy. Behance then distributes those works to its other online galleries, resulting in significantly more publicity for that particular piece.
If one of your projects has been selected to be featured in one of Behance’s galleries, the gallery initial will be displayed on top of your page as well as on the project thumbnail.
There’s a number of different galleries: the Pantone Canvas Gallery is like an inspiration feature. Then there are also galleries for Fashion, Digital Art, Traditional Art, etc. You can follow these galleries – basically the same way you follow a hashtag on Instagram.
In terms of showcasing, Behance doesn’t work like DeviantArt where you upload individual pictures to your profile. On Behance, you create so-called ‘projects’. A project is a webpage in itself that you can customize and upload your main picture to, plus related images.
Your actual Behance profile only shows the thumbnails that you set for each project.
WetCanvas
WetCanvas has been around the longest. It was founded by Scott Burkett in 1998.
You can showcase and sell your art on WetCanvas, connect and collaborate with other artists, and learn about a specific art style in one of the forums.
In fact, WetCanvas is known best for its forums. You can find instructional tutorials about almost anything that has to do with art.
The most active forums are those about Watercolor, Drawing and Sketching, and Glass Art. Followed by Illustration, Composition and Design, and Studio Paintings.
WetCanvas is one of the best sites to upload art for traditional artists. As its name suggests, it was originally intended for paintings that indeed leave the canvas wet. (◕‿◕)
The biggest section on WetCanvas is landscape paintings. So, if you’re a traditional landscape painter, chances are good to get your art seen by a large interested audience on the website.
If you’re into any other type of art, you can still try your luck on WetCanvas. It’s not restricted to traditional forms of art. However, it might be comparably harder to reach an audience with different art styles.
Fine Art America, Society6 and RedBubble
Fine Art America, Society6 and RedBubble are all print-on-demand (POD) services. You can create a free account on each platform, upload your work and then pick what products you want to sell it on. (Just for the record, you don’t need to be located in America to sign up with Fine Art America.)
When someone orders your product, the platform’s service fulfills the order and ships it to the customer.
Fine Art America, Society6 and RedBubble have identical sales models. All have a base price for their products. The base price is the amount you pay them for product and printing. You add your own markup to the base price, which is your profit from the sale. Conclusively, the retail price is the base price plus your markup!
However, you can only mark your merchandise up to a certain level before you price yourself out of the market and customers settle for buying something less pricey.
What’s Better: Fine Art America, Society6 or RedBubble?
Society6 and RedBubble let you upload an unlimited number of images and sell them on their full range of products, including prints, wall art, apparel and lifestyle products.
On Fine Art America, on the other hand, you will have to get a premium account for $30 a year to upload more than 25 images and be able to sell them on all products. With the free standard FAA account, you can only sell wall art and home décor.
There may be differences in what type of art sells better on which of the three websites. Fine Art America was originally geared towards ‘fine art’ that would hang in museums, offices, and homes.
So, if your focus is on selling quality fine art prints, your chances to make good profit are higher on Fine Art America.
→ Best File Format For Printing Digital Art
If you want to sell different merchandise and maximize your profits on them, then Society6 is probably the right place for you.
You’ll have to try around a bit and find out yourself what works best for you. As all three networks offer you the opportunity to create a free account, there’s no harm in giving all of them a go!
Saatchi Art
Saatchi Art bills itself as ‘the world’s leading online gallery’. The Los Angeles based art sharing site features more than 500,000 original artworks by more than 60,000 artists. The showcasing artists come from over 100 countries and sell to buyers in 88 countries.
Saatchi Art takes 30 percent off every art sale on their platform. Unlike the three previous sites, Saatchi Art is not a print-on-demand service.
On Saatchi, the artists themselves are responsible for packaging and shipping their work. For that purpose, Saatchi provides users with an online manual that covers everything from pricing, packaging and shipping art items.
So, if you like to have more control over what is sold and how it’s shipped, Saatchi is probably the best place for you to upload your art for sale.
Saatchi Art works a bit like DeviantArt: users can gather images into collections, which are then available for shared viewing and commenting.
For buyers and curators, it’s easy to discover new artists and search for specific types of artwork through a variety of filters.
On top of that, Saatchi Art helps to promote the top artworks submitted by its members. In this respect, things work quite similar to Behance. Curators look out for pieces of art that they deem particularly noteworthy. Such ‘noteworthy’ pieces are then shown in the Saatchi Art Magazine as part of a One to Watch series.
Etsy
Etsy is one of the most popular sites to upload art. It has been around since 2005 and has a huge community of active users. You can find anything from digital art, to traditional paintings, illustrations, and other crafted items.
When you upload your work to Etsy, you can be sure to get it seen by a worldwide audience interested in art.
The Go-To Place for All Things Art
In fact, Etsy is the biggest online sales platform for all things art. It is well known for the original and handmade pieces that you can buy from artists around the world. But there is a market for everything.
Selling art on Etsy is very affordable, and therefore also a good option for beginners to get started. Creating an account on the platform is completely free, and sales and transaction fees are much lower than on comparable sites.
Offer Digital Downloads and Printables of Your Art
Apart from physical artwork like original paintings, prints, wall art, handcrafted items, jewelry, clothing, accessories, etc., Etsy is the ideal place to offer digital downloads and printables of your art.
Digital downloads and printables can be anything from virtual files of your artwork, printable quotes, e-books, graphics, fonts, presets, and so on.
Offering digital files is super-easy, because Etsy will handle the delivery of the virtual files for you. When a customer purchases one of your digital products, Etsy will email them a download link. Except for uploading your art, you don’t have to do anything. ʕᴖᴥᴖʔ
ArtStation
ArtStation is one of the best sites to upload art for creatives who are in the video games, film, or entertainment industry. It’s heavily geared towards 3D works, manipulations, vector graphics, 2D characters, and the like.
You can find some of the top industry professionals on Art Station. You can get inspired by their works or catch glimpses into their workflow and WIPs.
→ What Is WIP In Art? – 7 Tips How (+ Why) To Share Your Work In Progress
For each piece of art you upload to ArtStation, you create a Project folder.
One thing to take note of is that projects with more than one picture tend to get more views. Consider sharing multiple images that are related to your main work. This can be details, close-ups, and process shots.
Another thing you should know about Art Station is that there’s not so much opportunity to interact with people as on other art sharing sites like DeviantArt. Don’t expect much feedback on the works you put out there. ArtStation is not so much the typical ‘art community’.
A Website Builder to Set Up a Portfolio the Easy Way
Instead, if you want a professional looking portfolio, it’s the place to go. ArtStation allows you to set up your own website with free or paid hosting options.
The paid ArtStation Plus and Pro plans function like a website builder. Using one of these plans, you can build your personal portfolio site just like you could with Squarespace or Wix. The ArtStation Plus plan is $6.99, and the ArtStation Pro plan is $9.95 per month.
→ Is Squarespace Good For Artists? – A Squarespace Review For Visual Creatives
You can put up your best work to show it to potential clients and get some freelance gigs. Many digital artists in the games industry get jobs with major game studios by showcasing their portfolio on ArtStation.
So, if you’re a digital artist in one of those industries, ArtStation is probably a really good place for you to go!
YouPic
YouPic is primarily a photography community. You’ll find all kinds of photographers, from amateurs to professionals. Indeed, there are lots of professional photographers because the site allows them to find job bookings in their area.
Re-Pics and Inspiration Stars
After uploading an image to YouPic, it doesn’t take long for it to get likes and ‘re-pics’ (similar to re-tweets on Twitter). Members can nominate your picture as ‘Inspiration’. Based on your Inspiration Stars, YouPic curators may choose your photo to get featured on their front page.
However, one thing you’ll notice is that your images won’t get featured anymore, if you don’t upgrade to a paid membership after a while… On that note, YouPic tends to be very pushy with sending notifications to upgrade. Every week, you’ll find such a message in your inbox!
Apart from that, the platform allows users to rank each other’s work on a scale from 1 to 10 regarding Composition, Creativity, Technical Quality and Content of the image.
Even though I personally don’t mind that feature, I don’t find it very useful either. Depending on who gives the feedback, it can be like a novice evaluating an expert photographer or the other way round. Probably not such a well-chosen feature, especially if a user doesn’t ask for feedback…
If you’re keen, you can create a shop on YouPic and start selling your works. The shop is commission-free, which means you will get 100% of the revenue you make. That’s pretty awesome.
If you’ve upgraded your account to the premium version and don’t want to continue on it, make sure to cancel your subscription before the renewal date. From what I hear, many members are not aware of this cancellation policy and are unwillingly charged renewal fees that are not being refunded.
What do you think are the best sites to upload art? Do you prefer social media or art sharing websites? Let me know in the comments below. If you enjoyed this post, consider sharing it with other artists! See you on the next post, Angie ♡
This is such a comprehensive guide! I had no idea there were so many platforms available for artists to showcase their work. Your breakdown of each site’s features and community focus is incredibly helpful for anyone looking to expand their online presence.
Hi Olivia, great to hear that you found the round-up helpful! I wish you all the best on your creative journey and lots of eyeballs on your work (ಠ‿↼)