Submitting Your First Artwork

Submitting to a call takes one form, split into a few steps, and it saves as you go. This guide walks through starting a submission, what each step asks for, and what happens after you send it. Before you begin, gather your images and the details of the work: title, medium, dimensions, year, and a price if the call sells work.

Starting a submission

Find a call from Browse Calls and open it. The call page has an Apply now button at the top and again near the bottom. If you already have a submission to that call, the same button reads Manage submissions, and Submit Another appears when the call still has room for more of your work.

Some calls are open only to members of the organization running them. If that applies, you see a note before the form opens telling you which organization, and which email address was checked. You can confirm an existing membership under a different email, or follow the organization's link to join.

The steps

Before you begin lists what this particular call requires: how many images, what is mandatory, what the deadline is. Continue to Works & Details moves you on.

Works & Details is the body of the form.

Upload your images. Drag them onto the box or click to choose files. The accepted formats and the size limit per file are printed under the box, along with how many more images this call will take. The first image you upload is your primary image, and you can drag the thumbnails to reorder or use Set primary.
Fill in the artwork details: title, medium, dimensions, year, and your statement. Dimensions use whichever unit you have set on your account.
Under Pricing & Availability, enter a price, or tick Not for sale. When you tick it, the price field is disabled and the work is listed as unavailable for purchase. Some calls require every submission to be for sale, and on those the Not for sale option does not appear and a price above zero is required.

If you keep a portfolio on Crafted Call, Select from Portfolio pre-fills the form from an existing work, including its images. See Using your portfolio when submitting.

Calls with their own questions put them on a Call Questions step of their own.

Review & Submit shows your submission back to you before anything is sent.

Agreements

Agreements are accepted on the Review & Submit step, in an Agreements section, not on a separate page. Each one reads I acknowledge the followed by a link to the policy itself. Open and read each linked policy before you tick it. Organizations choose which agreements they require, so the list differs from call to call. The submit buttons stay disabled until every required box is ticked.

The same section may offer to keep you updated about future opportunities from that organization. That is optional, and you are only added when you actually submit, never when you save a draft.

Submitting

The finish section at the bottom of Review & Submit offers:

Save Draft Only to come back later.
Submit Work Now on a free call, or Continue to Checkout when there is an entry fee to pay.
Submit and Add Another if you are entering several pieces in one sitting.

On a call with an entry fee, your submission goes into a cart and you pay from there. See Entry fees and how you pay them. Some calls collect nothing up front and charge only if your work is accepted.

Drafts and autosave

The form saves as you work. The status line above it reads Draft will auto-save before your first change and Draft saved with the time after each one. Reopen a draft later and a Draft restored badge confirms your work came back.

If your sign-in expires while you are typing, the form tells you plainly: Your session expired. Nothing you type is being saved. Use Sign in again, which opens in a new tab so you do not lose the page, then Retry saving. What you have typed stays on screen throughout.

After you submit

The confirmation page shows what was received, the call, and your receipt if you paid. Two optional things appear there:

A one-question survey asking how submitting went, rated from hard to easy, with room to say what would have made it easier. Not now dismisses it.
Your artist profile, offering to fill in details you have not added yet. It says so explicitly: this is optional and does not affect your eligibility or your submission.

You also get a confirmation email. If several pieces were paid for together, they arrive as one email covering all of them.

Changing your mind

You can usually keep editing until the call closes. Open the submission from your submissions list and look at the banner at the top, which either tells you the date you can edit until, or tells you editing is locked and why. See Editing and withdrawing your submission.