Sundry Works Help · Review

Reviewing everything one painting makes

Everything the open painting makes, on one page, with the one decision each needs.

What it's for

Making the things was never the slow part. A card works its footer out from the record and fits the story the moment you open the tab; the certificate, the label and the captions do the same from the look you have saved. What costs the afternoon is the looking - eight tabs, eight loads, eight presses of Approve, for one painting.

Review puts all of it on one page. Open a painting, come here, and every step it is waiting on is in one scroll: the photo, the seven details, the caption, the story, the eight social captions, the story card, the certificate and the back label.

The painting is at the top of the page, beside its own name - small, because it is there to tell you which painting you are settling rather than to be looked at. The Photo step further down shows it at the size you would want to approve it at.

It does not approve anything for you. It moves the eight presses into one place; you still make each one.

Reading the page

Each step is a row with a coloured bar down its left edge, in the same four colours the row of ticks uses. You can see how far along a painting is in one pass from the top without reading a word.

• Green - settled. The row folds to a single line.
• Amber - ready for you to look at. The row is open, showing the thing itself and the button it is waiting on.
• Red - blocked, and the line says what by. A card cannot be laid out before the story is written.
• Sage - not needed. A painting marked Not for sale owes no certificate and no label, and says so in one line where the two would be.

The card, the certificate and the label

What you see here is not a picture of them - it is the Card tab and the Papers tab themselves, with the wall of sliders left off. A card looked at here is the card the tab makes, because it is the tab.

So approving one here is the same press as approving it there. There is no second set of settings to keep in step and no way for the two to disagree. Approving the certificate issues its number here exactly as it does on Papers, and that number is fixed from then on.

To change how one of them looks, press the button on its row - "Open Card", "Open Papers" - and you land on the tab with all its controls. Making and printing live there too: you come here to check and settle, and go there to change or print.

Look again

A settled step folds to one line and the thing it made is not drawn at all. Press "Look again" on any of them to see it, and "Close" to fold it back. Nothing is unlocked by looking.

That is not only tidiness. On a finished painting three of these are printed layouts, and drawing all three behind panels nobody has opened is work - slow on a phone, and for nothing.

What isn't here

Post and Reel. Neither has anything to lock: a post is remade rather than settled, so there is no decision on this page for them to offer. They keep their own ticks on the row above, which turn the first time you export or publish from those tabs.

The rest of the Help

Start here

• Getting started with Sundry Works - What Sundry Works does and how the tabs fit together.
• Using Sundry Works on your phone - Setting up the phone, whether or not there is a computer as well.

Your catalogue

• What's due and what's unfinished - The first tab: what's coming up, what's still to do, what's unfinished.
• Cataloguing your paintings - Your catalog - add paintings and open the one you're working on.
• Reviewing everything one painting makes - Everything the open painting makes, on one page, with the one decision each needs.
• How to price a painting consistently - Work out a consistent price for the open painting.
• Tracking what sold and who bought it - What sold, who took it home, and what it brought in.
• Printing show labels and a portfolio - More than one at a time: a whole show's labels, or a portfolio to send.

Making things from a painting

• Writing a story for a painting - Generate a written story for the painting and keep the best one.
• Making a printed card for a painting - Lay out the printed card for the painting.
• How to make a certificate of authenticity - A painting's two printed documents: its certificate, and the label for its back.
• Web-sized copies of a painting's photo - Export web-sized copies of the painting's photo.
• Branded posts of your paintings - Branded static posts for Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.
• Making a reel of a painting - Build the vertical reel frame and video for social media.
• Designing an artist's business card - The card you hand out, laid out down to the last millimetre.

Running the business

• Setting up your artist brand - Set up once: your identity, brand assets, colours, and AI key.
• An address book for galleries and collectors - A simple address book for galleries, collectors, suppliers, and more.
• Checklists for shows and studio jobs - Reusable checklists for shows, errands, and anything you repeat.
• A calendar for shows and deadlines - Shows, deadlines, and events, with a countdown to each one.
• All your post comments in one list - What people said on your posts, from every platform, in one list.

Connections and setup

• Posting to Instagram and Facebook - Connect your accounts so you can post directly from Sundry Works.
• Posting your paintings to Threads - A second Meta connection, separate from Instagram and Facebook.
• Posting your paintings to Bluesky - The easiest connection of the four - a handle and an app password.
• Scheduling posts to go out later - Line a post up now and let it go out later, with the computer off.
• Configuring Sundry Works - Where everything plugs in: your social accounts, your website, your AI service, and where the catalogue lives.