And where can l advertise without putting money out upfront for my artwork?

AD'S (they will cost tho)

please send me a link of ur site..
there are so many options freely available..like banner exchange,u can put google adsense in it..then some day google will list ur site.first make a banner of ur site and try to exchange with other sites which is allowing free banner exchanging
please visit bravehost.com
there are some option to exchange banner and drive traffic
wish u all the best

Good Question Actually.

Now these r the things u have to do.

Note: Keep in mind that while doing these u should not spam it. Otherwise u will see adverse effects.

1). Enhance ur friends network & start promoting ur website in the popular Social Networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, Myspace, etc.

2). Post / Reply for the threads in ur service related ''Do-Follow'' forums by having ur website URL as a Signature.

3). Do some Social Bookmarking in the popular bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Propeller, etc.

4). Start a blog of ur own / Post comments on ur service related ''Do-Follow'' Blogs by having ur targeted keyword as anchor text.

5). Do some Article, Classifieds & Press Release promotions

If none of these works.Do not worry.go for PPC (Adwords) Ad Campaign with ur targeted keyword (But u have to pay for it)

Good Luck! :)

These r free;
Here r a few sites to help you:
1on40.com/491310553 (they r still allowing me to submit sites for free with this)- the affiliate program is free
addme.com
hits2u.com/?581064
craigslist.com
kijiji.com
t2000ultra.com/?rid=46975
adpost.com
salesspider.com
jayde.com
freewebsubmission.com
gumtree.com
backpage.com
These cost money, but they r good, & ur money goes a long way:
myshoppinggenie.com/ezsearch-For $200, u can get ur Website or ad on the first page of all major search engines for life,giving away this free, brandable software
engineseeker.com
Here is a good reference site that ranks all sites on the web by traffic volume:
alexa.com

l would agree about not spamming. You want to build a good reputation, not a bad one. Although doing things by the book, which Google Adsense likes, will take longer. For this kind of endevour you should be thinking long term, so definatley no spamming.

What counts as Spam? Cutting and pasting adverts or links into a forum, or where there is no real valuable relative content and just URLs