1) Why?
In my case it's partly because it's addictive. I just joined the Afan Nedd Artists' group in order to give art a proper try. When I was offered the chance to exhibit anything in a group exhibition a few weeks after I joined I originally didn't want to put anything in at all - fear of putting my efforts alongside some of the work from the very accomplished artists in the group, I suppose. But I did put two charcoal drawings in, and one of them sold - one of only two pictures sold by the whole group. The feeling you get when you learn a complete stranger has liked what you have done enough to be prepared to pay for it is indescribable. And. . . addictive.
I set myself the target, then, of selling enough paintings to pay for all the art supplies I bought during the year. I was surprised when I comfortably overachieved the target, and so started buying things which weren't essential - better paints and brushes etc - better and bigger storage boxes and so on and so forth. In the last couple of years since the first lockdown I've been a little more professional in attitude, and have made enough money to go away on holiday on the profits a couple of times. That's not bad, is it?
I love having another hobby that pays for itself. My other self-sufficient hobby is quizzing. I've written a few quiz books for the kindle, and while they don't sell in huge numbers there's a regular trickle of income from them which keeps me in quizzes.
2) What?
Again, look, I'm not an expert at this. But . . . look, I think you have to decide whether you are going to paint to sell, or try to sell what you paint. It's really not the same thing. Painting to sell means that you are chasing the pound, and so you deliberately paint subjects, not because you especially want to, but because you think that it's the sort of thing that might sell. Selling what you paint means painting what you want to paint, and then trying to sell it afterwards.
In practice, I probably sit somewhere between the two. Yes, I deliberately made a charcoal picture of a locomotive which I thought I might have a chance of selling in that original Artists Group exhibition, but I do genuinely like painting old trams and trains. I'm not complaining about this though, but the fact is that by and large they often sell.
We'll come to commissions shortly. Other than that, though, I've also sold paintings of other forms of transport, for example a Heinkel Bubble Car. I have had an offer for my painting of a BMW Isetta Bubble Car, but that one was just for me. I like interesting buildings, and I painted a series of 4 booths and boxes. Two of them sold straight away.
Whatever you paint or draw I personally think you need to have enjoyment in painting it. That way, if it doesn't sell, at least you've had the pleasure anyway.
3) How and Where?
How?
Or put it another way - how much? How much you sell your work for, that's very much up to you. Thinking logically, the paintings you have spent most time, effort and skill in making are the ones you should ask the most for. It doesn't always work like that, though. Regardless of the effort, time and skill used in making it, I find that people are automatically more willing to pay more for a large picture than a small one.
As a rule, you can ask more for specific commissions than for paintings you sell on the open market. The first couple of commissions I did, I had no idea how much to ask. I asked the clients basically how much they wanted to pay, and in both cases was surprised that they offered me twice what I'd have been happy to accept. So how much is that? You commission me and you'll find out - contact me at londinius@yahoo.co.uk
Where?
Right, this is my experience. As you'll have seen in the first two points, the first route that I took to selling a picture was -
Route 1) - Join other artists, and exhibit.
It's well worth joining an Artists' group anyway, for the amount of mutual support, help, advice and inspiration you'll get.
* Advantages - a group can share the cost of exhibiting. It stands to reason that at least a proportion of the people who come to an exhibition/ stall will be thinking about buying.
* Disadvantages - when you all exhibit together you are essentially in competition with each other, and when you're starting out chances are you're in competition with more accomplished artists than yourself.
Also, you can find yourself having to deal with bargain hunters. Car boot sales have a lot to answer for. And it puts you into a quandary as well, since so and so may only be offering half of what you're asking, but then it's a firm offer, and taking half of what you want may be better than taking the painting home again. Only, there's an hour to go, and maybe it will sell for full price anyway . . .
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| 9F locomotive charcoal drawing - sold in my first joint exhibition |
Route 2) - Take a stall at a Craft Fair
I will be honest
with you, it wasn’t until late in 2019 that I first plucked up enough courage
to try my luck in a craft fair. For my day job I teach English in a secondary
school, and every year we hold a craft fair at the end of November. Working on
the principal of nothing ventured, nothing gained, I put my money down for a
stall, and that gave me a good 8 weeks to prepare.
I read up a
lot of advice from the internet. One piece of advice was to get and set up a
card reader. Well, we got a card reader, but we just couldn’t get it working
for our account, and so in the end we left it behind. I don’t honestly think it
cost us any sales, since everyone who expressed an opinion seemed happy enough
to pay in cash.
Another
piece of advice was to try to provide goods for a range of prices. So, as well
as my framed original sketches, I printed off some page to a month calendars,
featuring my sketches of Port Talbot – some of which I’d produced and sold the
originals for the Oxfam shop. My 4 favourite sketches we had printed on sets of
postcards, and some of these we packaged in sets of 4. To others of them we
attached small calendars, which I’d purchased in a local craft shop. I made
prints of some of the pictures I’d sold for Oxfam, and some mounts for them,
and packaged them. So, by the time of the craft fair, I had framed originals,
mounted prints, unmounted prints, A4 calendars, postcard sized calendars and
sets of postcards, offered at a range of prices.
Every
website I read on the subject warned about the need to keep a close track of
your costs, and so I let my inner nerd out. I costed out all of my materials,
and all costs which had been involved in making the stock – printing costs,
binding combs, paper etc. Then I added on the cost of the stall, and this gave
me the figure we needed to make to cover all costs.
In the fair,
I sold two original sketches, which put me slightly into profit, and this meant
that every print, calendar or set of postcards that I sold was clear profit. In the
end, without even coming close to selling out of stock, I took about 3x what I
had spent on the stall, materials, preparation and all, which meant that once
those costs were taken out, I’d made about 200% profit. That wasn’t all of it
either. I had spent a really pleasant evening telling people all about my
pictures as well.
So that was
a really positive experience of a craft fair. About 10 days later my local
church held its own Christmas Fair, and so even though I was rather late in
booking a stall, I still managed to get one. All that was incurred in this fair
in the way of expense was the cost of the stall, which was a negligible amount.
All the stock was left over from the first fair, and so it had already been
paid for. This one wasn’t quite so much of an enjoyable experience. Business
was slow, to be honest. While it was nice to stand and chat with passers-by
about the sketches and the buildings depicted, it wasn’t bringing in much cash,
and it was only the stocking filler items like the postcard calendars which
were really selling at all. Still, bearing in mind that the cost of the stall
was the only expense that I incurred, I made about 6x the cost of that stall in
sales.
So both of
these craft fairs were pretty successful undertakings. I did have a set of
business cards printed up and gave out a lot in both fairs. I had a number of
people enquiring about commissions, and I did hope that maybe this might result
in a couple of commissions. No such luck on that score, I’m afraid.
The problem
with making calendars is that they don’t keep. Before they went out of date, I
donated most of my leftover calendars which hadn’t sold to my daughter’s Oxfam
shop. I’d made enough money for myself from them, and if I couldn’t make any
more for myself from what was left (and I couldn’t) then I was perfectly happy
if Oxfam could.
On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed the craft fair experience, and it was something I planned to continue with in 2020.
Hello Covid.
I didn't do another Craft Fair until July 2022, when my school arranged another. It wasn't brilliantly attended but hey, after costs I made a small profit. Thus encouraged I took a stall in a much bigger craft fair, a proper craft fair. The set up looked fantastic, and I'd say that the fair only lacked one thing. Buyers. I didn't sell anything, and lost a lot in costs. Well, there we are, I think with Craft Fairs you have to look at them as a continuum, and so if I look at it this way I'm in profit if you count all of my Craft Fairs together. But it is something to be aware of. In other ways of selling, if you don't sell you're not going to lose money. In a craft fair, you can make big profits in a short time, but you can also make losses.
Summary
* Advantages - you have a stall to yourself, and are not in competition with fellow group members/friends.Also, you have a chance to promote yourself a little. It doesn't cost much to run up some promotional material - flyers - business cards - and if even one person likes your work and decides to contact you about a commission, then it's more than worth your while.
* Disadvantages - you may not be the only artist selling in the fair.
You may well also have bargain hunters to deal with.
A small scale craft fair will often cost at least £20 for a stall, and that has to be added to the cost of getting there, parking etc. You won't know how likely you are to sell, until you do it for the first time. You don't need to sell much to be in credit, but you can't be sure how many people are going to attend, and so it is possible to lose money. Costs can spiral out of control if you're not careful, and you may have to offset them over several fairs.
Route 3) - eBay (other online auction sites are available).
I thought long and hard before trying my luck on eBay, but working on the principle that I had nothing to lose I went for it. I decided that I would limit it to buyers in the UK. Now, if you make a basic listing, then it costs nothing unless you sell your painting. I did put a Buy It Now price that I would be happy with on each picture - at 50p a time I thought it was worth it, and it was.
* Advantages - POTENTIALLY you have a market of hundreds of thousands of people. If are painting things that groups of other people are interested in, then you've a good chance of your work getting seen by people who might want to buy it.
There's no nonsense with haggling. You choose the price at which your work starts - the automatic form will try to persuade you to start the auction at £0 - ignore it. Set the start at the least amount that you would be prepared to sell for.
Listing your work is easy.
* Disadvantages - You are in competition with hundreds if not thousands of other artists.
People often look at the Newly Listed paintings, and the Ending Soonest paintings. Your painting will not stay on either page for very long, so unless you have painted a subject that a lot of people are going to be searching for, your painting might be listed for 7 days, but people are only going to be looking at it for a very small amount of that time.
Don't forget you've got auction fees, and the cost of postage and packaging to take into account as well.
eBay is not unlike a car boot sale in as much as many people are coming to buy, but they are also specifically looking for a bargain. It is very easy to price yourself out of the market without even realising you're doing it. Put in simple terms, eBay can be a useful place to sell, but don't expect that you're going to get top dollar for your work, because you ain't.
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| Blackpool Tram - the first painting I sold on Ebay |
Route 4: Let people know that you do commissions, and then do commissions
If nobody knows that you take commissions, then the chances of anyone asking you on the off chance are limited. So use Facebook for a start. On Facebook you can create your own Artist's Page. It only takes a few minutes, it lets you display your work to all your Facebook Friends, and it costs nothing. Don't be squeamish about this - it isn't just about selling to your friends. Believe me, your friends won't commission you if they don't like your work, and it isn't just that anyway. Your friends will have their friends, who may well be looking for what you're providing. It's a very simple example of networking, and for me, it works.
* Advantages - You know that you have pretty much sold it before you paint it. Unless the client doesn't like it when you've finished. But if they know any of your work, which they probably do or they wouldn't have commissioned you in the first place, then chances are they will like it.
People will pay more for a painting they have specifically commissioned, than for one they just happen to see and like.
If the client likes your work, then you've probably added any friends of the client who like it to your lists of potential clients.
* Disadvantages - If you're a professional artist who lives on the proceeds of selling your work, then you paint what pays the bills - it's your day job. If not, though, you may find yourself being commissioned to paint something that either doesn't interest you at all, or is not to your taste at all.
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| A selection of my commissions |
Route 6: Chutzpah and Barefaced Cheek: The Direct Approach
This requires pure cheek. I have only done it once, so I offer you that as an example. When taking Sunday lunch in a local restaurant I noticed that there was a painting of it done many years ago when it was the Red Lion pub. Which made me ask myself the question - would they pay for one which actually shows the outside as it is now? The building is a rather nice building which I was always going to paint anyway as one of my buildings of Port Talbot paintings. So I painted it, we went into the restaurant for Sunday lunch and . . . I lost my nerve and never mentioned it. However, later that week I posted a picture of the painting on the restaurant's Facebook page. They replied complimenting me on it, and I immediately messaged back, offering them the painting. One phonecall later, and deal done.
* Advantages - you already have the target buyer in mind.
* Disadvantages - they may not like your work. They may like it but not want it. Then you're left with a painting which is unlikely to appeal to another buyer.
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| Taste Brasserie |
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