I Think I'm Going To Price My Original Work Much Higher Now And You?

I've raised my prices twice this year but they are still pretty low. My paintings are much smaller than yours too. I've sold a few paintings every month for the last three months. My prices are loosely based on size, meaning the larger they are the more expensive they are but I don't have a set formula because I make the price/area smaller the larger the painting.

Most of my original work I price according to length x width as you mention, but charge about $1 sq in., a bit more for smaller sized works. But, it also depends on materials used (adding resin increases my cost a lot), but the time is less than with my acrylics - I take much longer with them than I probably should...I just paint intuitively and things just "change" and I get frustrated and have to keep at it...it's fine. :) The risk however, when doing alcohol inks on yupo, then affixing to a cradled board, then coating with sprays to seal and protect, then coating with resin, is higher for something to go wrong. My work is not at your level, however and I don't sell often.

I keep pretty local and have only done a few small commission pieces. It is what it is. For now I will keep prices the same. If I go higher they surely won't sell and if I go lower, it seems "too cheap" for a better term.

I'm sure you will still sell just as much (as you want) should you increase your prices. Yes, it can be frustrating to have someone sell theirs super cheap as others are trying to make money to survive. I don't do this for a living...if I did I would be living in a cardboard box I'm pretty certain.

I guess all just need to do what feels right at the time for us individually.

No, I don't price my art L x W if only because some of my work is very detailed and some of it is not.

With the Covid situation, a lot of galleries are closed in my area, or have limited hours, or they are by appointment only. Mostly closed. We are a tourist area and all tourist areas were closed in the summer, and no leaf peepers in buses are traveling here either. So I haven't been selling once a week by a long shot, and because of Covid and way less customers, I see no point in painting. Because of Covid, I am also using the time to get something else going.

I have a deal with an antique store and hopefully with an interior designer soon.

I can crank out anything, I think, but it just seems like paintings for tourists aren't the thing to crank out. Especially if galleries might close permanently, the Inns, the hotels and all of these tourist attractions stay closed. I could try the Etsy approach, but I had bad experiences with Etsy from the early days of it, and it was so much easier to sell out of galleries, and every time I think of going back on Etsy I get panic attacks. If I do Etsy again, I'm going to try a whole other medium with a new store name.

I did a lot of shipping and selling local. I doubt I will sell as much if I increase my work to its worth, but that is the million dollar question. What is my worth after six years of going public with my art. I'll never know if I don't increase the price.

That said, I've also had goals throughout the years and 2021 is the year that I register all my work.

I used to sell by the square inch

.


And then, I priced them by their apparent value....Originality, Complexity, Detail, etc

And then, I started to price them by which ones I liked the most, and which ones I liked the least.......Which drove those selling for me crazy.


And now, since the Face to Face market has been curtailed.

And sell so fewer on-line, I put a premium on each piece.

If they start selling more regularly, I might reduce the prices.

Which you might say defies the Rule of Supply and Demand.


But I'm just a crazy artist

It all comes down to what makes you happy. If you want to support the art industry calculate what you would need to make did you have to support yourself from your art work alone. For instant if you always dreamed having a bigger space to do your art see what that would cost you. As photographer I see a lot of folks giving away their photography for free or very cheap. I always wondered how those same folks who make a living in another area would feel if I came in working for far less than they are and now their bosses expect them to work for that low wage as well. I gather it would not feel very well. Here is a great calculator which helps you figure out the cost of living part. After that you need to figure out what wages you would like to make. https://nppa.org/calculator

Thank you so much Iris for your share.

The one hard thing for artists trying to decide their worth has also to do with level of skill, education, professional status and quality of the product being sold. I can't really compare myself to an artist that's been in business ten plus years and makes a living from their craft, I just cannot do that because I would be outselling my reputation. I am six years into this, so I'm looking at a reasonable approach to pricing.

I love your idea however, about selling art in the ethical price range for professional selling artists.

Not a painter but yes anyway. I am a big believer in being on the higher side of the pricing bell curve.

I cant go much higher cause I hit the limit of faa, luckily I didnt sold anything ever

JC, you are so successful in all that you do. Way to go!

The chicken or the egg

I have only sold when my prices were high. My sample is tiny.

I think the marketing matters more.

I am only talking prints.

Last sale the prices were high, but the prior sale the prices were much higher. I upped my prices about two weeks ago to something in the middle.

I am running hard hitting sales.

The artist and marketer hats are very different. Any of us still needs to work with what you or I produce as an artist.


Dave

Well, I sell every week, so I can't say that selling high is a high selling point for me. I think there are many advantages of selling low. When you have the many artworks I have in my home like I do now, too many to count, somewhere in the ballpark of 500...they are no longer special...they're more like ...annoying.

Not that I didn't enjoy doing each and everyone of them, but jeez they do take time, energy, investment, supplies...they aren't cheap to do!

"When you have the many artworks I have in my home like I do now, too many to count, somewhere in the ballpark of 500...they are no longer special...they're more like ...annoying."

Wow, that's a lot of paintings, and your paintings are large too! Ya, I'd be annoyed, so much so I'd stop making more paintings. lol I'm not nearly as productive as you and frankly wouldn't want to be, I want the number of paintings I have in inventory to drop, not increase! Right now I am selling more than I'm making, I don't know how long that will last. I knew an artist that had two storage units full of paintings, I think I'd burn them before paying storage rental fees. lol

That's one advantage to digital, files don't take hardly any physical storage (none at all if you use the cloud) but then you have to depend on sites like FAA for your sales, and history has shown that nothing lasts forever, especially online businesses. Also, I've had a much easier time selling original paintings than POD, much easier.

Yeps.....I have zero inventory.

Two different worlds.

I know of a few people with huge inventories right around here. Any art show I go to in gallery, the artists all there will tell you, under the beds, in the closests, up in the attic. Everywhere is their art unsold for decades.

I wanted to create, not support a linens factory.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

Yeah, people tell me that I am prolific. The fact that many are not finished adds to the mess!

If they are not finished begin to save money on canvases.

Repaint them with the more recent ideas. Start over if need be with ideas that just come up.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

"Start over if need be with ideas that just come up."

I actually do that, I have a pile of panels to paint over. I won't need to buy any new panels for a very long time. lol I actually sold a painting this year shortly after I made it, it was a paint over, but the funny thing is I just repainted the same composition just in a different style, I've done a few of those this year.

I would consider doing just digital art...if I could sell it. My income from selling original art is over 10 times what my income from POD is even though I've put much more time into POD.

So, I looked over my stats so far this year. My sales of original paintings is a little less than 50% of my production. However I've produced as many other types of original art and only sold 5%, but at least most of those are works on paper and so don't take up hardly any space. Bottom line, right now I don't feel motivated to produce more than one painting/week.

DK,

My goals were to fulfill a different art concept. To do so I decided decades ago I was not painting drawing or sculpting. Digital means came later, but offered very different.

My bigger goal is to compose music. I have no use for paintings under my bed, taking up my entire closest spaces and any other areas.

The hard part is marketing. It is not art. Or it is a very different art.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

I’ve raised my price at the start of September this year.

Since, with me. the tangible work I create, requires many steps before competition....

And since the fall season, was questionable right through the summer.

I had to be prepared to get crank'n if they decided to have a fall season.

And since there became no reason to go full steam ahead...much of my work remains half done all over this place...


What to do?...What to do?

1. Finish the work, and try to have an on-line "Clearance Sale".?

2. Sit back, Relax, and wait for next year?

3. Work diligently on coming up with the greatest Cyber Scheme..and market the hell out of it.?

4. Play around with different POD ideas....Work, by trial and error, to gain Digital Skills...And work on the tangible Art at my leisure.. Satisfied with an on-line sale ever so often?

So far, it's # 4

Now, I'm going to the basement , and stick a crab claw into a mussel shell

Staycation, now that is hillious.

David B, I haven't bought a canvas in years. All my canvases are bought by patrons. Many of my commissions take as many as three canvases and those canvases are included in my pricing of a commission. I have three commissionss going on right now. One commission took three canvases to get the work right. I am left with two paintings and they are large. Much of my work is like this.

You probably have what was the more common workflow as they say about Photoshop.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

It seems logical to me, Lisa, as you grow in your technique the prices should be adjusted higher. Your sales also indicate this.