Selling to Friends----

Friends are often an entree to a market BUT this can also kill your ambitions...
My advice is to be wary of selling to FRIENDS too cheaply as they will mentally devalue you work. You are more likely to get future sales from their friends if they highly value you and your work. I would sooner GIVE a print to a friend than sell a painting cheaply. If you bought a car from a friend's car dealership he/she would not sell you a Prius for half price, would they? They may 'throw' in an upgrade on the stereo- think adding a simply adding a simple frame.

How to PRICE your work.

If your are in the early stages of your career, let's say pre-gallery affiliation, you have come up against the problem of how to PRICE your artwork. A fairly safe conservative way is to compare your work to similar artists working in your area, physically and stylistically. If Joe Blogger sells (emphasis on the word sells) his work for $500 for a similar sized and quality painting at open studio, then that is about your ballpark price. Other examples, small woodblock, screen-prints, lithos etc., in small editions should not sell for less than about $125/150 framed. Larger prints (22x30) $200/250 framed. (remember your frame is usually a fixed cost of between $15 and $50, so you are not leaving much meat in the sandwich for yourself. An edition of 5 small prints (keep an artist's proof!), if they all sold should roughly equal the price of a painting by you of a similar size. For example 5 x $100 (unframed price) prints = one painting /$500.

Acrylic Demo at Utrecht Berkeley 8/11/07

Hey, you are all invited to a demonstration of Acrylic Paints and Painting at Utrecht Berkeley, (1909 University Ave, Berkeley CA, 510-649-0808) between noon and 4 pm.
I will demonstrating acrylic techniques using Utrecht, Golden, Liquitex, Daler-Rowney, Atelier Interactive and the mediums that make painting life easier.
Bring your questions and concerns. FREE SAMPLES!

Price of Art Materials

Artist's who take the long view know that the price of art materials has actually fallen relation the consumer price index.
An example would be the series 1 Liquitex $2.45 in 1970, and now $5.00 to $8.50. That's barely doubling or tripling in 37 years. A pair of canvas pliers were $14.50 in 1972, and better ones are now available for sale at most discount art stores for $15.50.

Just remember some other examples of price hikes.
A car in 1970 cost $1,500 to $3,000, today cars cost $12,000 to $40,000- not including luxury cars.
A house that cost $11,000 in 1970 now sells for $970,000 in the Bay area).
A pack of Marlboro was $0.33 (yes 33 cents) and now is about $5.00.
A gallon of gas was $0.33 in 1968, and now ........pity cars do not run on acrylic paint!