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.