Selling Art, and the Artist Ego / Limited Editions and Prints, the Art of Affordable Art

What does it cost to make a new piece of art work?  Of course we have our material, which is the easiest one to figure out.  On the other hand we have our time, which gets a little shady on figuring out.  As our time goes, what are we worth per hour and how many hours do we charge for.

Let me change the subject here a little, or not, we’ll see where it goes.  See, I’m not only an artist, I’m also a plumber.  When you figure out hours and material in plumbing, you have a few factors to consider:

1. what your hourly rate is –Your hourly rate is what you think you’re worth per hour.  This is how much you need to survive and prosper as an artist or plumber broken down to a per hour rate.

2. what your material cost is — nice and simple, what your material costs.  No, not that simple.  You had to travel to get your material and time is money.  So this means you must have a small percentage markup on your material to cover your time.

3. what your travel expenses are — who’s paying for your gas?  That’s right, you are.  You get the idea.

4. miscellaneous such as wear and tear on your tools — what about replacing tools and all the other little expenses (like framing), we can’t forget that stuff.

So what do we have so far?  If I want to make a profit of $20 an hour, I would have to add all the above-mentioned things together and then add my $20 an hour rate.
Material $100
Miscellaneous $100
Travel, let’s say $50
Hourly rate at $20 per hour for 40 hours, $800
Total $1050
And this total  might reflect the cost of a small project.

How many people do you know who can drop over $1000 without a worry?  I know I can’t.  So how do we handle this?  This is where prints and limited editions come in.  Once we create a piece of artwork (a beautiful painting, a whimsical sculpture, or to die for piece of jewelry) we will want to sell it.  And that’s good, but it doesn’t stop there.

I used to live in lovely St. Augustine, Florida and my work showed in a gallery called the PASTA Gallery.  My audience was primarily college students and vacationers with the occasional locals.  Not big money people.  But of course I want to make money on my artwork, so I came up with an idea.  I started reproducing my paintings in a small inexpensive way to be affordable to everyone.  I made magnets, and guess what?  They sold like hotcakes, paid for my show, and a little change in my pocket.

So, do we want to make a living as an artist?  Do we want to sell our artwork?  Well I know I do.  And this is where limited editions and prints can possibly save us.  Now, I make a sculpture,  reproduce it (which requires less time) allowing to charge less.  There you have  it… affordable art.  As for my paintings, I now work with websites such as  zazzle.com which reproduces my artwork on everything from prints to magnets and also handles shipping.

“loss of self”

This surrealistic painting was used for a cup design.

Just think about it, it couldn’t hurt and it just might work.

Keep on creating,
Ken

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