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In another digital art forum a common question popped up again, "How much should I charge for my art?"
I thought following response by John Shiflet was well written and sought (and received) his permission to reproduce it here at RetouchPRO.
John has considerable personal selling experiences in the field of antiques, (including occasional works of art), but the principles he outlines here apply to selling anything which does not have rigidly set values.
Feel free to add your own comments, thoughts and/or experiences.
Happy reading...
~Danny~
I thought following response by John Shiflet was well written and sought (and received) his permission to reproduce it here at RetouchPRO.
John has considerable personal selling experiences in the field of antiques, (including occasional works of art), but the principles he outlines here apply to selling anything which does not have rigidly set values.
Feel free to add your own comments, thoughts and/or experiences.
Happy reading...
~Danny~
"How much should I charge for my art?"
Pricing art has long been a complicated matter because what constitutes art has always been in the eye of the beholder. Realistically, your work is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it.
I will assume you're a beginning-level artist. If that is the case, then you may want to look first at how much time you have put into each work, the cost of canvas, art board, frames, printing supplies, and so forth to come up with a reasonable pricing strategy.
Most artists also intuitively know which works are their best. "Best" usually is a work which most closely realizes the artistic vision you had when you created it. It would be logical to price those works in the "best" category somewhat higher than those which perhaps did not fully realize your vision. Subject matter and the medium/media employed also determine price. Obviously, if you employed some method which utilized gold leaf in your work, then you would have to price it accordingly. Same for sculpture and/or some other types of media.
To get a feel for your local art market, try first to visit an art show and observe the price ranges being asked for works by artists with roughly the same recognition level as your own (and working in the same medium/media). Well-known local artists nearly always command a premium over someone new to the market -- unless he or she is an art prodigy.
It never hurts to put a higher price on your work at opening and then negotiate a better price later with potential customers. If you find your sales are very brisk at the opening, then you probably could have raised your prices without losing many sales.
On the other hand, sometimes there just aren't that many buyers around for the kind of art you are selling. Whatever you do, never let your works go for "give-away" prices. It's better to pack up your unsold work and store it for the next show than to "dump" it.
Research, research, research!!!! See what IS selling at the show and why. Talk to other artists who share a genre-medium similar to your own. You'll find most are willing to discuss pricing strategies that work for them.
Art is in many ways like music. The music that sells best is popular music. By popular, I mean music that appeals to the greatest number of people -- the general public. Only very well established artists can get away with selling "high-brow" abstract art that many laymen cannot fathom. Picasso started out painting Harlequins/Clowns/Jesters and established a solid artistic reputation before he moved on to more avant-garde Cubism and Abstraction. The closer to mainstream popular subject matter your work is, the more likely it is to sell, especially if you are new to the market.
To the extent possible, try to learn why your customers like the works of yours that they buy. You may realize that certain aspects of your work are highly prized. If so, emphasize those aspects in future works.
As a side note: You've probably seen the "starving artists" shows advertised at your local motel conference centers, convention centers, etc. By now, most people realize that the paintings being sold in these "shows" are mass-produced in countries like Mexico, Taiwan, and Indonesia.
An original is often created by a master artist and then student artists mass-produce copies (sometimes hundreds) of that particular work. It's all done very fast with no artistic vision involved. These works are priced accordingly and are bought by people with limited art knowledge mainly as something pretty to hang up on their living room or kitchen walls. You never want your art to be confused with the kind of "art" mentioned above. There are a lot of talented artists "out there", but the most financially successful are those who work hard at it and besides having artistic talent and skills, they have a lot of marketing savvy as well.
John Shiflet
Saint Joseph, MO
[email protected]
Pricing art has long been a complicated matter because what constitutes art has always been in the eye of the beholder. Realistically, your work is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it.
I will assume you're a beginning-level artist. If that is the case, then you may want to look first at how much time you have put into each work, the cost of canvas, art board, frames, printing supplies, and so forth to come up with a reasonable pricing strategy.
Most artists also intuitively know which works are their best. "Best" usually is a work which most closely realizes the artistic vision you had when you created it. It would be logical to price those works in the "best" category somewhat higher than those which perhaps did not fully realize your vision. Subject matter and the medium/media employed also determine price. Obviously, if you employed some method which utilized gold leaf in your work, then you would have to price it accordingly. Same for sculpture and/or some other types of media.
To get a feel for your local art market, try first to visit an art show and observe the price ranges being asked for works by artists with roughly the same recognition level as your own (and working in the same medium/media). Well-known local artists nearly always command a premium over someone new to the market -- unless he or she is an art prodigy.
It never hurts to put a higher price on your work at opening and then negotiate a better price later with potential customers. If you find your sales are very brisk at the opening, then you probably could have raised your prices without losing many sales.
On the other hand, sometimes there just aren't that many buyers around for the kind of art you are selling. Whatever you do, never let your works go for "give-away" prices. It's better to pack up your unsold work and store it for the next show than to "dump" it.
Research, research, research!!!! See what IS selling at the show and why. Talk to other artists who share a genre-medium similar to your own. You'll find most are willing to discuss pricing strategies that work for them.
Art is in many ways like music. The music that sells best is popular music. By popular, I mean music that appeals to the greatest number of people -- the general public. Only very well established artists can get away with selling "high-brow" abstract art that many laymen cannot fathom. Picasso started out painting Harlequins/Clowns/Jesters and established a solid artistic reputation before he moved on to more avant-garde Cubism and Abstraction. The closer to mainstream popular subject matter your work is, the more likely it is to sell, especially if you are new to the market.
To the extent possible, try to learn why your customers like the works of yours that they buy. You may realize that certain aspects of your work are highly prized. If so, emphasize those aspects in future works.
As a side note: You've probably seen the "starving artists" shows advertised at your local motel conference centers, convention centers, etc. By now, most people realize that the paintings being sold in these "shows" are mass-produced in countries like Mexico, Taiwan, and Indonesia.
An original is often created by a master artist and then student artists mass-produce copies (sometimes hundreds) of that particular work. It's all done very fast with no artistic vision involved. These works are priced accordingly and are bought by people with limited art knowledge mainly as something pretty to hang up on their living room or kitchen walls. You never want your art to be confused with the kind of "art" mentioned above. There are a lot of talented artists "out there", but the most financially successful are those who work hard at it and besides having artistic talent and skills, they have a lot of marketing savvy as well.
John Shiflet
Saint Joseph, MO
[email protected]
Do you sell your work framed or unframed? Any tips on marketing? This is something I'm thinking about doing myself but I have no idea where to start 
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