So this was big change for me, shifting from just sketching and drawing whatever came into my head to thinking about publicly displaying (and...gasp...possibly even selling) my work. Things I have learned so far:
- Framing is expensive. Even buying frames on sale at Michael's (big box craft store), where I got pretty nice 16x20 frames for $20, I have spent hundreds of dollars packaging my drawings.
- Getting prints made is a lot more complex than I thought. I went the cheap route by just getting laser prints at a local graphics place, but they don't really know anything about handling fine art. Limited edition, archival quality prints are just not something I wanted to get into, nor did I feel that the quality of my work warranted it. But there's a whole world out there of options for the "serious artist".
- Regarding selling, all sorts of questions came up:
- how much will you sell your originals for? The guidance I got was to estimate how long a picture took you, and then to figure anywhere from $25-$45 per hour, depending on how "known" you were. And then add in the cost of framing and matting. I could not arrive at a price that seemed reasonable. $300 for one of my drawings seems way too high.
- how much for prints? I bought kits with a foam board, mat, and plastic sleeve to package my prints in. They were $4-$8, depending on size. The prints themselves just cost a dollar or two, so I don't know, $20? It all seems too expensive to me...
- do you even want to sell originals? Someone advised against it, because once the original is gone, then you can no longer sell prints. But you actually can, if you get a good hi-res scan of the drawing before you let go of the original. Is that ok, to continue to sell prints after the original is gone? People say "yes". I can't imagine anyone would be interested in one of mine, but if so, I'll sell it. I'm honestly not that attached to them.
- should you sign your prints? number them? Apparently yes to the first question, and no to the second, if they're not limited edition, museum quality prints (like offset or giclee prints).
- how much does the gallery get? 30%, in this case. I have nothing to compare that to. It's a non-profit museum, not a commercial gallery.
- Regarding social media, the artists who exhibit up here in the mountains (they tend to skew old and wealthy) have no idea what deviantART is. I think the name itself puts some people off. I need to branch out to tumblr, maybe facebook. Ugh. It all takes so much time.
- I definitely miss drawing purely for myself, and it's added a layer of stress having to think about the whole gallery thing. It's a great opportunity, and I hope I have more, but there have been moments of "crap why did I sign up for this?"
I'll post more after the show ends (it runs for the month of May). Sort of a "lessons learned" kind of thing. Have any of you been through anything similar?
Here are the pieces I'm showing: