lol you guys are funny! Also, I have found that I can charge more for my watercolor paintings when I use archival quality stuff as opposed to the student quality. People would rather pay more for something that'll last a long time.
This is currently my issue. I have NO idea what my work is worth. I've been approached twice by someone about a commission recently. I have no idea what to tell them, I'm still learning. I consider myself really novice, I don't know how to apply value to my skillset. I understand materials, but I don't know how to fairly price time. Since I'm novice things take me longer than it would a pro. Also is what I'm capable of even quality? Some things I draw better than others. It's been really stressing me, I hadn't planned on ever doing commission work, I don't feel I'm good enough. I plan on opening an etsy for crafts, as far as paintings go I was just going to list recent works and see if anyone wants them. Even then I don't know what to price it!
Your work is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Cover your costs and you can always make more art if it sells (I call that a "good problem"). I would suggest doing a commission or two only charging what covers your costs. This will help you build up your confidence, as well as lowering the expectations you might put on yourself for your first commissioned pieces. Plus, it's always great to make friends who can give you referrals in the future for more commissions. Just some thoughts.
Great advice Jerry! I did exactly that a while ago. I was sharing my artwork on facebook with friends and family, and soon I was being asked by coworkers for commissioned artwork. I felt the same way...no idea. So I figured out my cost and time and charged just to cover that. Sold my first few, fairly cheap, but them I stared raising my price and started selling more originals and commissions. Start low! I still have those original customers following my prices online They dont want to see my prices go down, they want to know they got in early and got a deal!
Also..I have researched this alot...and everyone is very vague. Heres a simple idea...some may disagree but it worked for me....Take your day job wage and times it by how long it took you to create your art piece (dont worry that it takes you longer because you are a beginner, they dont need to know that, and time means quality) so... For instance I took 12 hours creating one of my early pieces....then I times that by my hourly wage at my full time job (cause "staving artist" is a real thing lol) then I added my supplies (this is important, you WILL need to replace those supplies when they are gone)....and thats my bottom price! I look at it this way...If I can make the same or more money hourly doing what I love, that I do working at my full time career, then I win. Then as you get more confident, add a base profit to that number. But DO NOT FORGET SHIPPING AND PACKAGING! Heres some help....these guys are great for easy packaging and show supplies.It will give you an idea of how much to add to each piece for packaging and presentation. www.clearbags.com/mats-backing/show-kits Lets say your art is 11x14, and it took you 10 hours to create, and you make 18$/hr at your day job. The art supplies cost you $250 but of coarse you didnt use them all up (I always factor in 10% of supply cost even if I know I didnt use that much) so ....hourly $18 x 10 hrs= $180....now add the $25 supplies....and at clearbags.com you can get a simple show kit for 11x14 for roughly $5 (the kit for 20ct is 65$ but add shipping and it rounds out to about $4 each but I add $1 for my time ordering them, and packaging the art,also add a business card or info sheet )....so there it is...time $180, materials $25, presentation $5, = total price $210. DONT FORGET THIS IS ONLY YOUR STARTING COST! Dont be afraid to throw on a PROFIT! Everyone else does, you pay profit for everything you buy (think about it do you think your morning latte really costs $5 to make...no) Now figure out where you would be willing to ship to, and check post office prices for those areas and add shipping cost to that total (also add for box or tube or whatever shipping container you use. Thats where you start...but also think about other costs as you get bigger....website (I use a free one,they are like phone numbers now, no one cares weather you are a .com or not, it is just a place to click), business cards or flyers, fancy matts, or presentation materials (i had some metal prints made to show.) , time spent undating website and social media (ugh I should have added for that right off the bat), I treat it like any other career, start low, work hard, get better, get more confidence and then give yourself regular raises as deserved (in the way of higher prices). Your early customers ad collectors will thank you! Hope this helped!
A gallery owner, who knew how attached I am do my work, once told me to think about how much money I would need to be willing to part with a painting. It worked pretty well until I moved out of town.
Great videos I'd be a success if I got given a $1! I was overjoyed when my goddaughter wanted one of my watercolours for a present. Small beginnings! Thanks for making me smile.
I'm a graphic design student and my professor talked to our class about pricing our work. His opinion was to essentially price based on hours worked on a project, but I see many professional fine artists saying that pricing systems such as per linear/square inch is better. Is one better than the other or is this just a difference between the fine art and graphic design worlds?
Thanks so much for the tips!!! Pricing is literally the hardest thing for me, and I end up ripping myself off half the time.😔 I'll have to try out some of this to at least help make enough for more materials. 😉👍🏼
this was helpful! so far i've only had two people wanting to buy things from me and I've had no idea how much to sell things for. what i've heard is to not sell it for too little as it makes people value art less but i'd feel really weird selling my sketches for large sums. i actually did a commission for a person who ended up not buying it even though i sent her several progress pictures. that wasn't great because now i have a watercolor painting just laying around. maybe i can sell it to someone else. bah. and the last thing i sold (which was the first thing as well haha) i didn't even put a pricetag on, i'll be getting a mystery amount on paypal any minute/day now. not expecting a lot since it's a digital scan of a sketchbook page but still! surprises are fun.
This is something awful to happen. The thing with doing commissions is: Take about the half of the money before you start and get the other half at the end. Like this you can be sure, the person will take the picture, because he already paid for it. And of course you should never go for a very low price (as you already said) and too high is bad too. With my first drawing I earned 100€, all I did I just asked how much they would pay me for the drawing and then you say if you approve or not. With my second picture I earned 200€ (friend prize) and that was a price my art teacher told me to take. Now I earn up to 500€ each piece. That is just a thing with expierence. What you should make part of the (as you call it sketch): Pencil/ eraser costs, time you spend on your drawing and the delivery to the customer of course :) I don't know what you drew it on, but that is part of your price too! Hope it kind of helped. Just ask professionals if you are not sure. Many also postet a picture of their canvas on instagram and told the people to DM them and tell them a price. So no one knew what the other person would give for the picture.
This is great advice, thank you for taking the time to write it! And wow, that's a lot of money to me. I just received the payment for the sketchbook scan, and it ended up being about 30 dollars. It's more than i expected for a scan of a drawing I myself wasn't fully happy with honestly, it's what I asked for when I took my first commission, I tried to set the price low since the buyer said she didn't have a lot of money, apparently I didn't set it low enough for her. Ah well, next time I'll know better and make sure they can pay beforehand. And if I end up making more time-consuming work or taking actual commissions i'll price things higher. Right now I don't really have a crowd of people wanting to buy my art though, but I think since I mainly draw animals that what I should go for is drawing people's dogs and cats or whatever. I just need to find people who want pencil, ink or watercolor portraits of their pets, haha. Taking money in advance is a really good idea but I don't feel like I can guarantee amazing artwork before it's actually done and so that feels awkward. That's just me being inexperienced though. It's also difficult when it comes to the time factor, because I don't spend a full hour at a time just drawing, I'll take breaks here and there and it's hard to estimate how long it actually took to make a certain piece. I know I spent around 20 minutes inking in a small drawing of a dog today but that was pretty minor, the full drawing with two inked in dogs probably took me 60-90 minutes, but I only know this because I took progress pictures along the way which I don't always do.
I really enjoyed your video, I have been an artist for 40 years and there is an under current of debate that Artists do do believe that photographers are artists. What is your opinion Thank you Alex
Lol! I wasn't looking when it started, so all of a sudden all I heard was, "What? Was my wiener in the way?" Lol. I had to go back right away. I was like, umm that's awfully forward for joking around. Lol.
Ive never been clear on having something billed as an ‘orginal’ piece of artwork (which to me means that it’s the only one in existence) but have 100 prints of it. To me that takes away value from the original.
Awesome advice Mike, my drawings and paintings are nowhere near the standard to be sold, but I'd like to one day maybe sell something. Also I can absolutely verify to those of you on Instagram Mike is incredibly active on Instagram both uploading his own stuff and viewing others art, definitely recommend following @mikenotjerry any way fantastic video as usual and thank you so much for the excellent and valuable advice.
+JerrysArtarama wow, that is awesome, thank you so much, this must be regarding the excellent advice you gave me, which incidentally, I followed and put one of my drawings on Marker Paper mounted and framed and you were so right Mike, made my drawing look so much better and much more professional. I can't thank you enough Mike, I know it may seem like small things, but I am very new to the art world and I am so privileged and honoured to be receiving advice from your good self and others like you. I hope one day I'm in a position to repay your wisdom and generosity. All the very best Sir and thank you once again.
I don't think this is a very professional way to present a serious topic. I don't mind the use of humor, but there is a better way of presenting this even with using humor. I think that this wasn't well scripted.
Okay, Mikenotjerry, I am going to post my "too scared to share" art on my Instagram. Hopefully you will follow me. I have 8 followers. All family. Yea.
68 posts on instagram?! Come on brah, you've got to up to up your instagame. (see what I did there?) And apologies for calling you brah, I have no idea where that came from.
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Enjoy Mike's humor? Be sure to check out his RUclips Channel! ruclips.net/user/itsmikenotjerry Or follow him on Instagram @mikenotjerry
lol you guys are funny!
Also, I have found that I can charge more for my watercolor paintings when I use archival quality stuff as opposed to the student quality. People would rather pay more for something that'll last a long time.
Great advice! I nearly lost it at the LSD part. XD
This is currently my issue. I have NO idea what my work is worth. I've been approached twice by someone about a commission recently. I have no idea what to tell them, I'm still learning. I consider myself really novice, I don't know how to apply value to my skillset. I understand materials, but I don't know how to fairly price time. Since I'm novice things take me longer than it would a pro. Also is what I'm capable of even quality? Some things I draw better than others. It's been really stressing me, I hadn't planned on ever doing commission work, I don't feel I'm good enough. I plan on opening an etsy for crafts, as far as paintings go I was just going to list recent works and see if anyone wants them. Even then I don't know what to price it!
Your work is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Cover your costs and you can always make more art if it sells (I call that a "good problem"). I would suggest doing a commission or two only charging what covers your costs. This will help you build up your confidence, as well as lowering the expectations you might put on yourself for your first commissioned pieces. Plus, it's always great to make friends who can give you referrals in the future for more commissions. Just some thoughts.
Great advice Jerry! I did exactly that a while ago. I was sharing my artwork on facebook with friends and family, and soon I was being asked by coworkers for commissioned artwork. I felt the same way...no idea. So I figured out my cost and time and charged just to cover that. Sold my first few, fairly cheap, but them I stared raising my price and started selling more originals and commissions. Start low! I still have those original customers following my prices online They dont want to see my prices go down, they want to know they got in early and got a deal!
Also..I have researched this alot...and everyone is very vague. Heres a simple idea...some may disagree but it worked for me....Take your day job wage and times it by how long it took you to create your art piece (dont worry that it takes you longer because you are a beginner, they dont need to know that, and time means quality) so... For instance I took 12 hours creating one of my early pieces....then I times that by my hourly wage at my full time job (cause "staving artist" is a real thing lol) then I added my supplies (this is important, you WILL need to replace those supplies when they are gone)....and thats my bottom price!
I look at it this way...If I can make the same or more money hourly doing what I love, that I do working at my full time career, then I win. Then as you get more confident, add a base profit to that number.
But DO NOT FORGET SHIPPING AND PACKAGING! Heres some help....these guys are great for easy packaging and show supplies.It will give you an idea of how much to add to each piece for packaging and presentation. www.clearbags.com/mats-backing/show-kits
Lets say your art is 11x14, and it took you 10 hours to create, and you make 18$/hr at your day job. The art supplies cost you $250 but of coarse you didnt use them all up (I always factor in 10% of supply cost even if I know I didnt use that much) so ....hourly $18 x 10 hrs= $180....now add the $25 supplies....and at clearbags.com you can get a simple show kit for 11x14 for roughly $5 (the kit for 20ct is 65$ but add shipping and it rounds out to about $4 each but I add $1 for my time ordering them, and packaging the art,also add a business card or info sheet )....so there it is...time $180, materials $25, presentation $5, = total price $210.
DONT FORGET THIS IS ONLY YOUR STARTING COST! Dont be afraid to throw on a PROFIT! Everyone else does, you pay profit for everything you buy (think about it do you think your morning latte really costs $5 to make...no)
Now figure out where you would be willing to ship to, and check post office prices for those areas and add shipping cost to that total (also add for box or tube or whatever shipping container you use. Thats where you start...but also think about other costs as you get bigger....website (I use a free one,they are like phone numbers now, no one cares weather you are a .com or not, it is just a place to click), business cards or flyers, fancy matts, or presentation materials (i had some metal prints made to show.) , time spent undating website and social media (ugh I should have added for that right off the bat), I treat it like any other career, start low, work hard, get better, get more confidence and then give yourself regular raises as deserved (in the way of higher prices). Your early customers ad collectors will thank you! Hope this helped!
I love this, thank you.
First time watching your channel and you’re hilarious. Definitely helpful and subscribed!
A gallery owner, who knew how attached I am do my work, once told me to think about how much money I would need to be willing to part with a painting. It worked pretty well until I moved out of town.
Great videos I'd be a success if I got given a $1! I was overjoyed when my goddaughter wanted one of my watercolours for a present.
Small beginnings! Thanks for making me smile.
Just found you today breath of fresh air hahahahaha thank you for the great advice
Love this guy! haha
Hilarious as usual! This video has tons of useful info, as I'm always struggling with pricing and where to begin! Thanks a bunch 😃
We're all a work in progress ;-)
Love this video! keep em coming!
Very helpful. Thank you.
I'm a graphic design student and my professor talked to our class about pricing our work. His opinion was to essentially price based on hours worked on a project, but I see many professional fine artists saying that pricing systems such as per linear/square inch is better. Is one better than the other or is this just a difference between the fine art and graphic design worlds?
You liked two of my drawings a while ago and I'm not gonna lie I did scream in delight ... I had to explain myself in public because of you 😒
I have to constantly explain myself in public. I feel your pain.
All of these sound like great ideas! Thank you!
Thanks so much for the tips!!! Pricing is literally the hardest thing for me, and I end up ripping myself off half the time.😔 I'll have to try out some of this to at least help make enough for more materials. 😉👍🏼
That's for sure! If you can cover your costs, you're more than half way there lol.
Where can you make prints?
this was helpful! so far i've only had two people wanting to buy things from me and I've had no idea how much to sell things for. what i've heard is to not sell it for too little as it makes people value art less but i'd feel really weird selling my sketches for large sums. i actually did a commission for a person who ended up not buying it even though i sent her several progress pictures. that wasn't great because now i have a watercolor painting just laying around. maybe i can sell it to someone else. bah. and the last thing i sold (which was the first thing as well haha) i didn't even put a pricetag on, i'll be getting a mystery amount on paypal any minute/day now. not expecting a lot since it's a digital scan of a sketchbook page but still! surprises are fun.
This is something awful to happen. The thing with doing commissions is: Take about the half of the money before you start and get the other half at the end. Like this you can be sure, the person will take the picture, because he already paid for it. And of course you should never go for a very low price (as you already said) and too high is bad too. With my first drawing I earned 100€, all I did I just asked how much they would pay me for the drawing and then you say if you approve or not. With my second picture I earned 200€ (friend prize) and that was a price my art teacher told me to take. Now I earn up to 500€ each piece. That is just a thing with expierence.
What you should make part of the (as you call it sketch): Pencil/ eraser costs, time you spend on your drawing and the delivery to the customer of course :) I don't know what you drew it on, but that is part of your price too!
Hope it kind of helped. Just ask professionals if you are not sure. Many also postet a picture of their canvas on instagram and told the people to DM them and tell them a price. So no one knew what the other person would give for the picture.
This is great advice, thank you for taking the time to write it!
And wow, that's a lot of money to me. I just received the payment for the sketchbook scan, and it ended up being about 30 dollars. It's more than i expected for a scan of a drawing I myself wasn't fully happy with honestly, it's what I asked for when I took my first commission, I tried to set the price low since the buyer said she didn't have a lot of money, apparently I didn't set it low enough for her. Ah well, next time I'll know better and make sure they can pay beforehand.
And if I end up making more time-consuming work or taking actual commissions i'll price things higher. Right now I don't really have a crowd of people wanting to buy my art though, but I think since I mainly draw animals that what I should go for is drawing people's dogs and cats or whatever. I just need to find people who want pencil, ink or watercolor portraits of their pets, haha.
Taking money in advance is a really good idea but I don't feel like I can guarantee amazing artwork before it's actually done and so that feels awkward. That's just me being inexperienced though.
It's also difficult when it comes to the time factor, because I don't spend a full hour at a time just drawing, I'll take breaks here and there and it's hard to estimate how long it actually took to make a certain piece. I know I spent around 20 minutes inking in a small drawing of a dog today but that was pretty minor, the full drawing with two inked in dogs probably took me 60-90 minutes, but I only know this because I took progress pictures along the way which I don't always do.
great ideas, thanks. I like your wit btw.
Is there a difference in pricing drawing/sketches as opposed to oil paintings or watercolors?
great info, thank you
super video, as a new artist I had no clue...now I do thanks
I really enjoyed your video, I have been an artist for 40 years and there is an under current of debate that Artists do do believe that photographers are artists. What is your opinion Thank you Alex
very very helpful vid thanku
LSD can provide lots of inspirational visions
What is a reasonable by the square inch price?
lol!! love ya thanks for the video
You can't have enough Picasso LSD weiners wrapped in a condo- I mean plastic. :)
Seriously though, this was great tips. :)
Lol! I wasn't looking when it started, so all of a sudden all I heard was, "What? Was my wiener in the way?" Lol. I had to go back right away. I was like, umm that's awfully forward for joking around. Lol.
Ha! Yeah, I tend to tip toe the line. Other times I fall completely over it. Hopefully you weren't disappointed.
cool video.
Ive never been clear on having something billed as an ‘orginal’ piece of artwork (which to me means that it’s the only one in existence) but have 100 prints of it. To me that takes away value from the original.
Awesome advice Mike, my drawings and paintings are nowhere near the standard to be sold, but I'd like to one day maybe sell something. Also I can absolutely verify to those of you on Instagram Mike is incredibly active on Instagram both uploading his own stuff and viewing others art, definitely recommend following @mikenotjerry any way fantastic video as usual and thank you so much for the excellent and valuable advice.
You helped inspire this one!
+JerrysArtarama wow, that is awesome, thank you so much, this must be regarding the excellent advice you gave me, which incidentally, I followed and put one of my drawings on Marker Paper mounted and framed and you were so right Mike, made my drawing look so much better and much more professional. I can't thank you enough Mike, I know it may seem like small things, but I am very new to the art world and I am so privileged and honoured to be receiving advice from your good self and others like you. I hope one day I'm in a position to repay your wisdom and generosity. All the very best Sir and thank you once again.
nope , not for me 😊. but it's a great video Mike !
Glad you still enjoyed!
Oh for sure you and your crew are very entertaining :)
Thank you, Mike. =) This was very helpful. =)
I would follow you on Instagram if I had an account.
Glad to have you here as well :-)
;) thanks. =)
I don't think this is a very professional way to present a serious topic. I don't mind the use of humor, but there is a better way of presenting this even with using humor. I think that this wasn't well scripted.
Mike you don't seem to be doing well on Instagram 241 posts, 2,324 followers
, and you're only following 413 people.
Okay, Mikenotjerry, I am going to post my "too scared to share" art on my Instagram. Hopefully you will follow me. I have 8 followers. All family. Yea.
Hopefully I didn't disappoint...
68 posts on instagram?! Come on brah, you've got to up to up your instagame. (see what I did there?) And apologies for calling you brah, I have no idea where that came from.
We're still friends, brah!
Yeah. I see what u did what u did there
I don't use instagram.
Are you on Twitter?
@SEspider
Not at the moment, but maybe in time. Olivia doesn't think it's a good idea for me to be able to say too much too quickly. She's probably right!
I think you're funny.
That's at least 2 people then! I am well on my way.
JerrysArtarama I also think I'm friggin' hilarious. I always say, "Entertain yourself, nobody else will.".
Take a breath...and/or decrease meds. Very stressful listening to this hyper presentation. Sorry
Wish you didn't cuss 😥I would have liked to show this to my students..... it was informative.
This is not how you price art! This is why most artists are poor.
Rambling .. jump cuts are annoying ..