Selling paintings?

[Marie]

Hi guys!

I've been painting since jr. high, impressionism in acrylic, usually landscapes, and I have been strongly considering selling my paintings lately.

How on earth would I go about doing that? I don't even have the first idea of where to start!

Thanks so much,
Jamie

 

[2Bhumble]

You could try joining a local art club. They usually have public exhibitions. My Mom sold her first painting that way. My church has an art club and there's always art hanging in the hallway for sale. You could ask your doctor, dentist, accountant or any professional you know if you could hang a couple on their office walls with a price tag on them. It's free art on their walls until it sells. If a neighbor has a yard sale, you could display a couple there. You could rent some cheap space at a craft co-op and hang them there. Tell people you meet that your an artist and have some business cards made up - carry photos of you paintings in you purse as a mini portfolio. See, I didn't even mention the internet and having a website yet

 

[Dewi Sant]

Those are great alternatives to the internet and the advantage to those is that the buyer can get a real feel of the painting (both eye and hand...if you allow them)

However to get the largest poeeible audience for your sale the internet is the best option, though it does loose the contact with the buyer, all you get is a cheque and maybe an e-mail of thanks.
e-bay could sell the paintings for you or if you are nifty with webpages you could construct a webpage to construct for them.

 

[stubby42]

Coffee shops are your friends, serriously the best way starting out is to go to coffee shops and ask them if you can display in their shop. Its great for them cause they get free art work and great for you because people see them. Give them a number to ring or something if they get interest in a piece.

Also I'd recommend having a website, many artists use websites as portfolio's of their work, it also allows the artist to tell people when they'll be doing shows (gallery shows), it allows you to show work your willing to sell (and with the use of pay pal and packaging the work up you can send your stuff out to custommers pretty easily). Also a websites great because it allows you to have other forms of income.



Merchaindise, set up a cafepress account and do stuff like tee designs, mouse mats whatever you feel appropriate, the great thing about cafe press is they make the stuff so theres no risk for you.



The down side is they take the cost of making and then a cut and your only left with a small amount of the profit.



Once you've saved up enough you have to start going into properly doing merchaindising such as going to printers who can say make posters of your stuff.



To get interest in your stuff you need to put a leaflet in the packaging of the paintings you've sent out to people this will help build interest and could lead to more custommers.



Finnally the tried and tested root, submit your art work to gallerys almost all gallerys have a submission policy and if they think you have talent will take you on.



On another note if your getting picked up by gallerys and your being relativly successfull thats when you need to move into merchaindiseing properly.



Ultimatly you need to build a buzz about yourself.



But if your not looking to become a proffessional artists coffee shops and a website would do fine.