New Venues For Selling Paintings

With the internet available to most people, selling paintings has opened up for many artists.  Artists can open their own "stores" on  websites such as Etsy or Daily Paintworks and not have to depend on brick and motar galleries for sales.  If you are a prolific artist, this is an excellent option.  Many "Painting a Day" painters have become almost legends, with articles in major news papers and huge followings.  Julian Merrow-Smith and Duane Keiser were pioneers in this movement.  Often, these painters put their works up for auction, with the starting bid being $100.  The famous daily painters not only produce a painting a day, but actually sell a painting a day. That's impressive!!  This seemed pretty appealing to me.  I paint a lot, and when you paint a lot, you need to sell a lot.  Otherwise, your studio begins to fill up, and paintings stack along the floors, fill up the walls, line the shelves, etc. If you paint a lot, maybe you can relate to this, too.   Additionally, framing all of these paintings, so that they can sell in galleries, is very expensive.  Artists that sell works through these "store" websites, can offer the paintings unframed, and that is great.  It also makes shipping lighter and everything more affordable.  Obviously, I have been rethinking how I sell my work.

With all of these pluses, I decided to try a new venue..Daily Paintworks.  I perused the website, and it was  amazing to me to see how many artists were selling.  It was fun to discover  new artists, searching through pages of work.  There are tons of artists out there quietly working away, working hard, and  honing their skills.  After all, the more you paint, the better you will get! 

So far, I just uploaded a few pieces to see if anything happens...if anyone even notices.  If you have a minute, take a look at the site...there's a little badge on the side here.  Since I paint many little watercolor/gouache studies, I will probably try to sell a bunch of these, besides small oil paintings and demonstrations from classes I teach.  Instead of trying the auction thing, though, I just set some reasonable prices that fit in.  The people that seem to sell consistently have smaller paintings that are almost always the same size, either 6"x6" or 5"x7".  I will go that route, too.  It keeps art affordable, and I think everyone needs a little art in their lives!