This year I have set the goal of finishing all the Mineral King oil paintings well before the season begins. The Silver City Store has been selling my oil paintings since 2010, and it is good for them, for me, and for the customers. The past 8 years have provided a good idea of what sells and in what sizes and quantities. Why not look at this information and make a plan?
Phase I was finishing a large quantity of paintings in the month of January, some that were begun in December. The total was something crazy huge, like 2 dozen or so. I hadn’t planned on buying 4×6″ canvases or painting on 4 little boards that used to contain things like tomatoes, so the number went up. All this production forced me to figure out how to use my painting hours more efficiently, and in February, I am continuing with this plan.
(Do you need a nap yet? A cup of espresso?)
Phase II is filling in the gaps – do I have the right quantities of the best subjects in the most popular sizes? Nope, not yet. Here is how beginning another 8 paintings looks. It’s not that pretty, but it is not as gross as making sausage, I guess, although I’ve never witnessed that operation.
There are about 6 more subjects I want to paint. These are also Mineral King, but they involve new scenes.
If this seems a little repetitious to you, well, it is. It is a little repetitious to me to. That’s the thing about doing work for a seasonal business – it is repetitious because there are new customers every week, and they haven’t seen my paintings before. Or they saw them last year and want to add to the collection. Or, their friends saw their painting and wanted one too.
1 Comment
Hello Jana, I like to see how you think about your work, to get into another artist’s mind so to speak.
I have questions about how you ship finished paintings to your clients. Do you ship work only in the US. or even outside of the country. How do you ship, what company do you use. Do you take the canvas off larger stretchers when shipping a distance. Does The customer pays for the shipping. Do you use Pay Pal for money handling. How do you protect the work for shipping. I think a blog on this kind of behind the scenes managing would be so helpful, for me anyway. My favorite sizes to paint are 24 x 24 and the larger ones which I like to paint are 24 x 48. I do paint smaller paintings, and it depends on the images I am painting. Or I am wondering, maybe you only need to sell locally. Thanks so much Jana. You do a wonderful job of making it fun to read your “mind. Janet B.
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