9×6, floral, acrylic on watercolor paper
Flower Series No 206
Available here
Small to large prints of this painting are available here
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Day two of prepping these 4×4 panels
Back in November, I dropped the price of my 4×4 paintings down to $dirt cheap. I thought oh, it’s Christmas time, and I should be generous. There were sales going on everywhere I looked, so I thought I needed to jump on that bandwagon. Also, I thought if my prices were lower, people would buy more paintings because they’d have more money to spend.
It was a lot of work to lower the prices. On Etsy I used Hive to bulk edit, which wasn’t so bad, but on Daily Paintworks, and here in my shop, I had to go through, and change the price on each individual listing. It took me a few days, maybe a week, but I kept telling myself “it will be worth it. It WILL be worth it!! I’ll make sooo many more sales now that the prices are lower.” At the time, I had every intention of leaving the prices lowered, but a surprising thing happened.
I was still getting a lot of traffic everywhere, but the orders weren’t coming in. I even tried to discount my already discounted prices by offering several sales. Christmas came, Christmas went. My sales had completely dried up. I basically couldn’t give my art away. It was disheartening, and frustrating. I was doing exactly what all the big box stores did, so why was it such a failure? Maybe because I’m not a big box store, and people expect something more from artists. hm..
I started to think about how much time is spent on these little paintings, and I began to question my sanity. Why oh WHY did I lower the price when these paintings are soooo much work? I’ll spell out just how much work is involved, in case I ever need a reminder..okay first, these 4x4s come to me with the brand name logo stamped all over the back of them, which leaves me no place to sign, title, and date the work. So, I have to get rid of the logo, first with a coat of black paint, and then 2 to 3 coats of gesso (see pic 1 above of completed paintings). Perfect! Now I have a clean white surface to write on when the painting is finished. When that’s done, I start prepping the front of each one with either modeling or molding paste, I let it dry, and wet sand it to make a smooth surface. Then, I apply 2 coats of gesso to the front of each one to seal in the molding paste. Then, I have to come up with the actual painting itself for each one, which can take forever. Basically, the clock is ticking loudly the entire time, and all the while, I’m not being paid a cent for my time, effort and materials. When I get them painted, I have to photograph each one, edit the photos, write the listing, blog about it, put it on social media, and when it finally sells, package it up all pretty, drive to the post office, and mail it out. Whew. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. This whole process from start to finish can take weeks, months, or even years, depending on how quickly a painting sells. So, tell me, what the heck was I thinking by lowering the prices????????!!!!
With Christmas far behind us all, I decided it was time to put the prices back to where I once had them, even though the paintings still weren’t selling. It was a risky move to make. I mean, take something that already isn’t selling and try to sell it for more money? How bold! Actually, how downright stupid, right? I know me, tho, and the second I start feeling resentful about selling my artwork too cheaply is the exact second I know I have to increase the price. The thought of them going out the door for so little money in exchange made me crazy. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was ripping myself off. I had finally come to my senses. Now to get to work. I started with Etsy first because like I said, it’s the easiest to edit. You won’t believe what happened next.
available here
Within an hour of raising my prices, 6 bird paintings sold. Cha-ching cha-ching, cha-ching!! Wha?? Huh?? I couldn’t believe it!!! I’ve been making sales steadily ever since.
I’ve thought a lot about it, and I think this was the universe’s way of sending me a direct message – DO NOT UNDERVALUE YOUR WORK..or others will see no value in it. When the universe speaks directly to me, I listen. You won’t believe how many times I’ve read other Etsy sellers saying the same exact thing. Lowered their prices, nothing sold. Raised their prices, started selling. Why? I have figured it out..this is it in a nutshell, people want to spend their hard earned money on something of value, not junk. By putting a cheap, low price on my artwork, I was sending the message that hey guys, this isn’t worth much, so you probably don’t want it…because after all, who wants to hang cheap junk on the wall of their expensive home? Nobody. And, at Christmas who wants to give cheap gift? Nobody. Because you give a cheap gift, you look and feel cheap.
Nothing had actually changed about the paintings, except the lowered price, but the people who passed on my paintings didn’t know that. All they saw was the cheap price, and I assume they immediately thought, what is wrong with it? Something must be wrong with it. They probably assumed the paintings were made with cheap paint and materials, and took 5 minutes to paint. This is not the message I want to send because it’s a huge lie. I only buy artist quality paint and canvas. If you’re not familiar with artist supplies, there are student grade and artist grade paints. Student grade is cheap, and horrible. The colors fade quickly, and I ugh..I think my customers deserve better than that. Artist grade is the best quality you can buy, and I buy it. It’s far from cheap, and I have the receipts to prove it. Also, you can clearly see how hard I work on these paintings by what I wrote above. So, why was I cheating myself by sending the wrong message about my work? By increasing my prices, it has changed the perceived value of my paintings, and now they’re selling again. Huge lesson learned.
Okay, now to get back to prepping canvas..got the backs all finished last night, and I’m at the modeling paste stage now. Day 2.
