Do you have any business advice please?

[Enyaw]

I was in a gallery. Sold 3 pieces in two months all for low four figures. Pretty good for a new gallery in town and an artist who had a long way to go before he could call himself an artist. The gallery was taking 25%. The next weekend I went in and all my paintings were off the wall. I asked. She told me a fellow artist was giving her 50 % and unless I agreed to the same my art would not be hung. I knew the artist and he had not sold a thing. I told her 25% of 3 grand was far superior to 50% of nothing, gathered up my paintings and that was the last gallery I was part of. Not worth the bullshit to me as I had a good job and selling art was only gravey. The gallery went under in less than a year. No wonder.

 

[endersaka]

Pricing a painting…

[...]

I totally relate with your experience.

For the suggestions I don't know too, though, I think they are pretty close to reality.

 

[endersaka]

No wonder too @Enyaw they have been pretty greedy, and the other artist did a questionable (at least) move, in my opinion.

 

[Enyaw]

Didn’t meant to put more bumps in the road but thought I’d mention a mole hill that occurs more often than not. It’s a mountain but it can be climbed if you are strong minded and lucky. Good luck with your excursion.

 

[Bongo]

another approach - paint more - sell for less

approach - paint more, sell for less - Steve Keene does 75+ paintings per day.

 

[endersaka]

another approach - paint more - sell for less

I hope everyone understand this is an edge case. It is not only physically and mentally hard to achieve such results but, for many the point of pursuing an Art dedicated life is to do something that enriches (not only economically) them somehow. Doing something that gives you back some good feeling, as like as (this list is not meant to be exhaustive): satisfaction, self-esteem, even pleasure (as in reading a good book, or drinking a good wine, ...) a sense of fulfillment.

So, the question is: doing 75 paintings a day, will I ever have time to enjoy it?

 

[Enyaw]

Bull shit baffles brains

 

[Bongo]

Bull shit baffles brains

meaning? What part is the bullshit?

 

[Enyaw]

The part about making art. Poor man’s assembly line.

 

[PaintBoss]

So where does he sell them? My goodness if he doesn’t, he’s got a whole lot of paintings sitting around taking up a lot of space. I guess that’s one way of doing it. Sort of leaves me cold. I mean, we don’t have to be precious about it. If he wanted to do 10 or something, maybe he sells it on some art site consistently great. I don’t know. I’d have to think about this a little more. Just how little does he make on these? I am sure he wouldn’t be making 75 at a time unless I was darn sure most of those would sell.

 

[Bongo]

So where does he sell them?

He sells direct from his sight for $75 each. https://stevekeene.com/ Also on ebay ---$40 -$300.
He' been at it for about 30 years, so he has a decent following. His net worth is around $3 million.

 

[PaintBoss]

I guess I can’t argue with that. I’m still amazed he moves so many at that price. I think he also must be an excellent marketer.
Well, all the power to him.

 

[endersaka]

Something is off and sounds like b***t marketing. Simple math:

• 1 day = about 8 hours of work (even if you don't eat, don't drink, don't take a shower and don't do your biological things, you have to sleep 8 hours, so it is max 16 hours of work a day).
• Let's do it in minutes 8 x 60 = 480 minutes.
• 480 / 75 = 6.4 minutes per painting (if he spends 16 hours it is 12.8 minutes).

Even if he does it like a pipeline, it's still 6.4 minutes (or 12.8), concentrated or distributed (it doesn't matter), per paint.

I don't buy it. I am sorry.

 

[Bongo]

I watched another video of him working. Looks like he normally does about 200 paintings at a time. Same assembly line set up but maybe 15 or so different scenes all lined up. Takes him 3 or 4 days to finish. so that's 8hrs x 4 days x 60 minutes / 200 paintings. Works out to 9.8 minutes per painting. Watching him work in that last video, I think it takes more like 5minutes of actual painting per picture. Hes fast and like a machine. Then he has to do all the prepping, make panels, hanging, then processing the orders, packing, shipping... etc. So to paint and process the orders and ship 200 paintings takes him about a month.

He puts up a new batch of paintings on his site once a month -- and sells out. So 200 painting $75each -- includes shipping. so that's gross $15,000 a month, then less shipping and painting/shipping materials. - that leaves maybe 12,500 month. Then the rent for the building he works out of plus taxes and etc. And he lives in NEW YORK CITY -( studio apartments start at $2,500 month). He might net $8,000 a month. That's $96,000 a year --and he has two kids! That's lower middle class for NYC.

 

[PaintBoss]

Yeah, I mean good on him if it works for him. I gotta say I’m turned off about the quality of the painting with that much output in a day. I also don’t know where people sell that many things DAILY. With that one example shown, I would not pay $75 for it. Not to be rude, but I don’t know of many artists having that kind of output AND that kind of sales consistently. To me it’s a bit suspicious too.

 

[Bongo]

He's not out promoting himself; he's a very humble man. Definitely not a bullshitter. No ambition for anything other than to keep doing what he's been doing for 30 years. He is an exception; I can see how one would question it. He says nationwide there are maybe ten people that do similar stuff to him. That's a pretty rare field.

 

[PaintBoss]

Well, he’s definitely working hard. And that’s amazing if he’s moving that many pieces, let alone creating so many in a day. Thank you I will check him out.

 

[endersaka]

Disclaimer: my formatting is never meant to be rude. I use it just as a functional tool to organize discussion and help reading.

So to paint and process the orders and ship 200 paintings takes him about a month

So, he does not produce 75 paintings a day.

Painting is not only... painting.

Watching him work in that last video, I think it takes more like 5minutes of actual painting per picture. Hes fast and like a machine.

No, he is not.

I saw the video you shared previously and, while he is certainly faster than me, he is not that fast. I can tell it by the movements he does with his hands, the pauses he does, etc...

Note that I can be quite fast (compared to many others). In 2016, I participated to a local 24 hour comic art challenge/convention. I produced 4 comic book pages, in less than 8 hours: 3 in my style plus one in the style of another guy to help him to finish in time.

In the end I was drained, and all I desired was to go to sleep or, at least, relax with a beer.

For reference, the average production rate of a comic artist is around 1 page every 2 days or even less. And, in fact, the price of a comic book page (pencils plus ink) in USA is about $ 300 (I believe, I have already shared the link of Nick Macari, who explains it very clearly).


About the humble guy story

Even the personification of a humble guy could be a marketing strategy.

I am surprised that this is needed to be explicitly pointed out. Nearly nothing on Internet shows the true hard work needed to do something. We often see shorts of 30 to 90 seconds of artists painting (or drawing), often without even a construction sketch (), and played at fast speed. That "show" that we consume in around a minute took actually even an entire day to plan, pre-produce, perform, edit and publish.

If he is truly humble and not promoting in that way his work, then they are the media that exaggerate about his performances.


Time and Quality/Detail

There is, of course, another variable to take into account. We all saw his paintings. I hope we all know that no one can paint the Monna Lisa in 9.8 minutes.

 

[Enyaw]

I hope we all know that no one can paint the Monna Lisa in 9.8 minutes.

Dang, you had kill my aspirations, didn’t you?