Watercolor is justnot my medium. I am a heavy handed Hannah with this paint. For me, watercolor is for travel, is for sketching. In the studio, acrylics is my choice for painting. Pencil is my strongest suit. You've got to realize at some point what you can and cannot do.
In between painting my new bouquet of flowers,(what a friend of mine calls my default subject, and she'sright), and working on my infant, I explored Etsy's.
I've started to register for a "shop" on Etsy's" three times over the last couple of years. Each time I couldn't carry through and give them my credit card number. I'm not ready. I don't do uniform sized, small paintings that would fit in a standard frame. I don't know what a Giclee print is--but it appears to be what is sold when the shop owner doesn't want to sell the more involved original piece. The one artist's shop I spent a lot of time in sold very nice original watercolors on Arches 140 for $35.00 and the Giclee prints on premium paper for twenty four. Shipping was extra. All of his works were 8" x 10".
Katsu Aoki's online shop expenses are peanuts. Etsy's gets a (hanging/display/rental) fee of twenty cents per piece--and when the piece sells, Etsy's gets three point five percent of the price--peanuts. The artist had forty six pieces on display, costing a whopping $9.20. He sells a thirty five dollar watercolor, He keeps $33.75. The artist also has a shop on eBay and a web site. Now, I'm very curious about his online turnover. From what I could tell, Aoki is a freelance illustrator--though his online portfolio looked limited to motorcycles, which he does quite well. His work looks good enough to be in a gallery, but I didn't see one mentioned.
Conclusion: You want to sell your art? You have to cover all the bases.
NOTE: Giclee is a sophisticate inkjet printing method. You can read all about it here.
My comment keeps crashing my screen, this is my third try. Anyway, was just going to say that pencil is my strongest suit too. I am not a good painter at all.
ReplyDeleteWatercolor is my medium, and I never tried acrylics :-) Selling paintings on line is a lot of pre-preparation , I think...good luck with the research.
ReplyDeleteHi Linda. I like it. It`s a powerful piece of work and it strikes me strait away. I like sketching with Watercolour, but like you, my favourite medium is Acrylic. I also like Oils but with oils it takes for ever to dry for me. I have used allsorts of quick drying stuff with it but still no good. Griffin Alkyd is okay, but one has got to use Turps with it and thats not good for my Hands. So I stick with Acrylics. You need a spray bottle and a cover for your Acrylics. Mine can last for almost a week that way. But the completed painting dry`s in about fifteen minutes, brilliant.
ReplyDeleteAll the best Linda.
Vic.
Watercolor is your medium Jane. You, unlike me, have a delicate touch. --Way back in the old fashioned days when my day was teaching me to drive, he kept telling me my foot was too heavy on the gas (I liked going fast). I can only think that a heavy footed person is also heavy handed. Acrylics are more my speed. They dry fast with out a hair blower, they've got good coverage and can be easily corrected. The depth of color is more satisfying to me who lived most my life nearsighted.
ReplyDeleteVictor you are very very kind. This watercolor smacks of someone who leans toward acrylics and likes strong, solid coloration. I keep a spray bottle handy with acrylics, lots of toweling, and sponges. I started out painting with oils and do miss their blending, but they do dry so incredibly slow ans the solvent give me a horrible headache and dry my hands till they are rough and striated. BUT. The other day I found a new small set I must have bought in the last year. Now oils are compatible with acrylics as long as they are the top layer. So for controlled chiaroscuro sections perhaps they have a place in our studios. The solvent I bought is not turpentine--it's something odorless. I've yet to try it, but I thought this weekend.
ReplyDelete