Secret of Vintage Jewelry

Hello again and welcome to any new followers, perhaps some of you may be reading via “Blog Cagalog”, where this blog has now been listed.

This week, I went to a talk on pricing art, particularly during a “cold climate” – and I don’t think they meant the weather! For overseas readers, we are just coming out of the UK’s longest recession at the moment, and are also having a cold winter with snow from time to time. The event was organised by “The Greenhouse”, a support group for local artists in the area, and was very well attended, with double the number of people who had registered, actually attending.

I hadn’t realised there’s so many different approaches to putting a price on artwork, and so many variables behind it all.

The speaker also told us not to try and compete with amateurs’ prices. This set me wondering where you draw the line at what makes someone an amateur or professional – after all most of our group members have an art qualification or have been painting for many years (or both), but they mostly have non-arty day jobs, although some are or have been designers or draughtsmen. Also we seem to set a high standard, as amateurs go. How on earth would this affect our pricing? It seems to me that pricing of art is one of the most irrational things I’ve ever come across, and there seems to be no right or wrong.

At the group itself, we are beginning to gear up for our annual Easter exhibition, with new banners being ordered and people starting to think about what paintings they will put on show. I am having some greetings cards printed. If folks don’t want to splurge on a painting, most of us need greetings cards sometimes, and mine won’t be one they have seen already in “Clintons”. I am considering taking some self adhesive lettering along, to make the cards into “Happy Birthday” or “Anniversary” while people wait.

I have begun a picture of a courtyard in Venice, and it is a bit too detailed for pastels, which are usually quite chunky. It might therefore become a mixed media picture of both pastel and pencil crayons. I’ve never done anything other than painted pictures in mixed media, so this should prove interesting. I’ve drawn it our carefully, aiming to get the perspective as accurate as I can.