It’s been a busy old few weeks, dearly beloved. I last posted towards the end of August. I don’ know if I’ve told you this before but although I’m not a professional artist I’m certainly not against making a bob or two from my work, if the opportunity arises. What I do is that any money I make from selling artwork goes into materials and then any left over from that goes away to pay for my next sketching trip.
Now, the next trip in 6 weeks time is to Lisbon, one of my
long-term bucket list destinations. That’s all booked up and paid for, and the
spending money is sorted as well. Still, when I returned from Copenhagen in
August, while it wasn’t exactly an old mother Hubbard situation, the fact was
that the coffers could well do with topping up. I sold three of my London
Underground watercolours I made but I took a few attempts. So I did a little research
into what was selling. As a stopgap I reduced some of my best selling A4 sized
prints to A6 and sold some of those. I also had a look at London Underground
paintings on a well known online auction site to see what sort of thing was attracting
bids. Hand painted A6 postcard sized paintings seemed to be the thing. As a
result I made a few to test with – very simple things that could be dashed off
in a few minutes:-
At the same time I’ve been promoting my prints whenever I
get the opportunity (sometimes even when I haven’t. For example- Facebook.
Facebook can be a good place to promote your stuff, but it’s tricky. Most
groups do not want you promoting your stuff. So it’s a matter of finding he
right group, joining it and saying – hey, this is my stuff. Do you like
it? And waiting to see if anyone says –
I’d love to have a copy of that. Then messaging them privately and taking it on
from there. I usually put a message – please do not repost or print without
asking me first, and I trust people to be honest enough not to do so,
especially when I put
a link to my Etsy shop. Here's a couple of examples:-
I thought that he was trying it on, but politeness costs
nothing, and s I replied as courteously as I could, that I had not though of
listing them on Etsy (but I was thinking of doing so now) and so what would he
consider a reasonable price?
No reply.
I did list prints of my station drawings on Etsy, and out
of courtesy I messaged him and said that I had received other enquiries about
buying prints so had decided to list them. I also said that I usually ask £2 to
£3 for a downloadable print, so even if I was to let him have them for the
ridiculously reduced price of fifty p each that would still come to well over
£100. Sorry I couldn’t help further, please don’t hesitate to contact me again,
yutta yuttah.
No reply.
I don’t blame anyone for trying. But I’m not giving it
away. The holiday pot is looking a lot more healthy. I reckon that there’s
enough in there now to get me to New York (and back. )
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Last Tuesday my middle daughter Zara invited me to a quiz
in Aberdare. (Sorry to brag, but in another life I was the last schoolteacher
to win a series of Mastermind). While there she told me that she though that
the town was very pretty, and would be great for sketching. We agreed that I
should make some sketches, and we could try to see if the local Welsh shop
would be interested. Well, I’ve made the sketches –
So we’ll see if we can get some kind of deal going. Ooh – it’s exciting!
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