I've attempted to sell artwork on eBay in the past. eBay buyers are cheap and aren't willing to pay much, especially for pastels or pencil art.
Additionally, selling pastels through the mail is problematic as you have to be very careful packing the pastel for shipping. To ship pastels flat, you must cut a foam core mat for the artwork and then sandwich that between two more sheets of foam core and then wrap in plastic and pack between cardboard. It's rather expensive and time-consuming.
My "Finding Nemo" pastel sold for $25 on eBay and the Buyer couldn't even be bothered to leave me feedback. Blah. I should have kept that piece of artwork. :=P
Yeah, $25 is pretty cheap. And foam core is definitely NOT cheap -- unless you knock it off from the art dept you work in, of course... ;-) After being out of the industry for a few years now, my freebie art supplies are dwindling, waaah!
But I'm sure this piece would get more than $25... is there a particular auctions site for original art? Artwork probably gets swamped on Ebay.
The trick to selling on eBay evidently is to be willing to sell a LOT of art for cheap, thus building up a fan base of sorts.
A woman I know has sold artwork on eBay since 1999 and is only now getting $150 for small (very intricate) watercolor fantasy illustrations. She also sells matted inkjet prints of older pieces which go for $20 or so. She does commissions for some of her older eBay customers but I don't think she gets all that much for the paintings.
There are a metric ton of artists on eBay, including "artists" who sell photocopies that have been tinted with chalk pastels (ugh). There are also poor artists from Eastern Europe as well as brokers selling cheapie "sweatshop" artwork who are willing to sell unstretched mass-produced paintings on canvas for next-to-nothing.
I'm sure that there are other online art auction places, but I don't know anything about them. I'm still entertaining the hope that I may eventually be able to get into some smaller local gallery.
BTW, I just friended you. Now you can see the other half of my LiveJournal art gallery (half of the posts are Friends-only).
The two color pastels of the naked girls were specifically produced for eBay. They were matted pieces and there were no takers, even priced at $35. I listed them both a few times and what's odd is that the Louise Brookes pastel would always get an insane number of "hits" but never any bidders. The pastel drawings only took me a few hours each to make, but I decided that I'd rather keep the pieces than sell them for less.
Do you use AIM, MSN Messenger or Yahoo chat? If you do, I wouldn't mind chatting with you about art-related stuff. :=)
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Additionally, selling pastels through the mail is problematic as you have to be very careful packing the pastel for shipping. To ship pastels flat, you must cut a foam core mat for the artwork and then sandwich that between two more sheets of foam core and then wrap in plastic and pack between cardboard. It's rather expensive and time-consuming.
My "Finding Nemo" pastel sold for $25 on eBay and the Buyer couldn't even be bothered to leave me feedback. Blah. I should have kept that piece of artwork. :=P
Reply
But I'm sure this piece would get more than $25... is there a particular auctions site for original art? Artwork probably gets swamped on Ebay.
Reply
A woman I know has sold artwork on eBay since 1999 and is only now getting $150 for small (very intricate) watercolor fantasy illustrations. She also sells matted inkjet prints of older pieces which go for $20 or so. She does commissions for some of her older eBay customers but I don't think she gets all that much for the paintings.
There are a metric ton of artists on eBay, including "artists" who sell photocopies that have been tinted with chalk pastels (ugh). There are also poor artists from Eastern Europe as well as brokers selling cheapie "sweatshop" artwork who are willing to sell unstretched mass-produced paintings on canvas for next-to-nothing.
I'm sure that there are other online art auction places, but I don't know anything about them. I'm still entertaining the hope that I may eventually be able to get into some smaller local gallery.
Reply
The two color pastels of the naked girls were specifically produced for eBay. They were matted pieces and there were no takers, even priced at $35. I listed them both a few times and what's odd is that the Louise Brookes pastel would always get an insane number of "hits" but never any bidders. The pastel drawings only took me a few hours each to make, but I decided that I'd rather keep the pieces than sell them for less.
Do you use AIM, MSN Messenger or Yahoo chat? If you do, I wouldn't mind chatting with you about art-related stuff. :=)
Reply
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