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Re: marketplaces, I wonder if etsy would be fruitful. Or do they just sell crafts and such
― calstars, Friday, 24 September 2021 11:17 (two years ago) link
Just another poster chiming in to say wow & good luck, I also sold a handful of pieces to sympathetic friends and a couple on https://www.artfinder.com/ - maybe something worth looking at, 40% commission for the free plan might seem pretty steep but normal gallery commission is 50%! I never made a serious go of it, just sketching for fun and seeing if anything sold but it turns out a) not really and ii) the best stuff I didn't want to get rid off, there's one piece I still regret selling.
― ledge, Friday, 24 September 2021 11:20 (two years ago) link
thanks ledge! there are a few places i can sell online that i'm thinking about. i'm still early on (early on where friends still feel sympathy for me, says my depressed morning mind), so i'm hoping i can still sell them to people i know for a bit longer. i have a couple larger ones that i like a lot, one of them is my favorite, and i'd like to send them to a friend so i can see them again someday. but at some point, i might list the ones that don't sell for way too much on a big website like artfinder (so after their commission i can get what i think i need), and if that doesn't work i'll paint over them and add an x-man or something on the front
my current living hell is this:
Parcels Shipping
IMPORTANT TIP for anyone buying a canvas that they ever intend to ship anywhere: do NOT buy splined canvases:
https://i.imgur.com/GTstFYF.jpg
if you go to Blick to buy a canvas, the sick joke is that the splined canvases are generally more expensive. it'll be under "Profesh" or "PREMIER" line. this is a sick joke. once the canvases are splined like this (canvas tucked way back into the nether region of hell between the stretcher bars), they are very difficult to take off the stretcher bars to roll for shipping. whenever possible, buy the traditional back-stapled canvases, or, if you have the space and time, stretch them yourself (which saves money).
i'm currently in hell because that big commission i sold, the 40x60" one - i can't ship it for less than $950 right now. if i start over from scratch and repackage it for the 3rd time, i might be able to get it right under the dimension limit for packages and get it down to the $250-300 range. if i could only take the fucking canvas off the stretcher bars, i could roll it up and ship it in a tube for $30. instead, i am now contacting the buyer to see if i can work up some plan to drive it out to them or have friends drive it out, have friends me in various cities across ohio and pennsylvania to transfer them to different cars, etc. it is hell, and so dumb. never buy splined canvases!! (unless it's for you and you just want to hang them up on your wall. if they're staying in your home, they are great)
also - sorry for multiple posts - one kind of fun thing is that when the fedex employee (who was awesome) told me that it was slightly too large to ship in a normal way at the store, and that i'd have to go home and create an account and then create a pickup order for an oversized item, which later led to the $950 quote, i got to say "i'm just going to burn this painting down!" really loudly and everyone was a bit startled in the store. but then i laughed and said "like a TRUE artist!" and everyone kind of got the joke i think. it felt really good to leave that fedex in a wave of laughter and companionship
since i speak relatively loudly and people were waiting in line behind me and it was a complicated issue, multiple started to get involved, workers and customers alike. we were all trying to figure out how to send this fucking thing. by the end we were all in solidarity, workers too, that fedex sucked, but that they all sucked, really