If you now ask where to find addresses, passwords, and secret signs, your diagnosis will be ready instantly. You don't know how to use search engines and navigate through the clutter of the internet to find the necessary information? You can't navigate among discussions where critics and art lovers gather in any form of representation? If you can't, then you're hopeless and useless. What about sales and profits?
If you understand that you'll have to hustle, that's already not bad. You can select suitable options based on the genre of your subjects and your execution technique. For example, there's no point in sending a realistic landscape or still life to groups, communities, or galleries focused on surrealism or figurative art. Got it? Well done.
After sending your portfolios to a dozen email addresses and not receiving a response, you can confidently send them anywhere. To all possible addresses related to art. Maybe your business card will finally appear, and you'll learn how to leave it in the hands of other people. And even take their business cards. However, sooner or later, the day when you receive positive feedback will come. Assuming you're smart and did everything right.
Stop taking failures so painfully.
About Prices for Paintings
The question of pricing is perhaps one of the most complex for artists. Always. Always! You'll hear polar opinions, from "why so expensive" to "why so cheap." And they'll add, in a friendly whisper: "Tell me, can you even paint?" I suggest we silence this whisper and sideline discussions about artistic and masterpiece value.
What determines the price? No matter how much you think and ask, the decision is ultimately yours. Accept it. You decide how much your work is worth and at what price to exhibit it on a specifically chosen platform for online art sales. In doing so, perhaps you consider several factors important to you personally.
For example, I'm amazed at the question of how much time I spent on a piece. But for some artists, this is important. Or what's difficult for one to draw might be easy for me. For instance. I also often browse what's being exhibited on sales websites and auctions. Sizes, levels, prices. And, most importantly, the level of name and career comparable to yours. Here's a quote from some comments directed at me personally as an author: "You're not La Fe!" Yes, I'm not La Fe, nor are many worthy masters of watercolor painting and drawing. And those masters aren't all architects. Get the idea?
Here's the thing. When you see a work and its selling price, make sure it's actually being bought. Because if what you see isn't selling, then the price means nothing. And another important point. Having low prices as an idea isn't good at all. Let me tell you a story.
I was browsing works for sale posted in one of the Facebook groups. There was a very decent copy of Shishkin's painting. The first thing that caught my eye was the price being too low. Very. You can't imagine how many questions it raised! And not from happy buyers, eagerly clutching money in their hands. But from specialists. And buyers read all these dialogues and discussions and draw their own conclusions. If you're tired of selling at reduced prices, then raise them urgently! There's a chance that sales will increase.
And I know what's happening. That nothing sells at your low prices. Why? That's a separate topic for another article. So you sit there with a pile of works and no profit. That's why it's become tiresome. Raise your prices.