Curious about the financial end of being an artist? This is how I came up with my pricing.
From my understanding - and please feel free to voice your feedback if you have a different experience - art pricing is done 1 of 2 ways: by size or by time. When I started off painting full time years ago, I decided by size would be the most fair to everyone, myself included and would keep things easy.
I feel an example would be helpful. Many of my pieces are 8"x10". 8x10=80, hence the price of $80. Easy peasy, right?
IF I decided to switch the hourly method, the pricing for the same painting would look something like this:
Average hourly time for 8x10 is 10 hours. If I want at least a decent minimum wage (because who doesn't?), that would be $150 for a $15 hour job.
Some artists even include supplies in the hourly method which even further complicates things. With that method, I would need to include a percentage of each paint used (most often my paintings have 8-20 colors plus a whole variance of shades), each brush used (because they only last so long and I will generally use between 4-10 brushes depending on the subject matter), quality paper, masking fluid, tape and water. Plus, I would need to keep track of how long each painting requires to paint. While 10 hours is an average time, it's by no means consistent so pricing would be all over the board and confuse both of us.
So there you have it. Full disclosure of how I came up with the price on your next painting. Blessings, friend.
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