How to get the in-come coming?

[Linda Brandon]

Hi Melaine,

Your pastels are beautiful and thanks for posting them.

I just wanted to add a couple of ideas to Michele's excellent suggestions. It's possible that you are in a pricing dilemma, either underpriced (meaning that people think you must not be very good) or overpriced (meaning that you are in competition with more established artists). If you are priced high then you compete with oil painters. For some reason... and we all know how unfair this is... works on paper are seen as somehow "inferior" to oil painting. I don't know the answer to this problem.

You may be in an area of the country where people are not asking themselves whom to chose as an artist but instead asking why have a portrait painted at all. Selling the idea of portraiture is an additional task.

Websites are terrific for giving prospective clients an idea of what your style is all about and what your prices are like, but I think most of my commissions come about when people actually see my work hanging someplace. I don't think advertising is as important as this factor.

People are extremely literal when it comes to portraiture. If they see your painting of a child they'll wonder whether you can paint, say, a man. You need to have samples of just about everything, especially if you are aiming for corportate commissions.

I try to do at least one thing a day to advance my commissions, whether it's making a call, writing a letter, following up on a lead, etc. (I hate doing this.) This is in addtion to time spent doing paperwork and other business matters.

And lastly, I think that you are on the right track by not creating only portraits. I think painting other subjects and following your heart makes a person a better artist.

Let us know how it's going...!

[Michele Rushworth]

Linda, thank you for that "light-bulb" moment!

I think most of my commissions come about when people actually see my work hanging someplace. I don't think advertising is as important as this factor.

I looked over the last twenty commissions I've had and lo and behold, seventeen of them were from situations where people had actually seen my work somewhere. Hmmm.... perhaps I'll need to rethink my marketing plan for the rest of the year!