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Profitable Art?

Amethyst

¡MI TORTA!
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May 9, 2010
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So, since I'm having the best of luck landing a job, I'm going to depend on my artistic abilities as well to make some profit. I know a couple of years ago I sold a couple of reproductions for a few hundred bucks, which wasn't bad, but I wanted to do something different this time.

What kind of paintings usually sell better than others? (Would it be still lifes, landscapes, repros etc.)

I was thinking of doing a beach-themed/nautical still life painting (as those are pretty popular around here), and then another one, but I haven't decided what sort of painting I should do.

Any advice?
 

Shimmy

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Jun 9, 2009
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I think a lot of it is in the marketing. I have no clue about the specific methods of selling art, but I would imagine that, like with most things, establishing usefull connections is a good start. Maybe you can just walk in a art gallery and make some sort of friendly conversation/sales pitch with the owner. Again, I don't really know how art is marketed specifically, but it seems like a logical step to me.
 

KDude

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Jan 26, 2010
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Subjects related to your locale. It depends on if there's any motif or history to draw upon where you live, but people seem to like that sort of thing. I know a couple who are both painters, and while the husband is pretty successful in his own right and gets to fly around and have shows elsewhere, his wife paints a lot of nostalgic cowboy/rodeo related paintings (I'm in Texas btw). She also makes good money painting murals for restaurants or residential areas. Her stuff is very cool and still has a personal style to it, so you need not have to sell out in order to cater to something.

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Of course, you could set painting to the side, and try some other avenue. I wish I was a good visual artist because there's so many ways to go about it. My brother is a painter as well, but he branched off into multimedia, flash games, and web design just before it became a really competitive industry (mid/late 90s). You could find a niche like that. My neighbor is a painter, but works on commision as an illustrator. He does a lot of those pictures that illustrate word problems in school textbooks. "Jimmy has 4 apples. Susy has 5. Tracy has 1. Susy and Jimmy each give Tracy...."
 
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