Annual Art Exhibition  - Hellenic Art 2014 - 

Once again it is this time of the year

It will give us great pleasure to see you at the opening

Wonderful Art exhibits by many well known International Artists.

Cottage in the Country

La Chateau de Lavande

Potted Pansies

A few more paintings from my country series 

It has been a long time since my last post! I don't know how the days just roll on so quickly!  Already is October and time for exhibitions in grand scale almost every other weekend there is an exhibition and I need lots of paintings  for each one.  Am fortunate that I can paint continuously almost every day, and have a good 25 paintings at the ready for the exhibitions and more for my direct sales to my collectors.

Some of my contemporary paintings, landscapes:

A Country Scene #4 

At The Edge

Untainted Land

Approaching Rain

(50x50cm)

Storm Brewing

(60x60cm)

Stormy Sky

(20x25cm)

The month of May has been very productive with new painting style and colors emerging from somewhere deep in my soul and on to the canvas!

It all began with changing my color palette using paint tubes that I haven't used very often, like the browns and the darker greens and 'presto' I liked what I did!

I will work more with these colors for a while and what else will surface!

It has been a slow beginning for me this year.  I only started working again in the middle of February.
 After the Christmas holidays right through to New Year I usually don't work as I dedicate this couple of weeks to family and home.
This year in January I travelled to Australia to visit my family.
 I had a most wonderful vacation with my son and grandchildren, beautiful weather and lazy days at the beach. Unforgettable times with my growing up (very quick) grandchildren!  But like all good things, my vacation came to an end and returned to South Africa on the 11th of February to start painting again with all this renewed energy and hundreds of ideas swimming in my head waiting to get on canvas!
I managed to do three paintings so far, all three to do with the environment (see older posts).
This year am planning to do a lot more abstract work on a big scale.  As the art market is getting progressively better, so are the sale of big paintings are more in demand!

 

A New Beginning

 

50x50cm on gallery stretched canvas

 

 

Crying Willow #2

 

76x76cm on gallery stretched canvas

 

 

Emptiness

 

61x76cm on gallery stretched canvas

 

 

 

 

 



A new record achieved in 2013

What a year it has been!  2013 was a record breaker on the number of paintings I created and the number of work I sold!  I painted a lot of small paintings, maybe half of the work I did was in small paintings which is very popular and quick to sell.

All in all I created 108 paintings and sold 106.  My usual sales are between 70 and 90 every year so am very pleased that I could handle all these sales by myself.  I sold 5 paintings on Exhibition the rest of my sales where direct to the public. Also I had a couple of commissions to do this year.

I learned from experience that painting small is not always profitable, it might be easier to create, as you can work on 8 - 10 paintings of 20x25cm at the same time and finish them in a week, but the price is also very low and you have to rely on quantity to make a profit.  While, if you paint two medium paintings of 50x50cm per week your cost and time could be more or less the same but your profit margin will be greater as you now created artwork of substance!

The best thing to do is to paint a good mix of different sizes so that you have enough paintings of all sizes to show your potential collectors.

We just have to keep trying and experimenting in different ways to have a satisfactory return for our artwork.  As I have written in previous blogs pricing of the artwork is very important.  You need to make a living from your art but also be competitive in your pricing without loosing respect of your God given talent by pricing your work beyond it’s real value!

The Internet is a excellent tool that will help you sell your artwork but you also are in huge competition with thousands of artist that are on line.  Selling on line is not as simple as it sounds. You need to be prepared with all aspects of a sale, from packaging and boxing of paintings to International shipping costs.  You need to be ready and respond to requests as soon as possible.  A client who looks up on on-line Galleries to buy a painting does not wait for you too long!  You have to reply to his inquiries almost immediately.

Do your homework and be prepared, the best advertising you can get is a happy satisfied customer that will become a serious collector.

Have a wonderful 2014, there are more records to be broken!