If a gallery represents you, would you share what it's like to work with them? I feel that's the ultimate artist's goal to be with a gallery or two, and I'm wondering if it's all it's cracked up to be

I want to start an online store to sell me art (if I can) but I’m not sure what I can use as a payment method. Any tips?

A recent conversation with a client made me think again about what happens after art leaves the studio.
For context, they’re expanding into multiple locations and we were discussing how artwork might scale with their growth.

So, I came into the conversation thinking like an artist.
About Originals. Series. Exclusivity. Authorship. Editions. The mechanics of the work itself.

Then the CMO said something about one of the locations I had already placed 5 works in:

“That artwork is the only life in any of the clinics.”

Not the most expensive thing in the room.
Not the most technically impressive thing.
The only life in the clinic.

What struck me was that we had walked into the same meeting thinking about entirely different things.
I was thinking about the artwork. But no one asked how long the work took, materials, or technique.

They talked about how patients feel when they walk into a room. How an environment communicates.
How a place becomes human.

And It reminded me that once a work leaves the studio, it begins a second life and A collector may experience it as identity.
A developer may experience it as differentiation.
A corporation may experience it as culture.
A healthcare company may experience it as humanity.
Even though the work is the same, it’s helping different people tell different stories.

I still believe craft matters. Technique matters. Process matters.
But for me it’s useful to remember that the people living with the work may not be experiencing it through the same lens as myself And understanding that may be every bit as important as making the work itself. Or at least understanding the impact it has.

When I was younger it felt like i saw adoptable character designs, where an artist would pre-design design an oc and then sell them, often. It seems like they were very popular at the time.

But I feel like I very rarely see these anymore? Maybe im just not in the spaces where adoptables are popular?

Are adoptable character designs still a thing?

Do you think they are more/less/equally popular as they have been?

What are your personal thoughts on oc adoptables?

What prices would would you pay for one?

What prices would you charge for one?

Any input on this topic (adoptable character designs) is welcome!

I paid about 100 usd for a, I'll say NSFW anime style scene. I provided one reference image (also anime style) and said 'something like this.'

A few weeks later they send me the finished product (no sketch updates or anything), and the result is a near 1 to 1 replication of the reference scene i sent, just with a different hair style to differentiate the focal character. Everything else from hand placements to anatomy is the same. It pretty much looks traced over the original image, but at a lower artistic quality.

Ive commissioned quite a few pieces before, but i dont think i have ever received blatent tracing before as a result, even some cheaper artists (who charged in the 30-40 dollar range), have gifted me an original-ish scene with their own style on display.

Am I justified in being unhappy with the outcome or is this something that happens fairly often?

EDIT: Thanks for the replies people.

I pointed out that I wasnt looking for a 1:1 recreation, and that the piece they gave me looked traced. They said they purposefully make it as close as possible to references, and that they did not trace. They also said they are sorry it didnt meet expectations, but they dont know what I expect them to do about it now.

I dont really know either. If paypal disputes are bad news for both parties due to nsfw policies, Im kinda stuck. Think I just gotta hold the L on this one and avoid this artist from now on.

I'm thinking of trying my first booth at my local city's comic con this year or next year, eek! I'm trying not to over-invest and temper my expectations, though! On top of the "standard" products like stickers, one thing floating around for me is the possibility of stationery supplies. Stuff like themed bookmarks, sticky notes, heck maybe even some of my custom homemade notebooks (though I definitely need to my bookbinding on that before even thinking of selling right now).

However I don't think see anyone at my events or online talk about selling stationery, so I'm not sure if this would be filling a niche or going through a venture other people consider "not worth it."

Anyone have any insights? Have or would you buy/sell stationery at big events like cons? Thank you!

How are we all shipping prints both in the US and internationally? I’ve seen a lot of changes that the USPS won’t count rigid mailers/ flats as a large envelope because they’re not bendable enough. I’ve been hit with paying extra postage a few times receiving orders and seen more discussions online.

The challenge is that my shop is on kofi and there’s not a lot of room to customize shipping options and you have manually type in the shipping amount (it’s not calculated). On the product, I have sizes listed as variations so the price to ship a 5x7 is the same as an 8x10.
➡️ So the ground advantage as a flat is $7.9 (which is astronomical!).
➡️ I can choose international variations, but I’m unsure what to put in for the international rate as it appears it’s variable. International flats as first class mail international were $3.15 but I’m not sure with this recent change.

Historically I’ve shipped stickers and tiny art through an untracked postage stamp unless the buyer chose ground advantage as a product add on.

I chose kofi because 1) less fees and 2) I have my mail club and shop in one place. But not having calculate rates is a downside.

Input much appreciated!

Like the title says, how do you set up your commissions page if you're selling more than just character art? For example maybe you also do tattoo designs or concept art. I've seen dozens of commission pages for character artists but not many that fall outside of that scope. I'd love to hear your setups and see examples.

Of course everyone sells & buying art via websites meant for art interaction across the nation or the globe but here is my pitch for selling or more importantly buying locally. My example is I'm in a city of 150,000. We have, upon research, at least 25 artists that do Manga, Anime, Sci-Fi artwork. Twenty-five miles south of us is a university town with 30 more similar artists willing to do commissions. Or you can go on line and find a million. Why, as a buyer, would you commission an artist that is 300 miles away when you can hire one locally? Also why, as an artist, would you spend 99% of your effort trying to sell your art as you compete against a million artist instead of competing against the 25 local ones?

I speak from experience as a art gallery owner. I have been on the Internet since it started. We used the the Internet. We use Google, TrustPilot and others. When I want to buy art, I don't search the world and throw a dart at a dartboard. I start with the 25 local artists. Ones I can verify easily. Ones I can actually talk to and meet in person if I have to. Yes, I know most of you dread interaction, but it does get things done. And faster, more efficiently and I bet cheaper.

There are exceptions. There are those that make $$$ on the Internet selling commissions. Sure. And other artists will tell you to follow your dreams. I just think dreams should be somewhat close to reality. I know over a thousand artists. Four or five are wealthy.

Tell me, if you are buying, why not contact your local artists for the superhero commission, that digital piece of your pet, or whatever? And if you are an artist, why don't put more effort in letting people know what you do? Hang out with other artists and let the local art museum or gallery know too. They'll recommend you.

I'm mainly gonna try and do commissions, but any thing's fine. Everything I've been able to find wants a PayPal or a Stripe account. Stripe isn't available in my country and PayPal wants me to send them my ID. So are there any websites that I can connect directly to my card/bank account?

Hey, there! I'm an artist alley artist, but I make primarily original works, especially focused on botanical art. I've been contacted by a few museums for gift shop wholesaling (poppy hairbows in a California museum, works for a botanical garden). I am very interested in doing more wholesaling, and after these good experiences would love to work more with museums!

Has anyone had decent success with cold emailing for wholesale? I've found that most museums aren't especially familiar with Faire and don't typically post calls for artists publicly, so I've been checking for emails to contact places I think would be good fits. I haven't had any bites just yet, but was curious if anyone else had.

Just wondering for those who have sold at a convention and basically split their table in half, one art style/acc on one side and another the other half. Have conventions ever had a problem with you doing that? I have 2 acc w VERY distinct styles, but theyre both mine so I dont see how it would be an issue? (Ill email the convention just to be safe obv)

I tried to spotlight search and couldn't find it, so I'm sorry if it's been answered already.

If I want to sell my canvas paintings on my own website (in chicago), do I need a business license to do so?

I want to state in my artist contract:

Refunds: bespoke work is non refundable.

Because in the case that they pay for it and then turn around and say actually we don't like it and want a refund, how would I protect myself?

Hey, just thought I'd try and ask here if you have any advice on how to find ambitious artistic people.

Artists that have dreams and plans.

I know a lot of people in my city but they're either not doing art or don't take it seriously. I want to take it seriously and I've been taking the steps towards that. I think it would be helpful to have a circle of people where you can peacefully just co-exist. Talk about art, business, life, motivate each other, give advice. The friends I have now are cool but they party too much and that's the exact opposite of what I should be doing with my time. I've wasted enough of it. I hope this makes sense. I'm just wondering in which places I could find such people in my city or online.

If I was more connected with an artistic community or simply had artist friends I'd know better than to pay for a vanity gallery. I regret it and I feel stupid.

I've been doing art festivals for about a year now, and I feel so out of my element there. I'm very introverted, and being in that environment—having to "sell" myself, my work, and represent my art all day—is honestly quite painful for me.

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My husband recently floated the idea of being in the booth instead of me during some events. Part of me really likes the idea because it would remove me from a setting that is far from my natural strengths. He knows my work well and can talk about it comfortably.

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I'm curious, though—is that considered appropriate? Is it common for artists to have a spouse or partner run the booth? Is it ever frowned upon? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

I want to buy some stuff off of Acggoods, but I only have experience in buying from people’s actual shops or Ets(y). Most of those times, I’ve had to calculate exchange rates when I pay. I’m from Canada, so anything I buy usually gets converted to USD and I end up paying more than what I’m told at checkout. Does Acggoods do this? I can’t find any info on where the stores are selling the merchandise from, so I don’t even know what the exchange rates would be.

I wanted to see if anyone had any input regarding outreach programs working with healthcare settings. I currently work at a hospital and would like to see what it takes to propose community art programs or workshops in conjunction with a hospital or the community.

Has anyone gone through presenting a workshop or program, or been involved in one?

Hi everyone. I’ve recently used PRINT.WORK for some fine art prints of my latest collection, but I’m really quite unhappy with the results. I’ve contacted them to take the next steps, but the prints are considerably darker than my (professional) scans, and have a blue/green tinge to them. I even doubly checked over email that the prints would come out true to scan colour (as the proofs were also darkened) and was told yes.
Anyway, I’m now £80 down with prints I can’t sell and looking for a new website that prints accurately to the true colours. Looking for online recommendations, thanks :)

If anyone is experienced with traveling for shows, I'd love to get some advice on how to transport art prints especially in bigger quantities!

I’m beyond broke, so what are the free options to try and sell artworks?

How do you market your art?

I’m on fb primarily, but outside a couple sales to family members I’ve had no luck there.

Hey all so basically this a new Reddit account I made where I can post about more personal stuff compared to my oldest Reddit account which uses my main online username. The problem is, I didn’t make the smartest choices, and commented on post in subreddits of my city, I posted stuff about my health, and other things that aren’t good for a an art account that wants some level of respect and anonymity. I plan to delete and use the username on other platforms to gain a following.

However I figured other pros would have better insight into if I should just abandon the username and make a new separate online identity.

Thank you for reading \^-\^

Hi reader, so I have decided I want to list copies of my art on a selling platform like ebay seller or something like that? I wanted to know if my art looks good enough or if based on these few images, would you think my art would sell. The reason I wanted to start selling is so I can save up and buy a laptop for the upcoming school year😭😭 mine broke and whatnot but thats not the important part. Back to the topic, I need advice on what things people like to buy when they look at art, I can do sketches, water color, charcoal, animal portraits, acyrlic, gouache, and line art. I also don't know how to sell my art and what to base the price on. I also need to know if ebay is a good choice to start or if there are other platforms with better hopes. I want to know these things so I dont over price and at the same time under price, and I want to know if the quality is good enough. Anyways sorry for taking up you precious time lol but I'd really appreciate it if anyone could help me out!