Skip to main content

I Hate Math

This is what is brewing in my studio right now...

I'm in the midst of a new piece and I'm working with some very time consuming techniques and effects on this one. Each painting has to challenge me more than the last. I hate just cranking things out at the same level as the last one. What's the point? That's not climbing up the mountain that's playing around on the elliptical machine.
(each section is painted and then "feathered out" with a dry brush technique to make it soft)

So today I was thinking about how time consuming these were, how many new paintings I need to make for some upcoming opportunities, how many I will need to make to turn around now to make rent and bills and how much I charge for my work. I hate math. I really do. 
Let's say I have been charging $400 for a piece that is 24" x 24". And Paypal will immediately take out about $15 of that. $385 and let's deduct the price of canvas and paint which if it was on sale might be about $40. $345 is what we're looking at and I haven't been charging sales tax on my Texas sales which is... I don't wanna know how much this is going to bite me in the arse. So it's time to get straight and proper with the IRS in the mix and I'm going to have to start adding my sales tax into the price like a good self employed artist. And buffering that Paypal fee. So if you see a small hike in price it's not me trying to be Miss Snooty Patootie, it's me trying to not screw myself and get into trouble I can't afford. I wish I could just paint and let someone else handle the numbers, really!
It is my goal this year to get all my pricing down straight finally and not sell myself short yet still be affordable to my friends and collectors. Ah the art market, so strange and foreign to me still!
This new piece is in the works and I will reveal a little more when it's farther along. So much work to do, so many opportunities to try to grab!
Have a great Saturday everyone! Condolences to everyone messing around with their taxes right now! :P


Comments

  1. Rent, bills and taxes – those are why we should learn to appreciate Math, no matter how unlikely it is. Grown up stuff are most about calculations, measurements and dealing with digits that has significant impact in our lives, so might as well learn to embrace it while you were young. Sarah @
    GradePower Learning

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Words!

  Hello! I haven't blogged since last year. Even writing the word "blog" felt foreign and weird! I have actually been writing stuff on my Patreon account so if you've missed the updates you can sign up for free over there. There is also an option to pay a few dollars a month to help support me as an artist and get "extra" content- in case you are of that mindset and either way- thank you for caring about the art adventures.  I have missed blogging actually. I guess I like to make words, string them together like a pretty necklace and let them live their own expressive life wrapped around me.  Times are different. Times are weird! But I guess you know that. And also times are the same and as old as time. Is it really more terrible than any other time or are we humans just more "connected" to the propaganda and daily bad trip in a way that is insane and unhealthy? Either way I do my best to keep my sanity and I don't believe about 98% of what I s...

Taming the monster

What started as me deciding to spend 30 minutes picking out clothes to donate from my closet .. Turned into about 2 hours of folding t shirts, jeans and deciding winter was far enough away that all sweaters and coats could be packed away. My closet was a walk-in diaster. My cat had lived in it all winter, knocked stuff down, slept on it, fuzzed up clothes and built forts. No lie.  I had been living in the same two pairs of jeans and 5 shirts off my bedroom floor (closet #2 😂). First things first, all the T shirts from OLD JOBS were the first to get put in donation pile. I don't need memories of "that place" and they were all too small, waaay too large or tan/beige/grey ..all the wrong unhappy colors that just say JOB when you look at them. Bye! So that happened yesterday. Major project that still needs work but for now it is peaceful enough to my brain to leave it alone. I have two large loads of laundry to do because my clothes look like...well like a cat has been sleep...

The Age of Upgrade

BIG BATCH OF HAND PAINTED WAX FOR SAN FRANCISCO I wanted to do a  blog about the upgrade I'm doing and why. Because I am an artist and not a business person I have been lax on so many things I shouldn't have been and caused myself a lot of headaches. This was a year of growing pains for my business and days before my birthday I decided my new age of 39 would be one of grand changes. For starters...I'm typing this on an old Android phone. It's the only equipment I have. My old Mac finally gave up the ghost and I can no longer do any graphic designing in Photoshop or even save files. This will need to be upgraded, I need a computer. Let's talk about vinyl though...I started doing the vinyl about 6 years ago and they were pretty basic novice attempts at painting on vinyl. After many experiments, failures and tons of practice... I have brought them into their own. They started as $30 discs and climbed as I got better. I marked everything DOWN to $50 this year...