What price Art?

How do you price a piece of your creativity?

Naturally you can pay yourself an hourly rate and attempt to add on a cost for supplies (1/100th of a tube of cerulean blue, 3mm of peach pencil, one sheet of acrylic paper etc..). Then there’s depreciation – how long will that paintbrush last (especially if I forget to clean it)?

But what about your talent? The originality of the idea? The skills involved in execution? How on earth do you place a price on the contents of your imagination and the splashes of your soul that end up in some pieces? Artists like Van Gogh put their heart and soul into every painting, I think that man in particular gave more than he had.

It’s a grey old area make no mistake.

Take this piece. While I didn’t time it, I guess she took around three hours. I used paints, pencils, modelling paste, fibres, wax (I even had to buy an iron as melting wax on the same iron I use for pressing my delicates is obviously going to end in tears. Mind you £3.50 for a bog basic steam number from Tesco can’t be scoffed at!).

Then there’s the costs I wasn’t anticipating. Redecoration and carpet cleaning... Using a pump spray to give that delicate coat of speckled paint to her face caused not just a blue face my friends. The language was not so clean as the stream shot out at a bizarre angle covering everything on the table and finishing up all over the magnolia walls.

Attempt two took me outside into the garden... and back in again with muddy feet all over the carpet.

And so, as I ponder putting her for sale in my shop. What exactly should I be charging?

This is my first ever entry to Illustration Friday – a challenge site I’ve been meaning to join in with for about a year. Well, finally I managed! The theme is ‘Beneath’. My mermaid lies beneath the waves waiting patiently for her prey. I liked the eventual effect of the watery face – trying to imagine what mermaid skin might look like – a touch of camouflage perhaps. If I’d painted her tail, you might spot a barnacle or two!