Alright, I’m breaking my own rule here. For the first time ever on this blog, there is no “hell” or “damn” or “dammit”, or whatever. in the title But I just can’t think of a way to improve it by adding those words. It’s weird, because those words improve everything, or so I thought! Anyway, on to the meat of the post.
So last year I learned about a Canadian artist who apparently creates four small paintings a day and sells every single one of them for 100 bucks US. It got me thinking about the fact that I regularly do one experimental painting each week. Sometimes it’s a study for a future, larger painting, which is how I’m thinking of the animal ones these days. I’m not sure I’ll ever do the large animal paintings, but it’s definitely a possibility. But anyway, the studies are completed paintings in their own right, so I thought: “why don’t I offer these and some of the other small paintings for 100 bucks?” I wouldn’t get rich off of them, but if I could sell all of them, or even just a few of them it would keep me in art supplies quite easily and would just be a little icing on the cake, so to speak.
I decided that I would only sell these through Instagram and Facebook, at least for now. So you won’t find these on my website, even when it launches with a big upgrade next week (I hope). And I have to admit that I’m not particularly confident that I’ll have similar success to the artist I mentioned earlier. In a way it seems like a no-brainer, offer a painting for 100 bucks and someone will buy it, no? Well, iff it’s really true that that artist sells all of those paintings, it’s partly because it’s become a thing to own one. So how do I make it a thing to own one of mine?
So, I’m no marketing expert, but I figure Instagram and Facebook are as good a place as any to start. The first one I posted with that price-point was my painting of a racoon and it actually sold! Or at least I’m holding it for someone. Even a hundred bucks can be tough for some people, especially if you’re just out of school, as is the future racoon-owner. But for the most part, I kind of thought maybe the posts weren’t standing out enough from my other posts. So I decided that maybe I should start a new Instagram account just for these paintings.
So this here blog post here is essentially to introduce my new Instagram account weirdpaintingsfor100alex! At first it was just called weirdpaintingsfor100, but I could just hear “Alex” in my head every time I said it to myself that I just had to add it. Makes it catchier no? And maybe it’s a little bit of a tribute to the actual Alex who died very recently. So will this work for me and add a not-insignificant amount of income? Who the hell knows? But if you follow this blog and my @chrissimoniteart Instagram and Facebook accounts, please give weirdpaintingsfor100 a follow! Also, if you could comment, like, share and save my posts, it would help the algorithm. Here’s a weird painting of a Meerkat, in fact a Cubo-Weird one! See you next week!