A career artist is focused not only on the art but the business of making art. In order for the artist to achieve they must understand and know some of the decisions before them.
When an artist has figured out these decisions then it is the difference between a career or a hobby. An artist must understand the following decisions below.
- Decide your annual income
- Decide the budget for monthly expenses
- Decide your monthly inventory output
- Decide which customer profile has the spending power to purchase your art
- Budget your time
- Understand the bottom line
- Decide what price tier is your art
- Identify art product categories
- Identify art size options
An artist has a decision to make before pricing art and that is what level are they committed to the art. Is art a hobby or a career?
When an artist decides to make art a career pricing has to reflect the survival of that career if the artist hopes to achieve a healthy and successful career.
There are many decisions an artist must make which are, what is the target annual income, budget for monthly expenses, which market to target, how time is budgeted for producing art, what is the bottom line, what price tier is the art, what are the art categories, and what are the size options.
Annual income
When a professional knows what they make they know how to work. After an artist decides to be a career-artist the next action must be to identify the annual income.
The active decision of an annual income determines the success of the artist. So at this point decide your annual income.
Artist X has decided that their annual income is 100,000.
Determine your annual income-based living expenses only.
The annual income is the money that your career as an artist pays you after all business expenses.
Monthly Expense Budget
The artist must decide on a budget to maintain monthly expenses.
The monthly expense budget provides a ceiling for the artist to monitor spending either weekly, monthly or quarterly.
Artist X for example decides to operate within a budget of 750 a month. This budget includes materials, office space, and any other resources.
Inventory Output
Start the month with an inventory production goal. Decide how many pieces to produce. Identify when inventory will be completed.
A clear goal must be achieved for progress to be maintained.
Artist X has decided to make 30 paintings a month. To achieve this artist X has decided to complete 1 piece daily.
Identify the Right Customer
The wrong customer will waste your time and sometimes your money.
Take the time to identify a customer that has the money to spend on art, has the appetite to purchase art, and is willing to part with the disposable income for the art.
Artist X has identified a customer profile that is willing to purchase art and has the funds to purchase art.
The customer for artist X works on Wall street, likes museums, attends many art functions and collects art. This customer has purchased art many times and is always looking for art.
Budget Time
There are many things that an artist does in and out of the studio. An artist must understand active creating time, passive creating time, and non-creative office time. All these categories of time contribute to the overall artist time.
Active creative time is time spent on a project or piece producing the piece which can be placing brush to canvas, hand to stone, hammer to chisel, etc.
Passive creative time is the time used to inspire the artist such as research or attending art functions for inspiration, listening to music, or anything that generates ideas for the project.
Non-creative office time is the time used to manage the business, purchase supplies, understand the books, and meet with prospects.
Artist X weekly budget is 10 hours of active creative time 5 hours of passive creative time and 10 hours of non-creative office time having weekly budget of 25 hours.
The budget of 25 hours identify contributes to understanding the time spent per piece both active and passive.
If 10 pieces are produced weekly then each piece has 1 hour of active creative time .5 hours of passive creative time and 1 hour of non-creative office time making each piece have a total of 2.5 hours of studio time allocated to the piece.
At this time decide how many active creative hours, passive creative hours, and non-creative office hours you are willing to invest.
Understand the Bottomline
The bottom line is the net money left over after all expenses are paid. Each artist must understand that the bottom line has to equal the intended annual salary targeted.
To achieve the annual salary intended an artist must divide the salary into the active weeks of work throughout the year.
Once the active weeks have been divided then an artist must monitor their progress to achieve their ambition.
Artist X for example decided to have only 40 active work weeks in the year. This means that each week must earn at least 2,500 for that week after expenses.
At this point decide how many active weeks will you be working and divide the annual salary by those weeks which will give you a picture of your bottom line.
Price Tier
Each artist has the decision of being the cheapest guy on the block or the most expensive guy on the block each has pros and cons.
When the artist prices low it takes more sales to achieve the annual salary target but sales are more likely to be achieved.
When the artist prices high it takes fewer sales to achieve the intended annual salary but sales are less likely to be achieved.
Price Cheap
- Pro- Sales will be easier
- Pro- Potentially more sales closed
- Con- potentially attracts customer with little or no understanding of art
- Con- Customers will think art is of low quality
- Con- Art will not be appreciated
- Con- More customers to serviced anticipating more time
- Con- Artist need more sales to achieve desired annual salary
High price
- Pro- educated consumer
- Pro- customers understand the value of art
- Pro- fewer sales needed to achieve annual revenue
- Pro- Fewer customers to service
- Con- sales will take longer
- Con- low number of customers
- Con- fewer sales closed
Now take this time to decide as an artist do you want to hustle for more guaranteed sales but less profits or less sales with more profits.
Low priced art requires more time resources with low profit margins and higher sale through rate. High priced option provides the artist with higher profits, less customers to service and more educated consumer but less sales
Product Category
Consider the type of art that will be produced, understand how your art can be grouped together and then provide a description for this art.
As an artist you have the responsibility of knowing your art work best, and with this responsibility the artist must describe to a collector the art being sold or purchased without even showing the art.
Below is an image of work by a famous artist before they changed their style the following will describe this image.
Art Description:
Landscape realism style oil painting on canvas of countryside.
The art description tells the viewer without seeing the piece or knowing the artist what is the piece. An art description helps a collector and the artist classify and clarify the category the piece falls into.
From the description a collector can decide if they are in the market for a landscape piece of art, or a realism style of art, or an oil painting or country side art.
Each artist must understand their art in order to decide how to market apply the category to the art. The options for the piece above are as follows; realism style art category, oil paintings is another category.
Invent categories to increase prices such as line art, drawings, oil paintings, collages, life size pieces, and life size portraits.
Art Sizes
Small, medium and large this is the simplest and most effective way to approach your pricing as an artist. This method of simplified sizes keeps pricing easy for you and the client. A small piece can go for 10 dollars, medium size goes for 100 dollars, and large piece can go for 1,000.
The client will understand that there is a clear price floor and ceiling in each size; if the collector wants to purchase a larger or smaller size then a significant price barrier is present in achieving.
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