Just kidding. Although it was another day of doing stuff on the computer that resulted in very little to show for except a headache. I would rather spend most of my day doing art or reading or gardening, but I have decided to try to figure out how to get more and larger sales on eBay. This meant a lot of reading in various groups. Then looking at my store and listings to see if the suggestions would work for me.
I still haven't figured it out -- and I'm not at all sure it's possible to figure out -- but I have a plan. I'm going to try to list something on auction everyday. I'll try to keep a botanical watercolor, a wildlife piece, and a still life up at all time. Other than these 3 pieces, the rest of the listings will be whatever I want to list -- some old and some new. Then on Thursdays, I'll be adding to my eBay store until I have about 35 pieces in there. Once I reach that number, I'll remove those pieces which get few visits and add unsold auction items, assuming there are some.
The one piece of the puzzle is what to do with the low-visited items after I remove them from the store. Do I try to sell them on auction? Do I put them on another art sales site? Do I just throw them in a storage box for a year or two? The crazy thing is I have sold several pieces, both at shows and on eBay, which I never thought would sell and got very few looks on auctions. Suddenly the right person comes along and buys them. But I'm not thrilled with paying to have them in my store with the hope that someone will buy them before I've paid more in listing fees than I get for the items.
No wonder I have a headache!
Anyway, I did get some art done today.
This is another art card in oil of a fall still life. I had started out to paint the pumpkin and the Indian corn, but them I added the shelf. Then the leaf. Then the window and the landscape. It kind of all just kept growing in complexity until I got something I liked. And I do like this one. (For what it's worth, the picture looks a bit duller than the original -- the corn is fairly bright.) So, in another month when this is dry enough to varnish, I can put it up on auction.
Note: Since I will only sell varnished pieces and it takes a month for oils (with driers added) to dry, this creates yet another headache for selling on eBay. In the meantime, if someone would like to make me an offer on either card, well, I'll consider it.
And here's the oil art card I did yesterday:
I'm still debating whether I like it or not. I'm so used to having very carefully blended paint that the chunkier painting style looks a bit sloppy to me. On the other hand, it was a lot faster, so....
I really am getting tired of painting these minatures, so maybe tomorrow I'll try a larger oil painting. The reasons I was doing these art cards were (a) there used to be a big market for them, (b) they were something new to me, and (c) if I ruined one, I wasn't out much in terms of materials. Now, however, there's less of a market for them, I'm getting tired of them, and I feel much more confident working in oils, so maybe it's time for me to try something larger? Maybe 6x8"?!
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