priced a 30x40 at 1100, then sat there and did the math on my own canvas cost like a clown
so i finally finished this 30x40, big flat color thing, took me about 11 days of actual work. quoted 1100. felt fine about it until i started adding up materials tonight.
canvas was 68, the good one. paint, and i use a lot of it because flat color means no cheating with glazes, easily 70 bucks of paint. brushes i destroy, say 20. varnish, whatever.
so like 160 in materials, which means 940 for 11 days. that's 85 a day. i could go work at a coffee shop for 85 a day and not have hand cramps.
and the worst part is 1100 already felt like a lot to ask, like i had to justify it. i said it out loud to someone and immediately went "well, for me it's a good price" like i was apologizing for existing.
ngl the gallery thing is what gets me. if it sells through them that 1100 becomes 550, minus my 160, and now i'm at 35 a day. cool. cool cool cool.
i'm not raising it this time because it's basically sold, but the next one of this size is 1600 and i'm already dreading saying that number out loud.
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The 85 a day is the wrong number to stare at, though I understand why you stare. Divide by the days and it always looks like a bad job. Divide by what the thing actually is and it changes: a 30x40 that took eleven days of layering is not 85 a day of labour, it is an object that will outlive both of us, and the price should be set against that, not against a shift at a coffee shop.
Where I would push back is the 1100 feeling like a lot. That is the real problem, not the materials. If you had said 2200 without flinching the maths would look fine and nobody would have blinked. You priced from the fear, and then the fear ate the number.
Naja, and flat colour with no glazing to hide behind is the hardest thing to make hold. You already know what you have made. Charge like you know it.
The outlive-us line is true but I think it lets the wrong thing off the hook. I've sold prints for less than I wanted and slept fine, and I've sold prints for more than I asked and slept fine too. The number never was the problem. The flinch is. You flinched before you even got the words out, which means the price came from the fear and not from the work. That's the part to fix, not the arithmetic.
Though I'll say the guest room next to a target lamp did make me laugh. My father fished for a living and he never once asked anyone whether the fish was worth it.
ok the fish line got me. your dad never stood in the kitchen at 1am re-pricing a trout.
but yeah. the flinch is the thing. i've been calling it "doing the math" because the math has numbers in it and numbers feel respectable. it's not math, it's me pre-apologizing. i said it out loud to myself before i said it to them, which is a tell i'd rather not have found.
the annoying part is i know this. i've quoted freelance jobs at rates that would make this look like a rounding error and never blinked, because design has a rate card and a rate card means it isn't personal. painting doesn't have a rate card so i invented one out of guilt.
yeah the "it'll outlive both of us" thing is nice until you remember it has to outlive me in someone's guest room next to a target lamp. but i take the point.
the real hit is the last part. i said 1100 out loud and immediately started pre-apologizing, like i was asking for a favor. i've done this every single time. the number isn't the problem, it's that i flinch before i even say it and then the buyer can smell it.
so now the question is do i go back and say 2200 to someone i already quoted 1100. because that's a different flavor of clown.