Sold a 9x12 at the spring fair for $75 and did the math on the way home
I've been charging $75 for a 9x12 acrylic landscape for about two years now. Small canvas, usually a marsh or a treeline, the kind of thing that sells to somebody's aunt at a fair. Feels like a fair price, people don't blink.
Then I did the actual math in the car on the way home Sunday. Canvas and paint maybe $12, frame $18 from the craft store when I catch a sale, and I don't count the varnish or the brushes. So $45 left. That piece was four evenings, probably six hours with drying time and reworking the sky twice. Seven and a half an hour, before I count the drive or the $40 booth fee.
I know I'm not going to get $30 an hour at a church craft fair. I'm not trying to. But I sat in my driveway for a minute and thought about how I could just skip the frame and sell it on a panel and keep the $18.
The thing is I like the frames. They make it look finished.
Anyway, next fair is in October. I'm thinking $95 with the frame and seeing what happens. That's the whole post, I don't have a clean ending for it.
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the math road trip in the car after the sale is a rite of passage, welcome. but honestly 7.50/hr isn't the real number, it's worse, because you also just told the market that a 9x12 from you costs 75. raising it now means the aunt who bought one last year feels like she got a deal and the next aunt thinks you got greedy. that's the actual trap, not the hourly.
the marsh/treeline thing is what's killing you more than the price. nobody haggles over a $75 landscape because there's a million of them at every fair, including the printed ones for $20. flat canvas, no frame, that's how you escape, but then you're gambling on a different room. sorry, that was supposed to be encouraging.
The anchor problem is real but it cuts both ways. Two years of $75 means the repeat aunt is your base, and if you double the price on her you don't lose the sale, you lose the person who tells three other people. That's the part nobody mentions.
Flat canvas no frame is the right instinct. Just make sure the stretcher is solid and the corners are stapled clean, because unframed means the back of the thing is on display the second they pick it up.
The repeat aunt thing is what I keep coming back to. She bought one two years ago and then bought two more since, and she's brought her sister twice. That's not one sale, that's a little pipeline, and I'd be an idiot to blow it up over an extra $30.
The back of the canvas tip is a good one and I hadn't thought about it that way. I staple mine pretty neat but I've never once looked at the back like a buyer would. Going to check a couple of finished ones tonight. Do you varnish the sides too or leave them bare?
Ouch, but fair. The "told the market what a 9x12 from me costs" part is the bit that's going to keep me up tonight, not the hourly. I've had two people at the same fair ask if I'd do "the same one but a bit smaller" so yeah, I think they've all got a number in their heads now.
Question on the flat canvas thing though, since I've never tried it: do you still wire the back or do you do the little sawtooth hanger, and what do you do about the sides? I like how a frame hides my edges, that's honestly half of why I buy them. Do you paint the sides through or tape them off? Also are you selling those at the same fairs or somewhere else, because around here the fair crowd really does seem to want a frame on it.