sold a painting for 480 and did the math on the back of a receipt while the buyer was still in the room
sold a 60x80 acrylic for 480 at the weekend. buyer was lovely, paid in cash, carried it out herself.
then i sat down and actually did the math, which was a mistake.
canvas and stretcher 60. gesso and primer, say 15. tubes of the two colors i used up almost entirely, that's 70 because the good red is stupid expensive now. brushes i killed, amortize whatever, 20. three weeks of work, most of it on the sky, which i repainted twice because the first one was muddy.
480 minus 165 materials = 315. over three weeks that's 15 an hour if i count it as 20 hours, which is generous, because it was more.
and i priced it off a number i saw on someone else's instagram.
the annoying part is i'd do it again tomorrow. the money isn't really why. but i also can't keep pretending the money is fine, because it isn't, and the only person setting that number is me and i'm clearly doing it badly. sat there with the receipt in my hand and the buyer's car still in the lot and just went, huh.
anyway if you're reading this and you also price off vibes and a screenshot you saved, at least we're consistent.
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the receipt math is brutal because it's honest and the honest number is always garbage. 15 an hour for the sky you repainted twice. i've done that calculation in my head mid-sale and had to just put it down and not look at it.
but here's the thing i keep coming back to. you didn't get paid for the three weeks, you got paid for the one. the repaint wasn't waste, it was you refusing to leave it muddy. nobody's ever gonna pay you for that part and it still went into the piece.
i don't think the fix is price higher, exactly. some of it is just that this thing we do doesn't math out clean, and the people doing the math on a receipt are the ones who care enough to get it right. doesn't make 315 feel better though. i know.
I'd half agree. The repaint was you refusing muddy, sure, but you still only got paid for the one that left the room, and the other two went in the bin, not the piece. That's the part that doesn't math out, not the hours.
What I'd say is the receipt math is the wrong instrument. It tells you a painting is a bad job. Fine. It was never a job. I keep a spreadsheet of materials only, so I know what I can afford to make next, and I don't put hours in it at all.
"the receipt math is the wrong instrument" ok that's the line, i'm stealing it.
but materials-only spreadsheet, no hours column at all... i don't know if that's wisdom or avoidance and honestly i think the two are the same thing here. because the second i can see hours, i start dividing, and dividing always ends in me feeling like a chump.
though yeah, the bin canvases are the real hole in my math, not the hours. i priced it like the three weeks were one object. they weren't. i made three paintings and sold the one that survived.
"you got paid for the one, not the three weeks" ok that one's gonna live in my head rent free, damn.
the repaint thing is true and also annoying because it means the math is structurally unwinnable and i keep doing it anyway like a guy checking his bank balance hoping it changed. but yeah. the muddy sky is gone. that's the actual deliverable, i guess, along with a painting.
the part i haven't figured out is where the line is between "this doesn't math out clean" and "i'm just undercharging and calling it philosophy." because those feel identical from inside the studio at 2am