The gallery that asked me to paint on a completely different surface

Okay so I finally got my first "real" gallery interest a few months ago (still riding that high honestly) and the owner loved my watercolors but asked if I could do them on canvas instead of paper because "that's what sells." And I was like... watercolor on canvas is a nightmare?? I tried a few samples to be polite and they looked so sad and muddy compared to what I do on paper. I ended up saying no and I still wonder if that was stupid.

Has anyone else had a gallery try to change their medium or materials? Did you bend or did you walk? I keep going back and forth on whether I was too precious about it lol.

6comments

Add your reply to this discussion…

6 comments

Tomáš Havel·3w

You weren't stupid. You were clear about what the work is. That's rare.

Galleries will ask you to change all kinds of things. Medium, scale, subject, palette. Sometimes they're right and it's a useful push. But "watercolor on canvas" isn't a different surface, it's a different medium, the whole behavior of the material changes. You'd have to fight it the whole way and it would look like fighting.

In my experience, the one time I bent on something fundamental, different materials than what the work needed, the result hung in someone's hallway for five years and I couldn't look at it without wincing. Not worth it.

You said no. That's how you keep having work worth showing. Another gallery will come.

Dimitra Vasilakis·3w

This is it exactly. The work knows what it wants to be on, and when you fight that you can feel it in every piece. I've done mosaic on mesh when a wall wanted direct setting, and I still wince thinking about those ones.

You didn't burn a bridge. You showed you know your materials and you won't put out weak work just to fill a wall. Galleries worth staying with remember that.

Dani OkaforOP·3w

oh man the mosaic on mesh thing, I felt that in my chest. it's such a specific kind of regret isn't it, when you can look at a piece and just KNOW you were fighting the material the whole time. that's exactly what those samples felt like, like the paper was watching me betray it haha

thank you for saying that about the bridge. i think i needed to hear it from someone who's been through the same kind of no. it's so easy to second-guess yourself when you're the one who walked away

Dani OkaforOP·3w

honestly this made me tear up a little haha. thank you. i think the thing that gets me is i KNEW it wouldn't work, i just didn't trust myself enough yet to say that out loud. like i did the samples and they were genuinely bad and i still sat there like "maybe i'm just not trying hard enough??" the delusion is so real early on

you hanging in there with a piece you hated for five years is exactly the nightmare i was scared of. i think i would've resented every single one of those paintings and that's not why i started doing this

Camille Laurent·3w

You were right to say no.

Galleries ask this kind of thing all the time, they're thinking about what's easiest to sell, not what makes good work. And watercolor on canvas, you're right, it's a nightmare. The absorbency is wrong, the surface fights you, you lose everything that makes watercolor interesting, the bloom, the transparency, the way it sits on the paper.

The real question is whether they want you or whether they want a product in a certain format. If they liked your work enough to reach out, they should trust your materials.

I've had galleries suggest I switch from oil to acrylic for "practical reasons." I said no. Not because acrylic is bad, it's fine, it's just not what I do. You can't make your work in a medium that doesn't belong to you.

Bending on scale or subject matter, maybe there's room. Bending on the actual substance of your work? Non. You'd have regretted it more than you'll regret this. And honestly, a gallery that doesn't understand watercolor isn't necessarily the right gallery for watercolor.

Dani OkaforOP·3w

thank you for saying that, honestly. i've been replaying it in my head so much, like did i just burn a bridge because i was too attached to paper?? but you're spot on about the absorbency thing, that's exactly what happened with my samples. they just looked flat and dead and i kept thinking "this isn't even my work anymore" which felt dramatic but also... true?

the "do they want you or a product" thing hit me hard. i think that's what i was circling but couldn't name. they liked the idea of having a watercolor artist but they wanted it in a box they already knew how to sell. and i get that galleries have to make money but also i didn't spend four years learning how to handle this finicky impossible medium just to slather it on canvas where it looks mediocre lol.

have you ever had someone push back on your materials and you actually tried it? or did you hold your ground every time?