That was my fear also, that many are turned off from buying because they had to create an account. I certainly get more views on DPW than any other site I’m selling my work but I am starting to suspect they are just other DPW members, artists…
Buyers do not have to register with DPW to buy a painting using a PayPal link, only to bid in our auctions. This requirement is so we are able to track their bids and so bidding is not taken lightly.
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Good to know, thanks so much.
I put this as an update in my original post above, but wanted to also put it in it’s own post:
After further thought and experimentation, Carol has decided to go back to selling through DPW auctions. She found her prices end up being higher with auctions. It is important to keep in mind that Carol has developed a large following over the years and so there are usually several bidders competing on each auction.
On another, but related, topic, I quietly increased the minimum bid increments a couple weeks ago. Here’s what that means. The minimum bid for an auction is calculated by DPW to be the current bid plus a minimum bid increment that is based on the size of the current bid. I originally based DPW’s minimum bids on eBay’s, however I recently became convinced that the increments were too low for fine art auctions and increased them.
The end result from this increase is that bidding will increase in amount faster than before, which is something I am seeing on the active auctions page. This will, in the aggregate, increase the final size of winning bids.
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I am seeing a trend away from fine art and more towards pictures that I label more as craft. I have a friend that is painting very crude roses on barnwood and painting phrases over the picture. She is also decoupaging hymn pages and painting some of the words over it. They are selling! My paintings have been sitting in our local art gallery for over a year with much praise, but no movement. I do not think the decline of sales is because of payment method, but because of a change in decoration preferences.
My daughter bought 2 large abstract ‘prints’ but they had texture so looked a LOT like paintings set in nice floater frames…for $12 each!
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For 99% of people, making a living as an artist is a pipe dream. So if “selling” is your primary goal, you’re in the wrong business.
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mmm, your observation is much the same as mine. In Britain we still love paintings, but I also see a lot of “craft” style paintings made from bits and bobs, that people seem keen to buy. Often you can find average painters and makers outselling really highly-skilled ones simply because they’ve managed to flip the “must-buy” button of the public…and they also put their work out a lot cheaper. I don’t know about the USA but people over here tend to perceive crafts as something “cheaper”. Many folk are not greatly hand-skilled these days and can therefore only cope with easy-to-make projects, involving little more than cut-and-paste. Are we entering another money down-turn and therefore have to have more strings to our bows?
I think the ‘craft style paintings’ will be a passing phase.
I loved that kind of thing a few years ago, but now it all looks old hat and the same to me.
It’s more difficult to see a persons individual creativity if all they are doing is cutting and pasting. Also there are a gazillion youtube videos on how to do it.
Not everyone can paint though… 
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This video might change your mind.
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What can I say?.. genius!
Thanks for sharing this. Kind of blown away.
I have been aware for years that it’s long been suspected that Vermeer likely used a camera obscura. I always thought this didn’t answer the question fully because if you’ve ever seen a camera obscura, you’ll know that you just get a very fuzzy image, not at all sharp. Plus how do you deal with the movement of light? This mirror idea makes complete sense. Vermeer must have used some sort of combination of projection / obscura and mirrors. I wish the guy had demonstrated with a color image rather than black and white but I totally get the idea.
A while ago I bought this book:
David Hockney: Secret knowledge
Hockey explores all sorts of techniques and writes a convincing argument that the old masters used every trick in the book to achieve their masterpieces. It’s a real eye opener.
He does actually, in the full documentary. The film is called Tim’s Vermeer. I rented it OnDemand, but I think Netflix had it, too. Of course, there’s always Youtube if you can’t find it to rent.
Anyway, he builds a room that looks almost exactly like the one in Vermeer’s “The Music Lesson” and goes from there. That the man who has never painted before can re-create a Vermeer using such a simple method didn’t go over well with everybody…
https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/784/1*ERd15Vk8kpczk5ApL6lylg.jpeg
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Thanks David. I have to watch this!
If you decide to enter a painting in a show, you can mark it as “on hold” on your art tracking page. If it’s already got a paypal link on it, you can remove that first.
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I try to go on different art pages and advertise my work.
Video has been blocked
Perfect response to both of Christine’s questions… And with reference to the postage thing --.I handled it the first way for years and it was such a pain. Now I follow your second suggestion. Free postage ends all the hassle.
The last few days, Firefox has been warning me that DPW is not a secure site. I thought this was taken care of, per your comment and I had been seeing the https: earlier. What changed?
I think we are all getting more concerned about security.
@Rosemary_Antel, no worries - the security of DPW has not changed. A few days back, however, I was doing some work on the SSL certificate, which enables https, and it was invalid for several minutes at a time throughout the day. Unfortunately, browsers cache (hold on to) SSL certificates and so if you happen to have accessed DPW when the certificate was invalid and are still seeing that, it is because your browser hasn’t yet updated itself.
To see that DPW still shows as secure, just go to another browser than the one you are currently using.
What computer are you on - Windows or Mac? I can post instructions for clearing the SSL cache.
Thank you for the reply. I tried using Chrome and it also thinks DPW site is not secure. I am using Windows 10 latest update. I don’t know how many other people pay attention to security status, but I am becoming more aware and cautious.