Hello all,
I have spent a fair amount of time reading past posts on these topics but am still left with questions. I would sure appreciate some fresh opinions on timing the finishing and selling of your work. I am churning out a fair amount of art but have not started to post daily. I am waiting to get a back log of dry and finished paintings before I really go for it. I would really appreciate anyone taking the time to share their process with me.
Do you post your painting the same day you paint it and then wait for it to dry before mailing?
Do you oil it out to achieve an even finish before selling and mailing? In what order? Photograph and then oil out? Or oil out, dry, photograph?
I would imagine there are two camps: The post immediately camp and the wait til completely finished camp. Which one are you and why?
My process is this: more than 90% of paintings I post to DPW I complete in one sitting, or at any rate in one day. I do not post every day, once a week usually. I photograph it as soon as I am ready to post it, whether it is dry or not. I send most of my paintings to auction for 7 days with 2 further 7 day auction periods (automatic re-posts). This means the soonest someone can buy my work is 7 days after posting. Unless I use cadmium red, they are always dry by then. I try not to use cadmiums on DPW paintings- I use alkyds - and do not use any black except for Alkyd black because in my experience they are the pigments that take ages to dry.
When I started, I posted every day, and to achieve this I stockpiled a week’s worth of paintings before releasing them one at a time on an unsuspecting world! - and then each one I posted was always dry.
Varnishing. I put an extremely thin coat of Gamasol re-touch varnish on as soon as I get a bid. This dries within 4 hours and then it is ready to ship. I wrap it up in non-stick baking parchment before any other packaging just to be on the safe side.
Because I work full-time I do not complete a painting a day and found myself stressed out to post post post. Then the paintings sit there sometimes a year before they sell so realized what’s the rush? I just discovered Krylon quick dry spray which is great if in hurry to make a show deadline or commission deadline. Let’s you keep painting next day. Also using walnut oil alkyd. When finished I let dry a week then use Gamvar etouch varnish to give even finish. I was taught to photograph prior to varnishing due to glare by one teacher but to varnish then photograph to deepen the colors by another. I do both depending…
Anyway I’d say first don’t stress about daily posting. And if you post wet and it sells same day that’s a great problem to have. I just bought a painting and got an email saying thanks it’s still wet and I will ship in four days and that’s fine to do.
I usually wait a few days before photographing still-wet oil paintings, but like others I don’t post a pic every day to DPW. More like once a week, if I can, with some paintings in reserve that are several weeks old and thus surface-dry. I don’t do anything with them varnish-wise till they are at least six months old; if something sells prior to six months’ age, I might give it a light spray varnish; but have actually sold a few without varnish at all (but let the buyer know…interestingly some folk don’t like varnished paintings).
However, I also do pastels, which don’t need any drying-time…so I can alternate my offerings if I wish to.
The only exception is with the DPW Challenge…so far I’ve had no choice but to offer up wet work, since after the week’s challenge has ended, fewer people tend to view that particular section.
Oils on gessoboard take a while to dry. Oils on canvas similarly. But if using oil-paper, the surface dries faster, due to the absorbent nature of the paper. In my case I’m not getting much in the way of sales anyway, so I will deal with each case individually, if and when the occasion arises.
