Friday 23rd January

Recently I've been catching up on my records ready for my end of March tax return, something I do on a sporadic basis during the year. It involves trawling through my bank accounts and emails and Amazon orders. Looking at my spending on a month to month basis is quite revealing and somewhat scary. 

As this is my business I'm aware that I need to spend money on art supplies. "Art Supplies" in my world covers a whole range of materials. I have to balance this against my income which comes from a variety of sources, galleries,  website, commissions, Buckinghams and Private Sales like "Art in the Garden". The income from Galleries is the main source. Many people still don't realise that the 50% commission taken by most Galleries now is the norm and my prices are roughly fixed in line with each other and Buckinghams website. I do have some flexibility over my other sales as I am getting all the money. Sales through Buckinghams have been discussed several times before in my blogs so I won't re-hash that. 

I do occasionally put my prices up. They are roughly based on size but there are several other considerations that go into my pricing. The ever increasing cost of materials is one major consideration. Like all other products (we all know the increasing food bills) the price of basic materials, the stuff I use on a daily basis, has increased considerably over the past few years. I do, of course buy mostly online, (there are no art shops round here). I also trawl the Internet for sales and discounts. However,  as a professional artist, I do have a duty to my buyers to work with "fit for purpose" materials. You can buy very cheap paint, paper, canvas and brushes. Sometimes this can be ok, especially with the brushes I use for my acrylic and oil paintings which I tend to get through quickly and often throw away after a short time. Although the "quality" isn't great, they serve their purpose. Paint, canvas, paper and watercolour brushes, however, are a different story. I can get away with some cheaper products but generally I have to buy decent stuff. I do get through quantities of paint as I do a lot of paintings. I have always used Daler Rowney System 3 acrylics which I generally  still buy from my old company YPO at excellent prices. I have found them to be perfectly satisfactory for my needs. The best acrylics are  the "Golden" acrylics. I have a few small tubs but they are really out of my price range considering how much paint I get through.

My 500ml tubs of System 3 range between £7 and £15 ,depending where I buy them. Golden acrylics 473ml are £50 - £140 depending on the pigments.

I usually use Windsor and Newton professional watercolours.  The "student" watercolours are much cheaper but with more binder (gum arabic and filler) and less pigment and are not fit for my purpose.

W&N watercolours come in half pans, whole pans, and 5ml, 14ml and 37ml tubes. I use tubes and top up my paints in my watercolour tins. They also come in different grades,(series 1-5) depending on the cost of the pigments. A 5ml tube of series 1 can be £2.65 - £4.95 whereas a 5ml tube of series 4 can be £6.95 -£12.95. A 37ml tube can be £15 - £ 50 depending on the series.

Watercolour brushes are a minefield.  The most expensive, Kolinski Sable series 7 size 12 (which I can't afford) can be up to £200 each. The most I've paid is £60. I have many watercolour brushes of various types and costs.

I've discussed watercolour paper many times. It comes in 3 main surfaces and different weights from 90lb to 300lb+ (weight per ream). I buy it generally in pads because I have a lot of full sheets that I have collected. The full sheets can cost between £3 and £15 per sheet. Pads can cost from £2 to £30 depending on size and weight of paper and numbers of sheets in the pad. 

Like paper, canvases come in many sizes and qualities. The sizes I commonly use are 10"×12", 16"×16", 16"×20", 24"×24", 24"×36" 30"×30" and 36"×36" ( occasionally larger).

Small ones can be as cheap as £3 to £15 and the larger ones between £25 and £90 each. I generally use deep-edged canvases to save on framing. These tend to be more expensive than standard canvases.

Oil paint comes in many different size tubes from 15ml to 200ml and depending on the brand and colour,  many different prices. I generally buy 200ml tubes but also have many smaller tubes. I pay between £8 and £20 per tube but have paid more.

Acrylic inks are between £3.60 and £6 for a 30ml bottle. 

Then, of course, there's the cost of framing.

Unable to use my Morso Mitre cutting machine due to its location, I abandoned framing canvases. Watercolours need framing behind glass with mounts. We do have a framer in Alnwick but the costs are prohibitive for me without increasing my prices significantly, especially for galleries where it would seriously eat into my profits. 

I talked in my blog a few weeks ago about buying frames online and the problems I have had with damage in transit. Galleries require wooden frames (ie, not coated mdf or plastic) and real glass( not styrene). I still cut mounts myself when necessary but it adds to the cost. I have recently purchased 10 A1 sheets of white core mountboard at a cost of £50. The frames can cost between £7 -£12 each(6"×6") and £30 each for the latest 16"×20" ones I bought. Adding to that framers chord, tape and D-rings and profit margins tumble.

Other regular purchases are, masking tape, paper towels, crates, card, card making stuff, glue rollers, acrylic texture paste (£30 a tub), oil quick drying medium (£30 per tin) wax medium ( £25 per tub), varnish for oils (£30 per bottle), varnish for acrylics  (£35 per tin) , Acrylic gesso (£30 per tin) and another big cost, postage. Sending work to Scotland and Cornwall isn't cheap. The 3x per year trips to The Lakes to deliver work is another cost. There's also lighting and heating in the studio.

So, it's not a cheap occupation. Next time you buy a painting, it's worth considering the costs of producing it..... 

It's my Acklington Art Group demo today..more "woodland" painting??  More on that next week.