Tally-art!

Looking through my painting, and what needs updating on my Painting Gallery, I did a quick count of what’s sold, been gifted, I’ve kept and want to sell, and the results were kind of interesting. Look at these numbers:

Landscapes & seascapes: sold/gifted 7, keeping 3, looking for homes for 2
Wildlife: sold/gifted 1, keeping 2, looking for homes for 5
Still life (mainly fruit): sold/gifted 1, keeping 6, looking for homes for 4
Nudes: sold/gifted 3, keeping 3, looking for homes for 2

Looking at this list, you’d think I’d be better off painting landscapes if selling was my aim. But I reckon I’d have sold many more of the fruit paintings if they’d been framed and I was willing to let the six I’m keeping go. Out of the paintings I’m having framed, I reckon the four fruit paintings are most saleable.

The nudes have been found homes far easier than I’d have expected, considering the subject and their size. The biggest sold to a friend along with another, but they sold it back to me after a few years when they wanted to redecorate – which was what we’d agreed to do. The two paintings I cut off their frames to sew into bags were nudes, so this category has the highest reject rate, too. That spate of paintings was quite varied – big successes as well as failures – probably because it was more experimental.

Some of my animal paintings might have sold if I’d had them framed, but I’m not as confident about that because the ones I did have framed never attracted a buyer and not as many people have expressed a desire for one. I suspect there are far fewer people attracted to wildlife art. Also, cute furry animals will always sell better than wet or scaly ones.

None of this pushes me toward deciding what to paint next, though it probably means I’m even less likely to revisit the wildlife art – at least in oils. I suspect what I do next is going to be completely different to what I’ve done before.

I’m picking up the first and biggest lot of freshly framed paintings tomorrow, and hopefully will have them photographed and added to my Painting Gallery on Sunday.