Friday night I was working at the bar, and one of my would be clients showed up. Before I finish that story, though, first a little background.

Christie had been to my art show at Zoe, and had expressed interest in one of the paintings. The painting she wanted had already been sold, so she said she’d like to commission me to paint something specifically for her. Great, I would love to do that. She invites me over to her house to see the room in which she plans to hang the painting. I get an image in my head of the painting I’ll paint, and end up creating four different versions, all around 24″x36″. I bring them over to her house to test them out, and she is torn between two of them, said she needs to think about it. That’s cool.

Then, I get this voicemail from her. I call her up, tell her I’m ready when she is, but still, no love.

Alright, so getting back to the bar, Christie shows up. I ask her when she’s going to buy one of my paintings, and she tells me, “When you don’t overcharge me.”

Pricing one’s artwork is a delicate business. Christie’s comment made me revisit my pricing to see if it is fair. Below is a rough guide on how to price your artwork.

The painting in question, titled Listening for Pisino, sold for $300. One school of thought that I’ve heard in regards to pricing one’s artwork is the formula: time + materials + 20%= final cost. Using that as a guide, the painting in question would have been priced as follows:

TIME: about 2 hours – The question becomes: How much is my time worth? I think my time is worth upwards of $100/hour, but I know that those purchasing my artwork don’t think that. I need to gauge what the market will bear. As I become better known, my time becomes worth more. That being said, I “billed out” at $63/hour, so, $126.

MATERIALS: 2 entire tubes of acrylic paint @ $6/tube; 4 partial tubes of acrylic paint @ $6/tube, so maybe $8? 1 sheet paper @ $3 Total materials cost: $23.

+ 20% – $126 + $23 =$149 +20% (rounding up, about $30) = $179

The painting, when it sold, was framed by me. It took me about 5 hours to frame it, including preparing the frame, cutting the mat and cutting the glass. Now I need to add the time and materials for the framing, plus another 20%.

TIME FOR FRAMING – 5 hours @ $15/hour (grunt labor rate)= $75

MATERIALS FOR FRAMING – Mat: $9, Glass: $8 Recycled wood: $0 = $17

Total cost for framing=$92 Add 20% (again, rounding up, about $19) = $111

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total cost for framed painting using the time+materials+20% model= $290. Not bad, I was pretty close to the mark.

Another school of thought I’ve heard is $0.50/inch. Listening for Pisino was about 12″x12″. That’s 144 inches. Multiply that by $0.50, and the price would be $72 for the painting. If the framing still cost $111, then the total cost for the painting would have been $183.

So, of the two schools of thought that I’ve discussed above, the first one seems to work the best for me. If I was cranking out work like a machine, the second model might make more sense, so that I could sell more work. I am not a mass-producing artist, and for me, the first model works best. Christie, however, would probably disagree with me.

How do you artists out there price your work? Let me know in the comments.