painting: Moon Phases

[helenic]

I had a major productivity downtime on Friday, so rather than getting on with any of my Big Projects, I filled in all the corners of my todo list - answering emails, replying to comments, updating blogs, and doing the painting I mentioned the idea for in this entry. And! It took me about three hours, although I was talking to dennyd for much of that time so I'm not sure exactly how much painting time there was. But still, this is the first time in ages I've started and finished a picture that efficiently. Clearly I should do more of these quirky little simple ideas, finished paintings are good for my heart.

Moon Phases
Oil on Primed Paper, 14 x 6"
(sold)

Click for bigness. This is for sale if anyone is interested - not sure what sort of price, make me an offer? It occurs to me that it might make a rather nice Christmas present for someone's mum, or something.

Most importantly, many many thanks to bluecassandra for unexpectedly providing me with a gift of conkers (authentic Lincolnshire conkers! From Ebay! Wonders never cease) and thereby enabling me to do this before autumn '07. It was really really sweet of you, and if you wanted to buy this, I think I can safely guarantee a discount ;)


If I was doing a print run of 5 or more on 300gsm acid-free watercolour paper, I'd probably be looking to resell them for £25 each. Alternatively, I could reproduce the original in oils on a commission basis for about twice that.

If I'm ordering prints on an individual basis they'll be £32 each, because the postage costs are so much higher (basically, p&p costs about £10 per print run, whether that's one print or a dozen).

Comments

[drreagan.livejournal.com]

I love this - chat me about what it takes to put a reservation on it.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Thankyou! If you can put a deposit on it by cheque or transfer, that'll do it :) Although given that no-one else has made me an offer yet, you're not in a great hurry. What's the best email address to use for you?

[squiddity.livejournal.com]

I love it, I really do.
If Reagan doesn't take it, can you talk to be second?

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Haven't heard back from Reagan yet. Email me? The address on my userinfo is fine :)

[oxfordgirl.livejournal.com]

How utterly beautiful!

My budget's in the toilet atm or I might be interested.

:D

What a lovely idea, and how perfectly executed.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Thankyou sweetness! I need to do more stuff like this - I spend too much of my time drowning in big projects rather than producing small prettinesses :) Really glad you like it :D *hugs*

[biascut.livejournal.com]

I really like that. Unfortunately, the lots of "really liking" is outweighed by even more "having no money", but compliments are good too, right?

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Compliments are always good, thankyou! I don't expect the poor struggling PhD students on my friendslist to fund me, that's the job of the geeks ;) And moral support from the rest of you is more than enough :)

[twi-light.livejournal.com]

Fab!! Jealous coz I can't even draw a stick man! lol !

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Glad you like it hon :)

[ixwin.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm. That's absolutely beautiful.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Thankyou very much! :)

[chiller.livejournal.com]

That's brilliant!

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Gosh, thankyou! :)

[hythloday.livejournal.com]

This is wicked, if you didn't have a queue I'd make you an offer for it.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Thankyou! At this rate I'm tempted to auction it :)

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Enough people have expressed interest that I'm looking at doing a print run, or doing more paintings along the same theme - probably on a commission basis so I know how many I'm doing before I start. Would you be interested in either?

[hythloday.livejournal.com]

I'd be very interested in a print.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Cool :) I only have a potential four people wanting a print, assuming at least one of the people who's commented is buying the original. Still, ordering 2-4 is cheaper than ordering them individually, so I'll get a final number before ordering them. The price will depend on how many I'm ordering, but it'll be between £25-£30 a each full-size print on high-quality paper. Will that be okay?

[hythloday.livejournal.com]

That sounds perfect, assuming you're taking a healthy slice of that for yourself.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I'm basically adding a tenner a print to all these prices. I'll try and find time to shop around a bit more, though; I know very little about printing costs, but the places who do it cheaper do seem to be less good.

[hythloday.livejournal.com]

No, that sounds fine. I'm quite happy to trust your judgement on quality, seeing as you're the one who's going to have an advert for your services hanging on my wall.

(fnarr.)

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

That's really lovely. How far out of my price range is it likely to be i.e. if you were to do a small run of these, can I justify it to myself? :)

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Thankyou very much!

Prints are unlikely to be more than about £30, although it would depend on where I got them done and how big the run was - I haven't done a print run before so I'm not sure what it would involve. I'd guess closer to about £20 each though.

I'm also very happy to do another similar painting :) I was hoping for about £50 for this one.

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

*considers* to be honest, I could spend £50 in a week on "fleeting pleasures", so spending that much on a painting wouldn't be too bad...

I do have a vague idea of something similar, but with the conkers in their shells. Suppose I'll have to wait til next autumn to commission that ;)

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that would be interesting (and probably more than £50, because the shells would be more complicated to paint). Presumably the shells would be split enough to reveal the changing position of the seed? You're right, though - I doubt I could find whole horse chestnut shells on ebay!

If you'd rather not wait, I'll happily do you another one of these. Let me know.

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

"Presumably the shells would be split enough to reveal the changing position of the seed?"

Yes, like that :) From what I've seen on the internet, these seem hard to do both in terms of shape and colour. It's an idea I've been thinking about for a while, so I'll let you know if I'm still interested next autumn.

Am thinking quite seriously about this - I suspect it's something that my mum will like but I'll have to discuss it with my dad and sister; I've also been thinking about getting some sort of print or painting for my room and would rather support someone I vaguely know than get something anonymous from a print shop.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

No worries :) If you want something before next autumn, feel free to ask. I don't have enough interest in prints to do a large run, so I'll probably be getting them done individually if that's what you decide to do.

[unwillinggal.livejournal.com]

If you do a print run, since I am very late to jump up and down and say 'ooh, want!', can I buy a print?

Variations sounds interesting too though - what sorts of things?

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll happily do the same painting again if you want an original - it won't be identical, but I won't change it unless you want.

Variations - I could do it bigger, smaller, a longer line of conkers, with or without shadows, different colours?

Let me know if you'd rather have an original or a print, and I'll look at printing costs :)

[unwillinggal.livejournal.com]

Oooh, um. /ponders money for a time

Hmm. I would like an original, can't see anything in particular that would benefit from changing (although for some reason I now have processions of 'phased' objects in my head - acorns, apples, sycamore 'helicopters', cups of tea... :-), so whichever you'd prefer I think, print or original. If you're going to do prints and loads of folk are after them, I'll sign up for one of those, otherwise I'll hold out for an original at whatever time you wish to do one.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I can certainly do you an original :) I'll try and get it done in the next fortnight or so. Prints aren't as economically viable - printing is expensive and I'd want to be making a bit of money on them or there wouldn't be any point (plus the scanning/ordering process is time-consuming), which means you're paying half the price of an original just for a print. I've found a few cheaper places, but the quality does seem to suffer accordingly - or they don't even provide image samples, which seems suspicious.

I doubt I'll have time to do another painting this week anyway, which gives us time to establish whether I'm ordering any prints or not - it's cheaper if you order at least 5. If I need you to make up numbers on the print run, I'll do that rather than another painting :)

[vardebedian.livejournal.com]

Hey - you paint stuff and like cats. If I gave you a (sadly, very very small) photo of my parents cats could you paint the cats in time for Xmas?

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Sure! Pricing would depend on size. If there was any way you could sneakily get a larger photo that would make my life easier, but no worries if not. Email the photo to the address on my userinfo?

[vardebedian.livejournal.com]

I don't have it digitally - it's not only tiny but paper-only. (I'm helpful aren't I?) Can I post it to you? (If you don't want to publish your postal address here, I'm seamusmccauley at yahoo dot com.)

Re size - main constraint is I need to be able to carry it to Yorkshire for Xmas. Something a bit bigger than A4 but not quite as big as A3 would be ideal from that point of view. And it's for my parents, so I'd like something relatively unthreatening! :)

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Postage is fine - by tiny I'm assuming you mean smaller-than-standard photo size? My address is here (http://libellum.livejournal.com/50114.html) :)

Will email you re. price :)