Selling Art on Ebay

Most artists that I know are collectors and don't throw anything away. That old hi-fi tube might be able to be used in a sculpture or a construction or de-construction. The only thing that keeps us from becoming cat-ladies with newspapers stacked to the ceiling, is our fear of becoming that. I personally have things from the 50's and have added to that persistently and conscientiously ever since. I love JUNK! My mother loved junk, her mother loved junk, all the way back to Scotland in the Middle Ages. I have a garage that defies description - it has everything from button collections, old magazines, antiques, and 'Lady in Red' a very strange sculpture that I did for the Venice Art Walk three years ago. She is an antique dress form that has a working TV epoxied to the neck, lights inside that flash off and on at random moments. She stands in a shopping cart and has a fan that blows her 6 foot red feather boa into the breeze. Lady is wired for sound too with hi-fi stereo headphones coming out of a tape player in her lower abdomen. (what is wrong with this picture?)

WHAT IS HIDDEN IN THAT FLATFILE?

This is where the auction comes into play. We all have drawings, color sketches, paintings, sculpture, old frames, art catalogues, art books, aunt Charlottes old scrapbook, old cameras, tapestries, cuckoo clocks, etc. Don't we? I have been collecting things in a flat file for years. The only prerequisite for something to be stored in a flat file is that it must be flat. All kinds of drawings, paintings on board, prints etc. When I first started selling art on Ebay I took photos of paintings that were framed and hanging. What I didn't realize is that you have to package and mail that frame with the incidental painting that happens to be in it. After packing a few of those I decided that it was better to sell unframed work. The odds of your frame fitting into the decor of your favorite customer is pretty remote, anyway.

When I realized what I had in my flat file, I turned and looked at the mirrored closets which are located on the South wall of my studio and are infinitely more interesting. It's like a 3D flat file - you can squeeze more and more into them. I found even more stuff to auction off. If it wasn't moving, I put it on Ebay. I found old art school drawings, old computer programs, photos, projectors etc. etc. etc.
By the way, don't look too closely at the old art school drawings - it can be a humbling experience.

During one of my nicer expeditions into my closet I found some old National Geographics dating back to the 30's, which I had forgotten that I had. It's a never ending story. After several months of selling - I still have about the same amount of stuff. I do believe in Miracles.

THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF SELLING YOUR OWN ART!

I always considered myself as an ex-famous artist. At a party, if someone would ask what I did for a living, I would say that I was a 'Famous Artist'. Then they would say: 'Why haven't I heard of you'? I would reply, 'I didn't say that I was that famous'. Having been on TV and radio a few times relative to my art, when someone introduces me as a famous artist, I tend to cringe. My paintings have sold for pretty large amounts over the years, but I have found that higher priced paintings in galleries tend to hang there and hang there and then again to hang there, sometimes for years. One gallery owner in Laguna Beach really told me that she could really sell my work better if I were dead. My comment to her was, "I will only go so far , Lotti".

Selling your own work has the following positive effects:

(1) First of all you (not the gallery) can tell yourself what to paint. I love to experiment with different mediums and both realism and abstraction, constructions, collage etc. Galleries tend to pigeon hole or rubber stamp you. If I wake up one morning and feel like painting in the style of El Greco , I can do it. ( well, sort of) . If I put it on the auction there is a pretty good chance that one of the millions will see it and like it.

(2) It's fun dealing directly with the customer. There is such a variety of people out there and I can truly say that I have made many wonderful friends over the past few months. When Galleries sold my work to celebrities or in one case to a U.S. President it would sometimes be weeks before I new about it.

(3) Lovin' being your own boss. This can easily turn into a home business. If you spend an hour a day keeping up with the auction, and a few more hours packaging, going to the post office or Fed Ex, and going to the bank every couple of days with the checks that you receive.

I still have time to do an occasional free-lance job that comes in , or do an occasional portrait or landscape commission. I am even able, on rare occasions, to do some plein air painting.

Being a boss has some drawbacks - you really have to be disciplined in doing certain things, you basically have to do everything, but then that creates a lot of variety which is better than the boredom of a nine to fiver. So forget the drawbacks! (free at last!)

(4) Positive Feedback. Lastly, there is nothing as good for the ego and creative juices as getting positive feedback from a satisfied buyer.

THE BENEFITS OF HAVING PICTURES IN YOUR ADS

A Polish philosopher once said: "A picture is worth a thousand rubles", or something like that. I found early on that a snapshot or scan of an art piece was not really an option, it was down right necessary. The best way to get art into the computer is a scanner. Since most scanners accept 8.5 by 13 inches (Max) ( I do have a method for doubling that, that I'll talk about later) you will eventually have to use a camera for larger works. I use a digital camera for all of my photography needs. Scanning original art work at 300 dpi is the equivalent to taking a picture with a medium format camera. All of the information and detail is there. Your digital camera will give you a good facsimile and in a lot of cases I will take a digital shot first and then move in for various 'detail' photos in my ad. This gives the potential buyer a better idea of what the real painting looks like and will stimulate the sale.

I find that I tend to paint in sizes that are better for scanning directly, say 9 x 12 inches or less. 12 x 16 is also a good working size because I can do a split scan where I scan each half of the painting and then join them together in a Photoshop type of program. This is really easier to do than it sounds. In a 12 x 16 inch size, I am scanning more than half of the 16 inch side and all of the 12 inch side with each scan. So there is an overlap or an extra inch to play with. I'll talk about that more in the Photoshop primer section of this booklet.

SCANNING RESOLUTIONS: SMALL, MEDIUM AND OH MY GOD!

I usually save my original art work in three or four different resolutions. I work almost exclusively in Photoshop so I make my first scan at 360 dpi.- it pops into Photoshop and then I do whatever cleanup and cropping that is necessary and then I save it. I pick a name and add 'big' to the end of it. (i.e.: farmbig.jpg) I like to use *jpeg or *jpg files. They take up much less space on your hard drive. This file could be as large as 24 to 28 megabytes and will be used in the future in case I want to make a digital print or for use in a publication etc.

Then I do an Image Sizing routine which changes the size and resolution. It helps to work with the rulers set to 'on' to keep track of the size. This new sized file will be for use in your Ebay ad. You select Image Size under the Edit menu and change the size to 7 inches (on the longest side) and change the Resolution from 360 to 72. You will see the file-size drop to about 560,000 kb or _ a megabyte. When you save this to a JPEG file using a level of 4 ,when prompted, that same file will be more like 50,000 kb, which is suitable for loading fairly quickly on Ebay. I would save that as simply 'farm.jpg'. So now we have 'farmbig.jpg' and 'farm.jpg'. My next step is to create a thumbnail sized file, so I hit Edit again and Image Size and change the 7 inch size to 1.5 inches and keep the 72 dpi resolution. I save this file as 'farms.jpg' adding the 's' for small. This file is 5,000 kb or tinier than tiny. Now you have three useful file sizes of your farm painting which should cover any need that you might have.

The thumbnail sizes come in handy for accents in your ad - I might show the little one as a teaser at the beginning of the ad and follow up with the larger one at the end. They are also great for use on your web page or website gallery.

Built in Flash is great for shooting drawings or watercolors since they are inherently flat and don't throw glare back to the camera lens. Exterior sunlight is probably best for oils and paintings with varnished surfaces.

If you are photographing a piece of sculpture, it is best to keep the background simple. I suggest draping a black, white, or gray cloth behind it. (someone out there will think that I said: black, white and gray cloth, and boy will I be in trouble.) If you can't make the background simple then you can drop the background out in Photoshop. I don't like flash for photos of sculpture....it tends to flatten them out. Experiment with your lighting and try using a couple of different light sources.

If you are shooting an oil painting or a watercolor painting that is framed under glass, you will want to shoot it at an angle to avoid getting zapped by the flash reflection. Through the magic of Photoshop you can straighten the painting back up again so that it looks like a direct frontal view. (news at 11) This is starting to sound like a commercial for Photoshop!

As you probably know by now, listing an item at Ebay can take some time. When I first started I would spend 20 to 40 minutes listing an ad. Now it takes me just a few minutes to scan the art, make my 3 or 4 different resolution jpeg files, and list my ad. Ebay has a built-in template called 'relist an item' which is found just under Seller name on your actual ad. It magically appears when the auction is over. So if you want to relist an item that didn't sell you simply click on 'relist' and a fully filled-in Ebay listing form appears. The only thing that you have to fill in is your password.

I carry it one step further and use the 'relist' trick to put on similar items. Then I just have to change the title and put in my password and further down in the description box, I simply make the necessary changes for my new item. 90% of the information is already there. Sometimes I can 'relist an item in less than a minute. The description box area takes, by far, the most time to fill in. I have several different styles and font coloration, so sometimes I just copy/paste the contents of the description box to a plain old text file which I have sitting in a folder on my desktop called 'Auction'. Then, whenever I need a style, I copy/paste it into the description box.

Another time-saver is to bookmark your auction list page - you'll be glad you did.

HTML TRICKS

NOTE: Whenever you see { or } in the descriptions below it really means < or >.

(CAUTION: An Ebay warning says - don't use " quotation marks in the description box - it can louse up your HTML) The description Box allows HTML tags which work in pairs. These cryptic little rascals always have these < > brackets around them. So, if you write a sentence like The smog in LA. it will look like this in the description box: The smog in LA. ( I stands for Italics) -
stays mainly near the freeways will look like: stays mainly near the freeways. Font sizes are controlled by tags that look like this: 2 is very tiny, 3 is default, 4 is bigger, 5 is even larger and so on. textnice blue green , #0000A0 = dark blue , #c80000 = reddish color, #aaaaaa = light gray, #8000b0 = light purple, #bazaba = bright purple, #johnste = electric blue, #conrad = magenta, #000888= nice dark blue, #f00080 = pink/red, #669900 = kelly green, #ffff00 = bright yellow, #ff33ff =magenta, #99ffff= bright turquoise, #ff6600= bright orange, #000000 = black, #ffffff = white

(some that I haven't tried: #mau-s-tng = red, #muddyw = blues, #rodney king = black/blue, #hoagy_c = deep purple, #popepaul = heavenly muave, )

{center} will center anything it appears before and {/center} will put a halt to it. Whenever you want to stick a graphic file into the description box you must use {img src="src" /} I never use a follow-up tag on this one. In the description box it will look like this:
{img src="http//www.jstewart.com/auction/farm.jpg" /} Since Ebay and other auctions usually don't store graphics files for you, you will have to put this reference to your web site server where they are stored. So, farm.jpg, is being stored in the auction directory of your web site. In order to get your graphics file from your computer to your web site you must use a program such as WS-FTP (FTP means file transfer protocol) These programs are shareware or freeware and you probably have one already if you are looking at Ebay.

You can use {img src="src" /} to show animated gif files also - I suggest that you keep your animation files to a minimum since they tend to take up a lot of memory and are slow to load.

CREATING AND SELLING LIMITED EDITION DIGITAL PRINTS

The new high tech world has made it possible to do a number of things on your desktop and here is something else to try. When I was doing my first high resolution scan and idea occurred to me: What if I were to do a digital print of this on my Epson printer? Would there be a market for this? I did and there was. The beauty of this approach is that you can keep track of the edition size without keeping a huge inventory. I listed my first print "Lighthouse" on the auction as number 1/100 or number one in an edition of 100. If you have 20 artist's proofs that would make the total of 120 prints. The same print in a gallery might sell for $90, the gallery would typically take half. If you deduct the frame and their commissions you might end up with $20 profit. I try to start my prints low, (these are small prints - 6x8 inch image size on a 8.5 x 11 sheet) at $9.90, just under $10 so you save on the listing fee. They will typically end up at $14 to $29 which is not that far away from the net profit from The the gallery sale. The prints cost $1.50 to produce. (artist's proofs $2.50) (Better figure from $2.50 to $3.50 per 8.5 x 11 inch print - figuring the contingencies listed below.) The buyer pays the postage: $6 , I ship everything via 2-day Priority and explain why. I've sold a couple hundred prints since June '97 and it's been a fun part of the auction. (Bear in mind that there are other hidden cost factors which may affect your profits such as equipment costs and depreciation, paper waste, experimenting, phone and faxing expense, developing ideas, trips to the paper store, post office, ad infinitum. I go to meetings Computersuperstores Anonymous. ) (By the way, did you hear about the 12 step group for endless talkers: ALINON.AND.ON)

TYPES OF PRINTS: DIGITAL OR ANALOGUE?

(The following is a paid announcement%u2026..I wish) I am using these terms as I see fit and anything that I say can and will be used against me:

I call an analogue print one that has been made by art created by hand : i.e. from a watercolor, oil painting, drawing etc. I call a digital print one that has been made in the computer on a program such as Fractal Painter, Photoshop, or CorelDraw etc. I have done and sold both types
of prints. The term limited edition has different meanings to different artists.(Continued in Next Module)

(Continued from Last Module)

I can't imagine a 1500 or 2500 edition size as being limited. The largest size I do is 350. I have done an edition size of 10. I would like to think that the smaller an edition is, the more valuable the print will become. Only time will tell.

Basic Rules:
(1) 300 dpi is about the lowest you would use to do a print. 360 dpi is great for Epson Stylus Pro's.
(2) 300 dpi printed at 720 dpi looks better than 300 dpi printed at 360 dpi.
(3) Vector art such as CorelDraw art is resolution independent and will print at any resolution, high or low. (unless it has *.bmp files in it)
(4) Always use high quality heavy paper. D'Arches and Liege make wonderful fine art ink-jet papers. Kodak makes a nice heavy high-gloss paper, if high gloss is your thing.
(5) Do what you can to keep your printer working at top performance levels.
(6) Keep accurate track of your print editions using a spread sheet program or a manual ledger of some sort.
(7) Include a Certificate of Authenticity which includes the title, number, edition size, date, and signature of the artist.

CREATING A DIGITAL PRINT

At the file menu choose NEW. When the New box comes up select Inches, instead of Picas, or Pixels. I've found that 6 x 8 inches is a good image size for 8.5 x 11 inch paper. Change resolution to 360dpi. This will create a 17.4 MB file. Know this: a 17 meg file is going to look great as a 6 x 8 print.

Then you start doing your thing, saving it frequently as you go along. I remember the first time I lost 2 hours of work from not saving. (that'll cure you!) I have a special drive that I save all of my print files to. It makes them easier to find, especially when you have a lot of them. I have 80 or more prints and that is a lot to keep track of. It is also a lot of storage space.

I remember hearing since I was a little kid the axiom that 'The Customer is Always Right'. That kind of stuck with me and I think there is a lot of truth to it. (even if they're wrong) I've dealt with so many wonderful people on the auction and web site that it makes me forget the 2% that are stinkers. I find that people respond to a loving attitude and if you respect them it comes back magnified. It's the old Golden Rule idea - sounds corny, but it works!

MANNA, FROM HEAVEN

When I run across a particularly wonderful customer, I will frequently stick in an extra print, with their order, at no extra charge. Sometimes they totally suprise me with a gift, like one customer, who found out that I used to play jazz piano sent me a couple of really neat CD's, and she had excellent taste. (yeehh!)

One mistake that I made early on was to be a little too trusting. I shipped a couple of things too soon. So now I ship after the check has cleared and everything works out better. If a print gets damaged in transit, I don't even think twice about it - I ship a new print. It makes for happy transactions.

Every once in a while you might get a bidder from another country. Just make certain that they pay with an International Money Order in US funds and you won't have any problems. On one occasion I had a customer in India who needed a Pro-Forma Invoice. (look it up on Yahoo!) It got a little hairy, but I adapted one off the Internet and it
worked out OK.

It is a good idea to have a referral to your web pages. It happens from time to time that someone will visit your site from your auction item description page and will see a painting that they can't live without. I have made a few sales that way and the synergy between site and ads seems to stimulate some interest.