How long does it take?

How long does it take you to do a painting?

I hear this question a lot when I'm at art shows. It's a common question and I would ask the same thing of artists.

Every painting is different. But each one has a similar start. I'm going to outline the entire process.

Step 1.

Drive around and take a lot of photographs at different times of day and in different seasons. Often I take photographs of the same barn or the same scene. I look for interesting shadows and lighting. Every day gives me a different result. Sometimes I take a picture that looks magical to me and I'm sure that it would make a great painting. Other times I take an awful photograph and make it look much better. Sometimes you are lucky and are there at the right moment when the sun hits a cloud just perfectly.

Step 2.

Go through your reference photos. I spend a looking for one of my photographs that inspires me, then I set up a document for the correct size of painting that I'm going to do and crop the image to fit the space. I often agonize over this process, changing my mind often. I print out the photos I like.

Step 3.

Get your art surfaces ready. I like working on wood panels. I seal them with 2 coats of GAC 100, prime them with 2 coats of white gesso. After that I apply a coat or two of burnt sienna or raw sienna and sand if necessary in between. I don't need my paint surfaces to be totally smooth because I normally use thick paint.

Step 4.

Paint the painting. Sometimes a painting just doesn't work out the way I want and something about it doesn't work for me. I look at it to see if I can identify the problem. It can often be one little thing that is wrong. Sometimes I don't know and it makes me question my ability. Often the painting goes well and it's finished. Since I work in oil, the painting takes a week or so to dry.

Step 5.

Take photographs of the final painting. It can be hard to find a good place to take photos. Glare is an issue. I have identified a couple of places in my home that work well for taking photographs to post on my website after trying many locations. I upload the photos to my computer, crop and save in various formats to use on web and print materials.

Step 6.

Add cropped painting photos to your website and social media. First of course you must have a website, and social accounts.

Step 7.

Sign up for events where you can interact with the public to sell your work. This for me is a great way to sell my work. All this is part of creating the painting and marketing it. How does one add all that up to a certain amount of time per painting? I don't know. It's not just about painting.

Summary

To sum it all up, I don't normally count the hours it takes to do a painting. Larger paintings are harder to do and are more unpredictable as to how long they take to actually paint. Small paintings 6x6" take about 3 or 4 hours and that depends on how well the painting is going. I'm not sure if people are asking me how long it takes me to paint, to find out my prices are set by the time it took me to do. I set my prices based on the size of the painting.

The better artist you are, the less time the painting should take. Good artists charge more for their paintings. My expectations are that I will get better as an artist as I gain experience and my prices will increase.