Hi dear Lisa. I have a question about various painting techniques,why different techniques (Oil,watercolor,or colored pencils) have different values (about price) ? For example a oil color Painting is much pricier than a same size watercolor painting! I am so interested in color pencils painting and want to ask a good pencil painting has a valuable like a oil painting? In other hand,which kind of your beautiful painting techniques (pencil and oil or acrylics) are more valuable in art field?
I am from Iran and follow your YouTube channel seriously,so thanks for sharing your art.l wish you
success in your all life fields.Good luck.
Sincerely yours.
Kambiz Rahimkhani
This is a hard one. When selling anything, it’s only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Oil paint has always had a higher perceived value than other mediums, but we’re seeing that shift a bit in more modern times. Earlier on especially there were problems with the archival qualities of other mediums. Watercolor and colored pencil faded too quickly, so they were not going to hold the same value as an oil painting that would last for hundreds of years. This is changing though as the quality of our materials has improved. Our colored pencil pieces (if using lightfast materials) will last a VERY long time now, put it behind UV glass and it can last even longer. Now we just have to show the galleries and buyers that our mediums will last. There are a few factors in how someone views the value of a colored pencil or watercolor vs an oil or acrylic painting.
There are several few factors in how someone views the value of a colored pencil or watercolor vs an oil or acrylic painting.
- Where you’re selling – It can be harder to get galleries to accept colored pencil work than oil or acrylic paintings. Some galleries are starting to take colored pencil art more seriously, especially now that we are using lightfast materials. A lot of people still see colored pencils like they were in the past…used by illustrators with no real lightfast qualities. We are changing that slowly though.
- The name you’ve built for yourself – This is where social media can play a massive role in making sales as an artist. We don’t depend on galleries anymore. We can sell our work just fine all on our own now, so the fact that many galleries don’t consider colored pencil, it just doesn’t matter like it used to. I can sell my work on my own and not have to pay the gallery a huge commission.
- The quality and style of your work – If your work looks like crayon, many people are not going to pay for that what they would an oil painting. It takes a lot of work to get our colored pencil work to compete visually with oil paintings. It can absolutely be done, but it takes more work and you have to be willing to put in the time to make it happen.
- The presentation of your work – A colored pencil and watercolor demand more work in the framing. You’ve got to consider the matting as well as the frame itself. Choose the wrong one and it can really make the work look cheap even compared to an unframed oil or acrylic painting.
A lot of it comes down to how you are actually marketing yourself and your work. I charge more for a colored pencil piece per square inch than I do an oil painting. Why? Because colored pencil takes me FAR longer to complete than oils do. My time plays a huge role in my pricing because of this. Lately, I’ve sold more colored pencil pieces than I have oil paintings, so we are seeing a shift in how buyers view the value of oils vs other mediums.