Month: February 2023

The absolute rule number one is – Only by art if you love it! You might have to compromise with your husband/wife or you might have to think a bit carefully about how much you love it but broadly speaking if you love the art you can’t go far wrong.

Broadly speaking it doesn’t really matter if you have a large piece or a series of small pieces to start your collection. But if you have, for instance, wall lights in your home you might find that large artwork  doesn’t fit in the room in quite the same way you had planned. Having a maximum size is a good idea. If you don’t want to pay for shipping or delivery having a clear idea of the largest painting that will fit in your car is a good plan too! Very often artists will be able to arrange shipping for you if you are buying a very large piece that simply won’t fit in the car.

You might get lucky, you might find a new emerging artist, buy their work for only a couple of hundred pounds, and then in two years time discover that their work is going for 10 times the price! It really might happen. Lots of successful artists at very least find their prices going up after only a few years into their career. However when you’re buying work for less than £1000 try not to worry about what it will be worth in a few years time. Just make sure that you’re going to love it in your own home that will be enough.

It’s that word again, quality.
Feel free to ask the artist anything about the quality of the materials they use. Find out about pigments, ask them about colourfastness. Okay so you might not be able to hang a £500 work of art in 500 years time but you certainly don’t want the colour to fade in less than 10 years. I make a point of using the best quality paints, the pigments are strong and the colour won’t fade.

 Some artists will not negotiate at all. Some High Street galleries will not negotiate at all. Don’t be offended if people say “The price is the price please don’t ask for a discount”. ITs fair enough. However if you buy more than one work of art you may well find that artists have a little bit of wriggle room and might give you say a 10% discount because you’re buying more than one piece. The worst they can do is say no, if they do say no please don’t be offended smile sweetly and say “It was worth a try”!

 Recently I sold a very large piece to a couple and they said “Is it true I can’t hang this over a radiator?”
Well here’s the deal; in my kitchen I have a very large oil painting of Stonehenge and it hangs directly over radiator, it’s opposite the oven, it gets steam and heat and cold and sunshine on it
in the morning.  Over a decade of being in the spot and it still looks like new! However if I had a work of art that I’ve spent a lot of money on, or if I had an old work of art that might be a little more fragile I would not dream of putting it over a radiator- as a rule of thumb you have to be careful with extremes of heat. But broadly speaking new art, on sturdy canvas frames, painted in oil or acrylic, can take quite a beating in terms of conditions! I even have an oil painting in my bathroom! However watercolours are significantly more fragile and definitely not be placed in a steamy room. Also be very careful about direct sunlight. Okay in our climate we’re not exactly living in Greece, the sun really isn’t so strong and it doesn’t shine for that much of the year , but sun will fade out paint incredibly rapidly if given the chance. Just think about the fading on your curtains or fabrics in a sunny room – that could happen to your painting so do be careful. If in any doubt at all ask the artist. And if you move the artwork to a new room,  still feel free to email your artist years after you’ve bought it they will be happy to help – honestly we really will.