Home Business Insights & Advice How to make money as an artist: Printing your artwork to sell!

How to make money as an artist: Printing your artwork to sell!

by Sarah Dunsby
24th Jun 22 11:36 am

To be a successful artist, you need to sell your artwork. Period. It doesn’t matter how broad your portfolio is; you need to sell art to make it as an artist. Today there are so many channels and platforms to sell your artworks on. From Etsy to Saachi art and even your own Shopify website, the internet has enabled artists to be seen like never before. But how can you harness this potential for yourself to make money? Keep reading to learn how printing your artworks will increase your sales.

Start with the art

Your artistic vision should be at the centre of everything you do as an artist. When collectors purchase artwork from you, they buy into you and your specific point of view. That is why selecting the right images to sell is such a vital part of successfully selling your artworks. No matter what channel you decide to sell your artwork, curate the selection of pictures like you would an exhibition. Group works together under similar themes or collections and only exhibit your best work.

Next, think about the best medium for selling your artworks. Prints are an easy way to replicate your artwork and an excellent revenue stream for any artist. In addition, prints are fast to make and available at an affordable price point, giving you the versatility to scale your artworks and share your vision with an ever wider audience.

You may be thinking, what if I don’t work in a digital medium? Can I still make prints? The answer is yes! With today’s high-resolution large-scale scanners, any work can be digitised for fine art printing. For the highest quality prints, the most crucial element is the resolution. It doesn’t matter if you’re working with a scanned image, a photograph, or a digital artwork: for the best results, you’ll want to use pictures with +300 DPI.

Gelato’s print on demand platform in the United Kingdom is the perfect solution for artists looking to make money by printing their artwork to sell, with a range of customizable products and printing options.

Drop-Ship your prints

Drop shipping is the professional artist’s best friend. No longer do you need to invest in printing your entire collection and waiting for prints to sell. With drop shipping art prints and print on demand, customer print orders go directly to your printer. It’s the ultimate all-in-one solution for busy artists. All you need to do is install the Shopify app on your website, and the professional printers will handle everything else, from order to delivery and even bespoke framing. Drop-shipping allows you to spend more time doing what makes you great: making art.

Print style

After you have selected your images, it’s time to consider the print type. The two most popular styles are Giclée and C-type.

Giclée

An industry favourite often used for limited edition and archival prints, giclée printing produces vivid HD colours. This printing style works similar to a home inkjet printer but on a far grander scale. Prints are created when microscopic drops of the highest-quality Ultrachrome inks are added to specially treated archival paper to create the desired image. Because giclée prints are made with the highest quality materials, they will last +100 years without fading or deteriorating when stored in normal conditions.

C-type

Another popular printing style is c-type or chromogenic type. Initially used for colour photography, c-type printing can now be used for all digital images. To make c-type prints, silver halide paper reacts with light to create colour images. Known for its smooth gradient tones, c-type is the perfect printing style for portraits, sunsets, cityscapes, or finely detailed images. Another benefit of c-type printing is the large sizes it can produce. If you’re looking to print large-scale works up to 182cm x 300cm, c-type printing is a fantastic choice that will make a big impact.

Offer pre-framed art

When push comes to shove, all printed works need a bespoke picture frame. As most people know, when you buy a print, you’ve only completed half of your final purchase. Most collectors purchase artworks to decorate their homes or office. While some may be purchasing a print to add to their personal archive, most will want to display their new purchase, and that will require either a frame or mounting.

Offering pre-framed artworks takes the fuss out of the art buying process leading to more sales. Available at an affordable selling point, pre-framed art is convenient for collectors and gives you a professional edge. No trip to the framers. No extra waiting. No hidden costs. All your customers need to do is purchase their new artwork and decide where they want to display their latest artwork.

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