Pastels - out of business?

[Mary Sparrow]

Gee, thanks for totally depressing me.

I struggle very hard with this. I charge basically half for pastels what I charge for oils for the reasons Mike mentions. I just feel like I am supposed to. Painting portraits is my opportunity to stay at home with my children and not have to get a job. So I have to keep it coming in and by having something lower in price to offer there is something always there to do.

However, this is very frustrating to me. I feel like pastel comes easier to me but at the same time takes me just as long to complete as one in oil would. So perhaps it isn't really easier, maybe I just enjoy it more. So, this is a fight I have been having with myself for this past year that I have been offering these pastels. I spend the same amount of time making half the money, but because there is something offered at such a lower price I never have nothing to do, and I HAVE to have something always paying, or my patient husband won't be so patient..shew, hows that for some proper grammar streaming from my brain!

I wish I felt as comfortable with oils as I do with pastels, and maybe if I had more time to do both? Well, that will be a few years from now when everyone is in school all day. I guess I just have to settle and do what has to be done.

[David Draime]

I hear you Mary...

However, I would flip it around and look at it as - how fortunate you are to have these great skills and confidence with pastels. You said the commissions keep rolling in (I wish I were where you are - last week I offered my Yulia pastel as a sample for a charity funraiser - they said "thanks, but no thanks"...I can't even give 'em away!!!)

Mike is right. As an artist, I think that a pastel is every bit as "legitimate" as an oil painting - and it may take just as long to complete. The main thing is quality. But the market says pastels should be cheaper. So be it. Part of me is glad...if I can offer different media at a more tiered price structure, I figure I will get more commissions. As long as I enjoy doing pastels, and I'm not giving them away (someday I'll reach that "plateau!"))...I enjoy looking at artist's websites that show work in two or three different media. I think it reveals more of where the artist's head and heart are.

I just try to separate what the art really is, what it means - and the pure business/marketing end of it. There are inevitably contradictions. And we all just have to decide for ourselves if it is worth it.

[Mary Sparrow]

DAVID! You can give her to me!

Oh my heck, If I could paint anything remotely as wonderful as your "Yulia" I would be raking it in!.

I think I am just in a fortunate spot here, I'm in the south, have small children therefore know lots of other people with small children and am fortunate that most of my friends and their friends, etc are the type of young professionals that can afford to have portraits done. Or at the very least assume their parents will pay to have the grandchildren done simply because it is what "NEEDS" to be done in their opinions.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Originally Posted by Mary Smith

Gee, thanks for totally depressing me.

I struggle very hard with this. I charge basically half for pastels what I charge for oils for the reasons Mike mentions. I just feel like I am supposed to. Painting portraits is my opportunity to stay at home with my children and not have to get a job. So I have to keep it coming in and by having something lower in price to offer there is something always there to do.

However, this is very frustrating to me. I feel like pastel comes easier to me but at the same time takes me just as long to complete as one in oil would. So perhaps it isn't really easier, maybe I just enjoy it more. So, this is a fight I have been having with myself for this past year that I have been offering these pastels. I spend the same amount of time making half the money, but because there is something offered at such a lower price I never have nothing to do, and I HAVE to have something always paying, or my patient husband won't be so patient..shew, hows that for some proper grammar streaming from my brain!

I wish I felt as comfortable with oils as I do with pastels, and maybe if I had more time to do both? Well, that will be a few years from now when everyone is in school all day. I guess I just have to settle and do what has to be done.

I don't really struggle with this, I do agree with how Chris made her's the same cost, if/when I become good enough I would do the same thing, not because of this is harder or that is harder, but because I feel a pastel is equally as beautiful as an oil.

Pastels achieve such a different look from oils I can't even look a them as apples and apples. I think it is the "look" that your client is wanting that should dictate this. A pastel can be so much looser and impressionist than a traditional oil, and some people like that.

I find that the best thing for me to do is bring people into the studio and let them see the difference and decide that way.

Mike if you like them why don't you just equal out your prices, thus it will dictate if you do them for something other than making more money?

If anything I find that oils have challenged me to be that much better with my pastels. I think it is exciting to take the "oil" techniques and apply them to pastels. The results can be incredibly beautiful, but then again they can go the other way too.

If there is a cost difference in you rate sheet, I tell people this can really equal out when it comes to framing anyway.

Who wouldn't want one of Sharon's ballerinas hanging in their house?

Maybe we should band together all just price them equally.

[Mary Sparrow]

You do have a point Beth. It does tend to cost more to frame the pastels and I also agree that it is very hard to compare them. My goal is to feel good about both mediums and eventually have them basically, if not exactly, equal in price and let the look and quality of the work dictate what the client decides to have done. I have never been the most self confident person when it comes to painting and part of me felt like I had to charge less with the pastels, just simply because most other people do the same. It didn't take long for me to realize just as much work went into them, and frankly they have been a lot more expensive than the oils to do!

Mike, I don't know that I have ever seen a pastel you have done! Why not do like Chris, and as Beth as suggested and charge the same.

Since I have only been doing these pastels just a little over a year, when I am asked why they are so much less than the oils, I just say to think of it as my "introductory" price. That before too long I will raise the prices. They seem to buy it and think they are getting a big deal

[Morris Darby]

Mike, I am glad you posted this. In my mind I play this scenario over and over. First, I bought a nice set of portrait pastels (many shades of brown, pinks, greys, etc.) Then the backgrounds got more complicated as I offered more choices, so I had to buy more colors-AND THE COLORS NEVER END. I can mix colors with oils and use only eight max on my pallet, but very rarely can mix colors with pastels.

Now, I feel I still have an incomplete set of pastels...have spent more on them than all my other supplies put together and get maybe two pastel commissions a year.

Also, the host of the life-drawing group I go to cringes when I walk in with pastels because of the dust.

Hmm...

[Julie Deane]

Hi Mary -

After reading these posts and others, I have been feeling silly for offering pastels at essentially half-price of oils. But I did that only after researching going rates on many portrait artists' websites.

I wasn't even going to do pastels, but a potential customer wanted more than a charcoal drawing, but less money involved than an oil would have required. Who am I to turn down a commission at this point? Apparently, I am able to do pastels without too much struggling with the medium, so why not do it and at least get some commissions I might not otherwise get?

I, too, have put down "special introductory rates" on my advertising flyer, with a deadline for the end of this year. That way, there is a time limit for the current pricing and pastels can always be re-priced, depending on demand.

[Mike McCarty]

Now, I feel I still have an incomplete set of pastels...have spent more on them than all my other supplies put together and get maybe two pastel commissions a year.

I hear ya Morris.

Beth you wrote:

Mike if you like them why don't you just equal out your prices, thus it will dictate if you do them for something other than making more money?

Beth, would you mind coming at me one more time with this?

Mary you wrote:

Mike, I don't know that I have ever seen a pastel you have done! Why not do like Chris, and as Beth as suggested and charge the same.

Up at the top I wrote:

[QUOTE]* I thought the answer might be to raise my prices equal to oil. What that causes for me is more anxiety. If my price for pastel is the same as oil then I feel that I should be able to produce an equally quality product. Without the constant practice I don

[Mary Sparrow]

Mike,

Ok, I undertsand, and sorry for asking a question you already answered. I understand feeling like you are better in one than in the other. I feel like my pastels are better than my oils and why people still hire me and pay more for something I think isn't is good is beyond me.
Maybe it isn't as obvious to untrained eyes as it is to just the average person, but it is blatant to me and I want to be proficient at both..there again, it takes practice, and practice takes time and time is something I have very little of these days. SO, I getchya.

Oh, and thanks for posting those, my memory has now been jogged. And really, do any of the portraits we see on this forum look the same as in person? I know none of mine do.

Julie, like you, I feel like why turn down ANY opportunities for commissions at this point in my life? But still, it bothers me that my time isn't compensated the same.

[Mike McCarty]

I agree that it's a good idea to offer a less expensive alternative to oil. To this end I think the monochromatic drawings serve this purpose well. To me they seem to be a more reasonable match of effort to price.

I started by creating a pricing matrix that encompassed every medium possibility within each and every canvas size. My thinking has evolved to a much simpler statement. It always comes down to a personal negotiation anyway IE: size of canvas depending on composition, this hand in, that Spaniel out. So why not just have a broad pricing guideline which leads you into these negotiations, instead of some hard wired grid which may only serve to limit your own ability to be flexible.

When you are perceived as one who easily moves away from your own hard written guidelines, then the other side senses that everything is up for negotiation.