Family matters

I didn’t post yesterday because we went to our grandson’s christening. It was a good day out and all went well. Alex drove so it was a long day for her. It was nice to see all the family and a few old friends.


The painting above is a watercolour sketch of Alex with one of our daughter’s with a grandson on the beach.

Today I did some work on our camper and a watercolour. Tonight we are taking work out of one of the galleries because the gallery will be closing for building work.

It is always a job to know where and when to put work in galleries. It should be a no risk, easy win all around. It’s very tempting to offer work in a variety of locations. It’s not that easy however. Firstly there is the distance to consider. You have to transport any work and that involves travelling costs and time that could be spent painting i.e. another cost. Then there is the issue of replacement after a sale and the reliability of the gallery. We have found that although an agreement may be made regarding payment after sale. That may not happen in reality. For whatever reason you may not receive notification of a sale and no money either until prompting or a visit. If a gallery is some way away it can be difficult to keep on top of this. At the end of the day it is a matter of trust and I am afraid to say we have been let down in the past. We tend now to stick to galleries where we know and trust the owner.

Our strategy is to limit our outlets and concentrate on private sales and exhibitions.

This has worked well to date. Being flexible is a necessity and we will have to change our strategy to deal with any downturn should it happen.