I never meant to sell my work. When I retired I planned to pick up an old hobby and enjoy spending time improving my skills. I joined a local watercolour class to sharpen the old skills and began in earnest. And then this painting happened.
My retirement plan was badly timed. I left work the week before the first COVID lockdown in March 2020. Painting was a marvellous hobby to while away the hours in doors and to really appreciate the outside world. I painted this view of the Odibourne Allotments in Autumn 2020. The composition is great and there is a stillness to the image. I added the slowly smoking incinerator and I think it adds to the scene. When I showed this on my local Facebook Group - Kenilworth Vibes people responded strongly - it seemed to strike a chord with people. It shows a life that all of a sudden we were all familiar with - a view of Kenilworth far from the chocolate box images of the castle we are used to seeing. Suddenly I got requests for prints. I had never sold a painting before let alone had prints made. Thankfully the local art community - the Arts Festival and the Kenilworth Artists Group as well as sympathetic support from Nina at Ginger The Art Of Print - demystified the process and I decided to use this painting to raise funds for the local Covid-19 support group. Etsy was a way for me to take orders and collect the money for that fund raising.
I wasn't too concerned about the fees. I was able to work out what my net profit was and make the donation without too much hassle. But like all things, once you start with a new venture you start to look a little closer. I decided to show more of my art. Etsy has proven to be a showroom more than anything else for me. Of the things I have sold, I have directed most of the buyers to the website - if I had a method of taking payments I would have bypassed this entirely. What it has done is given me a shopfront for the rest of the world but this is a mixed blessing. I have sold paintings for very little profit once fees and postage have been covered - all a learning curve I thought. It gives potential commission clients a chance to see the range of what I do before getting in touch.
Painting is still primarily a hobby and so I think of Etsy as a hobby project too. Then I got an email from Etsy which appeared to say that due to their success they were increasing the basic fees from 5% to 6.5% to allow them to invest in further marketing activity. They made record profits last year - in my view due to the quality of what people like me make available for sale - they have not brought herds of customers to my door. We made the money for Etsy together and so they already have the profits to fund the marketing for the next stage of growth. It's just greed. Add to that the lack of control over what sellers put on Etsy - the site is rife with copyright infringement and stuff which is not handmade - and Etsy is rapidly becoming Ebay by another name in my opinion.
I didn't want to create my own website but here we are - another chapter in my artistic journey. An opportunity to start blogging again off the back of AshbourneVoice and Justacook. Who knows where it will lead?
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