Money is the Root of All Easels!

As you know, I went to the HeroesCon this weekend. Emotional, touching, blah blah blah. You heard all that. Now for some tough love.

Bitch, you have to paint faster!

Mark Brooks is better than me. I'm statin' the obvious with that, I know, and I'm fine with that. But he isn't SOOOO much better than me that I should hang up my spurs and give someone else my Sheriff of Art Town badge! But what does make him better than me is that he did THIS painting in 2 days and sold it for over $9000!

"Was that fast? I thought that was fast."

Two days.

$9000.

Me likey.

Ok, I am not commanding $9000 for a painting yet. But it's coming. But this isn't about the price per painting. This is about time.

Mark and I don't use the same medium, much less the same style. He objectifies women while I paint tasteful portraits of everyday people.

Could go in the lobby of any school in America!

So, yes, we're different. But I can still put a few more works out each year than I do now. In fact, there is a simple formula for how much work an artist should create.

Ok, before you "true artists" start whining about that fact that art is "not about the money," I'm gonna stop you right now with a very sincere "bite me." I KNOW it isn't about the money. But I DO want to make enough money to live comfortably and so do many artists out there. Writers, painters, magicians, balloon animal makers, dancers, and sculptors all love what they do. And most of them would like to be able to do nothing but this passion without distraction or worry. That requires money or bringing back the barter system. So, if you send me a speech about art being in my heart I'm just going to print it out like a picture of the pope and play Sinead O'Connor on it.

Nothing compares to being batshit crazy!

So, here is your formula:
x = How Much Krugerrand You Want Per Year
Avg = The Average Selling Price of Your Work
Whoa = How Many Paintings (novels, screenplays, sculptures or balloon penises) You Need to Sell
WTF! = How Many Paintings (books, dance-offs, knitted ponchos or published chick lit short stories) You Need to Create

Whoa = x / avg
WTF! = Whoa x 2


Let's say you want to earn a meager 25,000 Krona a year. And your average price per painting is 250 Krona. That means Whoa = 25000/250. You need to sell 100 paintings per year to make the amount of money you want. But wait! There are very few people who sell 100% of what they make. So, let's say you do better than average and sell 50%. That means that you actually need to create 200 pieces. WTF!?!?!?

Now, since I want to make roughly $872,743 a year painting and because my works sell at an average of $14.32, it means that I should go kill myself now.

Or, I suppose I could just paint faster.

I guess I should stop writing and get to it. Papua New Guinea isn't going to buy itself!