It Only Cost Three Bucks, Why Charge $20 or More Dollars?

As I colored this, from raw, unfinished wood, I
thought WHAT should I charge for it?

The heat has descended on the desert. Keeping an eye on the calendar and my ETSY.com store, KrugsStudio.etsy.com, I am also well aware that with the four month timeline you get for 20¢ an item, that all of my Halloween stuff better be on sale soon. I have completed 10 new items already, am working on four and have about 20 stored from last season.

     You see, our summers are like your winters. The advice I was given when I moved here on a chilly but pleasant January day was, "when the heat hits, and it will, you close up your house, strip naked and watch all the shows you recorded on your DVR last winter." I didn't go that far but you get the idea. Even my dog waits to go pee when its 122º outside.

     In fact, as I was finishing the last four items today (trust me, I am SICK of orange and black) I reflected on one of the items I was painting. 

On SALE wood craft products start out
looking like this!

   The item probably cost me two or three dollars, on sale last year after Halloween of course, so as I painted I began running costs through my mind ... painting for pay if you will! There was the item of course, there were the things I was adding, "jewels," paint and the one factor you can never recover, time. So I thought as I watched it flash through it's LED repertoire, probably $20 - 25.00

     I can already hear the comments: "twenty dollars for something that you paid at most $3 for?

     Yes, I will. The reason? If you were to visit my studio you would see that it is much, MUCH more than bottles of acrylic paint, brushes and filled with things to paint, a place to paint. A LOT MORE!!!

    First the paint. Iwould guess, I don't want to count or I might faint if I did, I have between 200 - 300 bottles of acrylic paint. Most are the one ounce kind but there are a goodly number of larger bottles of popular colors I use as well. Folks, paint ain't cheap either. I have too many brushes, of course, but when you need that "certain" brush, its good to have. Then there are the add on's. Smaller pieces of beads, feet, cutouts, "jewels," varnish, extenders ... the list goes on and on. The inventory I have to draw on has probably cost me $1,000's but it is necessary when you want to make what you purchase different than what anyone else might buy and use.

Paint, paint and more paint!

     I call it, value adding. Sure you can all go to Michael's, Hobby Lobby or my new favorite here in the desert, Jo-Ann's, and buy exactly the same things I buy. I've noticed that out here in the desert even Target and Walmart are getting into the act. In fact, Walmart sells FolkArt paints in many colors for 50¢ a bottle. That my friends is a deal! FolkArt uses dense, opaque pigments that are a dream to use. We can both have the same item, an unfinished birdhouse, a box, a tray. But, and that's a big BUT, what we do with it will be very, very different.

   Here is the creative space. Here I can paint and 

   watch Netflix or Amazon Prime though I prefer 

   audio books checked out from the library. 

   Creating and keeping up on the latest fiction 

   and non-fiction.

     

   If you haven't, you should check out the ETSY.com store. I guess more than a million sellers are there. If you enjoy craft painting as a hobby, you should look and see what others have done. It is the vision of each crafter that makes the difference. Some are very  inexpensive, others are costlier and often with good reason, a lot of work went into their creation. Then, there is the rest of us in the middle that have a fun vision of how we decorate. My forte tends to be color. I use red a lot and it seems to draw far more sales than softer, more muted colors. 

   People I know who do similar crafting complain, like me, that they can't get their time and effort for their work. Truth be told, it is often easier to paint a plain white canvas than a six sided birdhouse. Why? Because a canvas is two-dimensional. You might slop paint on the sides if they are to be exposed frameless but consider; a birdhouse has four sides, a roof that might have a few more sides and a bottom. It will be viewed from all sides! Museums might not like you removing a Monet to check out the back. We have to show and finish ALL sides.

Some of the additions the spice up the raw surface.

    I do both, painting on canvas and craft painting. I can vouch for the amount of time it takes. Paintings are faster! Just one of my "crazy-quilt" items takes from 30 - 50 hours. Really. 

     First there is marking where the "painted" pieces of fabric will go. Next comes laying down the base color. Then, depending on how many colors you use, you must create a fabric design for each base color. If you limit it to five or six, that is easier. If you go into the rainbow effect I have tried lately it becomes mind boggling! After all the patterns are in place, you then "stitch" the painted fabrics together with gold, if you find it, nail polish, or using a very fine liner brush, gold paint. Yes, that's right: every piece of painted fabric is stitched together.

   It takes quite a collection before you can change

   the original raw surface.

     Next comes the "antiquing" that ages the items and mutes colors into a harmonious whole no matter what they looked like before. I will use jarring, too bright colors knowing the blending with a dark brown paint tones it all down.

     Finally, you varnish it. That takes several tries as remember, ALL sides are painted and thus all sides need varnish. One side has to dry before you can coat the other. It you are using an outdoor varnish, this takes several days.

     I am not complaining, I am explaining. I hope that the next time you see a beautiful, hand painted, one of a kind, original craft item you realize that while its beginning may have been humble, the time it took to create was far more demanding! 

   Where the Magic happens. From what 

   appears to be chaos amazing things 

   can happen!

      We can witness it here in Palm Springs at our weekly Village Fest. There, for a few brief hours every Thursday night, the main street in town is closed and like mushrooms, tents rise and artisans show and sell their wares on Palm Canyon Drive. Some are creating right on the street but many, if not most, are more than willing to create a custom piece for you!

     My dream, of course, is that crafters and what they create will start to have as much a following and value as what we call the "old" masters who painted on canvas. A few, a very few, have more exalted status but most do not. An "Antiques Roadshow" junkie I am heartened by the value of hand painted items of 100 - 300 years ago. Yet, a painting, even by an unknown will often have much more value. Hopefully my ancestors will discover a KrugsStudio item has value well beyond the price paid for it in the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First century.

     Are you a crafter like me? While you play the summer away, know that I will be hunkered down doing the best I can to avoid the heat and, like Santa's elves, in my studio painting away as I follow to the latest book ... audio book of course!

  

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!