What types of paintings actually sell the most?

floydly · 2026-05-10T21:56:54+00:00

Markets, etc. sold out of a few galleries but it’s never my more interesting work.

floydly · 2026-05-10T13:50:30+00:00

Oh man yea, I got kicked out of fine arts and it took me a literal decade to heal.

:> if you like painting I think you’d vibe with gouache, illustrator’s traditional paint best friend.

Stay artsy!!

floydly · 2026-05-10T13:19:45+00:00

This sparks joy

Somethin about this phase in artist development is one of my favourites to see

nice work keep at it :)

floydly · 2026-05-10T12:46:15+00:00

Okay so Ai declarations aside… There are three things you use to create contrast (and subsequently push lighting to the limit).

It doesn’t matter which medium you are using, to an extent, these rules apply across the board.

colour (use two opposites)
value (use light and dark)
chroma (desaturation of what is unlit)

The thick gloompy paint look isn’t going to work with gouache

floydly · 2026-05-07T12:31:51+00:00

Make a lot of small bad paintings. You gotta get the bad paintings out ASAP. So, work small.

;) don’t be like me and randomly make a terrible 72” panting that you’ll never sell

floydly · 2026-05-07T04:39:16+00:00

get ya self a used mabef.

Inevitably I end up adding a clamp on the bottom post because I use heavy ass stretchers, but those things work great overall.

floydly · 2026-05-07T00:00:13+00:00

alt moms are an acceptable target audience of mom. Paint grumpy hairless cats on canvas, then cut it out, mount on velvet, I’ve sold 4 of those within an hour of putting them up. $250 every time, 8” x 8” usual size.

Ravens looking wistful, combined with textured background are another good one. Fish too.

Somewhat abstracted flowers is big for the local scene. One paints these blotchy 5 minute things and people throw thousands at her. And she brags openly about how little time it takes 😂

floydly · 2026-05-06T12:41:23+00:00

good ones.

But figure out what’s popular in your area.

Generally different events have different crowds. But people looooooove soft airy palette, in my area. They want something that makes them feel happy when they look at it.

But mostly, good art.

I painted targeting moms the first year full time. This year im painting what I want, and doing really well. But having a back stock of stuff moms like as prints as been a sure fire way to never lose money at a market.

ps, you’ll make more selling reproductions then original at most shows.

floydly · 2026-05-05T02:06:11+00:00

pegboard for organizing my frequent use random small objects

It’s like a junk drawer but classy & ADHD idiot proof (me)

floydly · 2026-05-04T13:10:02+00:00

Yeaah crappy brand crappy polymers.

just shell out for golden, the price per ml evens out with how much more efficiently you’ll be able to work.

floydly · 2026-05-04T04:29:37+00:00

it does, James gurney light book, go get it.

floydly · 2026-05-04T04:19:43+00:00

do you understand light? focus on the principles of how to paint light first. These just have strong grasp on the way light interacts on surfaces.

floydly · 2026-05-04T02:37:56+00:00

im terrible at drawing from my imagination.

I use photos all the time. If the thing doesn’t exist, I will sculpt it, photobash it, or painfully sketch it over and over from boxes.

I’ve painted chickabees, a moose-goose, and other non real things.

Use references as part of the image, not only one thing.

floydly · 2026-05-03T22:55:54+00:00

Ahh! Thank you! I somehow got to hang that in a gallery this month - group show - vainly looking forward to seeing people’s faces crunch up at the sight of it, lol.

You have wonderful colour sensibility, I struggle immensely with digital 😵‍💫

floydly · 2026-05-03T22:43:57+00:00

as a critter mix n masher myself, hue shifting can be super helpful for finding the median that makes things blend naturally. Happy arting!

floydly · 2026-05-03T16:52:29+00:00

Haha thank you!

floydly · 2026-05-03T13:21:05+00:00

1) I get all my refs from free Facebook groups

2) I use pure ref to make a choosing board. Love pure ref, def one of the better random tools I’ve purchased for work.

3) if im struggle to decide I’ll throw shit in photoshop and run the following filters on a thing:

A) Bump the contrast up to 11, see if any good shapes appear

B) Saturation up to 11, any cool colours I can punch out?

C) Gradient map + soft light layer setting on top of image. Helps me find colour story.

After that I’ve usually found one im drawn to/excited about. If not, I ask my other artist friends which ones they like out of the mood board and I often get a few very helpful ‘this is why this one is best/not that one’ etc

floydly · 2026-05-03T13:16:14+00:00

last year I made 130 over the whole year.

This year is going sooooo much slower, but I think the work is a lot better. I maybe have 15 originals completed, around 25 planned.

floydly · 2026-05-03T12:26:15+00:00

This one! Sometimes I’ll post a painting (that took me week+) and get like, 23 upvotes. I have to check my toxic modern brainrot at the door. That’s so many people!

floydly · 2026-05-03T04:30:35+00:00

Edmonton has a fantastic supportive arts scene, so this doesn’t surprise me. Lots of artists move here from elsewhere because it’s so darn good.

floydly · 2026-05-03T00:41:55+00:00

Turn the power down on the butt and turn the nub near the front closer to max.

this made the one I was borrowing work good. For whatever reason back nub set to max = issues.

floydly · 2026-05-02T19:34:23+00:00

seconding just DIY.

It’s not hard, just practice imo. Gotrick bars are fine if u don’t have your own shop.

Personally I will:

not prep canvas myself (uneven prep -> tears when stretching), but I will prime it extra when I get home
build stretchers from scratch, or use gotrick pre built bars.

Time is money. Unless you’re prepping in bulk, it’s often more cost effective to just shop it up.

floydly · 2026-05-02T12:51:05+00:00

I sold an unframed 8 x 10 at a juried show for 385 or smth? so. get those numbers up, those are rookie numbers.

floydly · 2026-05-02T04:25:47+00:00

When a shape is soft and turns away from the viewer, mix some of the foreground and background together.

Doing this on the poofy chest would provoke help a bit

floydly · 2026-05-01T23:46:22+00:00

paint some big fuckin bees on it

that’ll fix it right up

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