Step 1: Deciding you want to sell your paintings.

Step 2: Finding someone who wants to buy them.

Step 3: Picking a way/place to sell. Read more...

See Also:
• Not Sold From Gallery for Six Months, Now What?
• Getting Your Art Into a Gallery

Celebrating the sale of a large painting yesterday from my current solo exhibition, a friend and I got chatting about the art we'd bought ourselves. Which artists, what sizes, what was the appeal, where had we seen it.

This poll puts aside (for the moment!) the issues of trying to sell your own paintings and considers it from the 'other side': have you ever bought a painting yourself? Afterall, you want people to buy yours, so have you ever put down your own hard-earned cash for someone else's painting?

Vote in this poll by simply clicking on your choice in the list and we'll soon see whether we support our fellow artists by buying their work, or not:

1. Yes, it was by a famous artist.
2. Yes, it was expensive enough to call an investment.
3. Yes, it was from an up-and-coming artist.
4. Yes, it was from a friend who's an artist.
5. Not yet, but I'm thinking about it.
6. No, I don't like other people's paintings in my house.
7. No, I can't afford the paintings I like.
8. No, I can't afford anyone's paintings.
9. Other (post a comment to explain).

(View the results of this poll so far...)

What else do you need for an exhibition besides your paintings? One of the most obvious is something for protecting paintings in storage and when transporting them.

Calculating an exhibition's worth of bubble wrap feels like one of those word maths problems, with the variables the width and length of the wrap, the number of paintings and the sizes of these, how many are wider than the bubble wrap and thus require a double piece, and how much overlap you allow. (The answer: it'll be more than you've got!)

What else might you require? I've put together a list of 11 Things You Need for an Art Exhibition Besides Your Paintings with a section where you can add your own thoughts and ideas.

^{Image: © Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc}

"...creating art is a kind of opening to awareness: whether it is slowing down your vision to look at the detail in a surface, being open to serendipitous accidents, or discerning the distinct flavours of your own internal states and emotions."

--Keith Tyson, quoted in Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, Drawing Projects, Black Dog Publishing, page 208(Buy Direct)

Allowing your emotions to impact your painting creates variation because we're not in the same mood every day. Whether you save a work-in-progress for a particular mood, like you might save a painting to work in natural light or under artificial light only, is a matter of personal preference. I generally tend not to, rather treating each day's painting on a canvas as another layer in its creation, with mood-induced variations simply adding to the final result.

^{Photo © Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc.}