Getting Started
You don't need many supplies to begin painting rocks. A handful of brushes, most of them the inexpensive kind with stiff bristles, a small selection of basic paint colors, and white charcoal or regular pencils for drawing on the design. You'll need a receptacle to hold your rinse water, and something to mix your paint colors on. Use a recycled plastic margarine container or something similar, with the bottom holding the water and the top becoming the mixing surface. Put down several layers of old newspaper to protect my table and to provide a place to make test strokes. For heavier rocks, a turn-table can be useful, but it is not a necessity. Besides the stiff brushes, you will need a long liner brush like Loew-Cornell's Script-Liner in size 0 or 1, and for flowers, an angled brush is helpful. Tha't it!
Teachers, parents and grandparents have all discovered that painting on rocks is a great way to introduce children to basic art concepts. Kids love looking for good rocks to paint, and usually they have plenty of imagination to help them see all kinds of possibilities in the rocks they pick up.
Teachers, parents and grandparents have all discovered that painting on rocks is a great way to introduce children to basic art concepts. Kids love looking for good rocks to paint, and usually they have plenty of imagination to help them see all kinds of possibilities in the rocks they pick up.
How to Price Your Rock Artwork
This is a question rock painters often ask when they start to feel more confident about their work. Sometimes it happens because someone sees something they've painted and wants to know if they can buy it. Certainly it is a thrill to make that first sale. But how much to charge?
Like real estate, what your artwork is worth depends on a number of factors; how desirable your pieces are perceived to be, how fast or slow you are in creating them, how affluent the area where you are marketing them is, to name a few.. Someone who can produce lovely pieces quickly will make more per hour of painting than someone who is slow and meticulous at getting each little detail just so. Faster painters can charge less per rock and sell more rocks, while slow painters need to charge more to compensate for their time (or they need to learn to paint faster- which often happens with practice and growing confidence.)
My advice is to figure out how long it takes to make an average-sized piece, and what kind of entry level pay you can accept. Say you are willing to paint for $10.00/hour, and it takes you two hours to select, prep, paint and seal a small rock. In theory, you should be able to charge $20.00 if you sell it directly.
When I started out, I had no idea what to charge and did not ask enough. My work sold so fast that I could not keep up with demand, so slowly I raised the prices until eventually, I felt I was getting paid enough to keep me excited and motivated to keep painting. There were times people would comment that it was too much to pay for a rock. I would simply smile and point out that based on that logic, the paintings in museums are worth no more than a square of canvas they were painted on. It's what the artist adds to the raw material that creates value. I have found that when I put my heart into a piece, sooner or later someone will fall in love with it.
If your rock art doesn't sell, either you are asking too much for your market (tourist areas will be better markets for souvenir artwork than small towns, for example), or it may be that your skill level is not yet refined enough to attract buyers at the price you've set. You can always back down on your price until you reach a point where people feel your work is work the money. Trial and error is often the best way to determine what will work. Remember that most people improve their painting skills with practice, so if selling your initial work at bargain prices will help keep you practicing, you can expect to ask more eventually and get it.
You may have retailers interested in selling your work in their store or gallery. In that case, you will have to set a wholesale price that will keep the retail price low enough to be reasonable, while still compensating you for your effort. Not having to find customers for your work or sit at a farmer's Market or craft fair may make it worthwhile to accept a smaller amount by selling your work wholesale. Or you can ask to sell on commission, where the retailer takes a smaller cut- usually 30-40% or the retail price, but you won't get paid until the piece. Some people have done very well by asking friends to display one of their pieces as desk art at work, where it can attract interest and lead to orders.
The bottom line? To be successful, you may need to be as creative in marketing your work as you are at painting it. But I have had a number of people contact me to say that they were able to quit their jobs to stay home and full time once they established themselves. But even if you only want to make a little extra spending money, painting on rocks is a economical way to express your creativity!
Like real estate, what your artwork is worth depends on a number of factors; how desirable your pieces are perceived to be, how fast or slow you are in creating them, how affluent the area where you are marketing them is, to name a few.. Someone who can produce lovely pieces quickly will make more per hour of painting than someone who is slow and meticulous at getting each little detail just so. Faster painters can charge less per rock and sell more rocks, while slow painters need to charge more to compensate for their time (or they need to learn to paint faster- which often happens with practice and growing confidence.)
My advice is to figure out how long it takes to make an average-sized piece, and what kind of entry level pay you can accept. Say you are willing to paint for $10.00/hour, and it takes you two hours to select, prep, paint and seal a small rock. In theory, you should be able to charge $20.00 if you sell it directly.
When I started out, I had no idea what to charge and did not ask enough. My work sold so fast that I could not keep up with demand, so slowly I raised the prices until eventually, I felt I was getting paid enough to keep me excited and motivated to keep painting. There were times people would comment that it was too much to pay for a rock. I would simply smile and point out that based on that logic, the paintings in museums are worth no more than a square of canvas they were painted on. It's what the artist adds to the raw material that creates value. I have found that when I put my heart into a piece, sooner or later someone will fall in love with it.
If your rock art doesn't sell, either you are asking too much for your market (tourist areas will be better markets for souvenir artwork than small towns, for example), or it may be that your skill level is not yet refined enough to attract buyers at the price you've set. You can always back down on your price until you reach a point where people feel your work is work the money. Trial and error is often the best way to determine what will work. Remember that most people improve their painting skills with practice, so if selling your initial work at bargain prices will help keep you practicing, you can expect to ask more eventually and get it.
You may have retailers interested in selling your work in their store or gallery. In that case, you will have to set a wholesale price that will keep the retail price low enough to be reasonable, while still compensating you for your effort. Not having to find customers for your work or sit at a farmer's Market or craft fair may make it worthwhile to accept a smaller amount by selling your work wholesale. Or you can ask to sell on commission, where the retailer takes a smaller cut- usually 30-40% or the retail price, but you won't get paid until the piece. Some people have done very well by asking friends to display one of their pieces as desk art at work, where it can attract interest and lead to orders.
The bottom line? To be successful, you may need to be as creative in marketing your work as you are at painting it. But I have had a number of people contact me to say that they were able to quit their jobs to stay home and full time once they established themselves. But even if you only want to make a little extra spending money, painting on rocks is a economical way to express your creativity!