A lady asked me how much it cost to make her a purse of a well known style in cotton fabric of a particular design and colour. £35 – I said. She said she thought that was a bit dear for a purse. I asked her how much she thought it would cost her to make one then. She thought about £10 as you can get similar in Primarni for £8 OK, so for £10 do it yourself I said Her reply was – I don’t know how to. I said for £10 I’ll teach you how to. So besides saving you £25 you’ll get the knowledge if you ever want to make another. She seemed pleased and agreed. OK I said, you’ll need a machine, cutting mat, rotary cutter, rivet press and the pattern. Oh well….. I don’t have many of things and I can’t justify buying all that just to make one purse. Well then for another £10 more I’ll lend you my stuff to you so you can do it at my house. Okay, she says. Great, I replied, come round on Tuesday afternoon and we’ll make a start Oh, I can’t come on Tuesday I’m having my hair done! Sorry, but I’m only available Tuesday to teach you and lend you my stuff. Other days are busy with other bags and purses. Bugger, that means I’ll have to miss my haircut. Oh, I forgot, I said, to make one yourself you also have to pay for the sundry costs. Now she’s confused – what on earth are they?? Fabric search time, electric, wear and tear on the machine, blades for the cutter etc She looks at me and says – but that’s ridiculous you can absorb all that cost as you are charging me to borrow your stuff. I could, I said, but I’m not spending time looking for the fabric you need you can do that yourself – you need 3 fat quarters of fabric, buckram, woven interfacing, non woven interfacing, a lock, rivets and matching thread. So she then says – I’ve been thinking, I think I’d rather pay you the £35. It’s too complicated to make one for myself, it wouldn’t be as well made and it would cost me a hell of a lot more than £35. When you pay for a hand crafted item, you pay not only for the material used, but also: – knowledge – experience – tools – services – time – enthusiasm Only by knowing all the elements necessary for the production of a certain item can you estimate the actual cost.
All those posts you see of young artists charging $3, $6, $10 for a drawing because they need help? That’s fucking exploitation, and fuck you if you think it’s reasonable or a “good deal" to pay nickels and dimes to squeeze a full-color original drawing out of some talented, hardworking kid because things are tight, and they can’t afford their textbooks. Or food. They sure as hell can’t afford to make you art for $6.
Instead, stop. And ask them where you can donate. If you can afford a $6 drawing, then you can afford to spend $6 simply to help someone. You don’t need internal organs as payment.
Don’t allow young artists to be exploited.
this and this some more.
I’d go one step further and say: Offer to pay them decent Illustration wages instead if you still want a drawing, say around $20/hour. That way not only will you blow their socks off with your kindness and respect for their abilities, but you will also endow them with a sense of worth that they’re probably hurting for after being surrounded by the sort that makes them feel like their services are so worthless.
Illustration is a professional skill requiring years of training and dedication, regardless if there’s a school involved. If you enjoy that artist’s work and want to help them out, either donate like suggested above or else pay them what their work is worth and pass on the word.
Basically!
And if someone claims something that took you an hour to draw isn’t worth at least around $10 per hour of work, dont listen to their bullying. To the non-artist, its hard to see the worth in art especially if they didn’t put 10, 5, 2 or even 1 years of solid effort to get to the level of artistic ability there are today.
If the person complaining is still unhappy with the price despite that reasoning? Well let THEM make their own drawing themselves and spend the $10 elsewhere. GL to them getting the level of artistry you have without those years of experience they put behind them!
Honestly, I make designs for people for free, but someone offered me $20 for one once and I nearly cried.
What really gets my goat with these reposters is that it’s always some big art sharing blog that’s just posting shit for quick notes without caring at all. They post random parts of my work from different websites with ugly watermarks on them and leave their followers to guess where they come from (or sometimes asking if they can make more which is annoying in its own right). That’s not fucking okay, most of those were done for free so reposting them without credit is wiping your ass with my good will and robing me of any exposure it might get me :T
