Pet Portraits: To Etsy or not to Etsy?
WARNING: Major Brain Dump Alert
So… this past month I decided to take a break from my 90’s Childhood project and work on developing my portfolio of pet portraits.
I’ve followed many artists’ careers over the years, and it seems to be quite a common experience that painting pet portraits is a step in the journey towards making an income or career from your art. I think there are two main reasons for this. Firstly, a lot of people have pets, 51% of UK adults in fact, according to a 2020 PDSA survey. So that’s a big market to be tapped into there. Secondly, a lot of friends and family request artwork of their beloved pets. I’m really grateful to have received requests like this too. Knowing that I have support and encouragement around me means so much, and the fact that they’re looking to pay me by commissioning me just downright blows me away! It has also offered some interesting comparisons for me to see how my skills have developed over time.
It got me thinking… should I offer pet portrait commissions on my Etsy shop?
I’m still fairly new to Etsy as a seller, so naturally I did a bit o’ digging first to check out what other people are offering.
If you type ‘pet portrait’ into the Etsy search bar, you’ll instantly be spoilt for choice. At the time of writing, I get 233,914 results. Now, I’m not one to shy away from a bit of healthy competition. But I’m not really sure that what I’d be entering into here can be described as ‘healthy’.
The first listings you’re likely to see are those whereby the submitted photo of your pet is loaded into something like Photoshop, then edited to resemble a painting. The other most common type of listing is where the head of your pet is edited onto a uniformed colonel’s body, or something similar, for a bit of comedic effect. You’ve probably seen these products at some stage. They tend to range in price between £10-30. I’m not knocking these products by the way, but I got close to 80 of these type of listings before starting to see any alternatives. It made me think that there must be a lot of talented people way down in those search results, feeling pressured to sell their time and skills for very little in order to compete. Eventually, I saw so many examples of listings for beautiful hand-painted portraits, but I was shocked to see that the vast majority (there were some exceptions, thankfully) seemed to range in price between £15-£45.
Why are they priced so low?
Don’t get me started on that lowest figure… but even at the higher end of that spectrum, that’s cheap.
The minimum wage (for 21-22 year olds) is currently £8.36 an hour. We can only guess, but I’m betting the vast majority of theses artists took way more than an hour or two, all things considered, to complete the work. Then there’s materials: specialist paints, paper and brushes (which are costly). Their admin time, back and forth emails with the client to share and agree on suitable reference imagery, packing and wrapping materials and possibly petrol for the trip to the Post Office. Then, there’s the artistic talent, and all the time and effort it’s taken for them to develop it. That’s something that’s hard to put a price on, but it’s the most valuable and often the most overlooked.
I firmly believe that everyone should be able to afford art, and I know that ultimately it’s an artists’ decision how they price their work.
But, I couldn’t help feeling that there were a lot of talented people on Etsy selling themselves way too short.
It’s an issue that you can’t possibly fail to notice when, like me, you’re someone who is just starting out and trying to absorb as much information as possible about the artistic community and state of the industry. It’s worrying, because undervalued artists will only fuel a culture that doesn’t value art, and vice versa, the cycle continues. This definitely won’t improve the situation when it comes to industry-destroying trends, such as companies and businesses (many with big marketing budgets) offering exposure or vouchers to artists, rather than paying them. Or by hosting competitions in order to amass a vast library of loyalty and copyright-free artwork that they can use in perpetuity for their marketing campaigns, with very little reward to the artists. Some even charge the artists for submitting their work to the so-called ‘competition’. I mean, that’s taking exploitation to a whole other level. Watercolour artist Holly Exley did a wonderful Youtube video on this topic.
That’s probably me going off on a bit of a tangent, but surely its all related? I’m not a full time artist who relies solely on income from my art, so I feel like I can’t moan too much about the state of pay for creatives, or how art is valued (or undervalued) today in monetary terms. But I have experienced the effort that goes into painting a pet portrait for someone and, in my opinion, it ain’t for the faint of heart. Firstly, I’m hit with this rush of excitement and gratitude.
‘They’re the best! And they want me to paint their pet for them!? That’s amazing! Maybe I’m not too bad?!’
Soon-after followed by…
‘Oh gosh! What if I don’t do a good job? They’re gonna hate it, I know! Then they’re gonna hate me for screwing it up. Shit! I need to charge them. But I can’t do that! They’re family/a friend/a colleague! That’s just mean. I have no right to charge them. I’m not a ‘proper’ artist yet!’
This kind of internal dialogue goes through my head every single time. But I push it aside and just begin, and I love doing it. I obsess over the details and can take hours, usually spread over a couple of days, to complete a painting. It’s wonderful, intense and incredibly rewarding. I can completely understand why some artists choose to take pet portraits on as a specialism.
Here are some wonderful artists who work a lot in pet portraits. I highly recommend you checking them out:
I especially love her work that combines watercolour with embroidery, like this curious kitty.
Dynamic portraits in gouache with fun and striking backgrounds. She and her hubby also do a great, chatty Podcast, The Cute Life.
Dani paints with wool, and the results are nothing short of spectacular.
I’ll continue painting pet portraits.
After all, I get to paint animals (which I love) challenge myself (always good) and make people I know happy (the best!).
But I guess it still feels, at this early stage, like I’m not ready to market my services to strangers on Etsy, especially if I’m having to price myself so low in order to be seen in search results.
Is this just dressed-up imposter syndrome? Maybe. Am I making excuses because I’m scared to put my work out there? Possibly. But I’m also sceptical about Etsy at times as a selling platform. Maybe it’s just not well-suited to marketing private commission work? Ultimately, I’d like to have a shop on my own website, but I’d have to pay a lot more for my website hosting which doesn’t make sense right now, when I’ve only just gotten started in pet portraits. Thoughts for the future though.
If you’ve got any thoughts on pet portraits or Etsy as a means of selling them, do drop me an email or message me on Instagram, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. Maybe you’re an artist yourself, successfully selling pet portraits on Etsy and lovin’ it! If so, I’d love to hear from you about your experience!
Thanks for checking out my blog post. For all my latest and behind-the-scenes work, you can follow me on Instagram @vickysummers_illustration.