Finding oils I can afford.

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Now that I have been retired awhile I am discovering art. There are several people in a group I belong to that introduced me to lithographs, Chinese Art, African Tribal Art among other categories of art.

Not long ago a friend gave me an oil painting of a street scene someplace in France. I hung it in my hallway. It is in plain view from where I sit in my recliner. Believe it or not, when I am reading or even watching the news I eventually get drawn to that painting! Even without drinking it gives me a good feeling thinking about what is going on in the painting. Laughing

I am getting hooked. I decided to find oil paintings and hang them in the living room. I just had the interior of my house repainted and the living room walls a bare. They will remain that way until I find the paintings.

So far I have scoured yard sales as well as galleries. I have two modern paintings a young woman painted. I paid her for them but she may as well have just given them to me for what I paid her. She just wanted to get rid of the painting and they were part of her yard sale.

As you probably guessed, I don't want to spend a fortune on paintings. Some of the works in galleries that I looked at seem far overpriced. But who am I to say? I'm no art dealer. I cannot advertise for "used oil paintings" or "inexpensive oil paintings" because more than likely the artist or the dealer will be offended. Last thing I want to do is offend anyone when I am attempting to buy something from them.

Today I was tempted to buy two paintings. They too are French street scenes and they were painted in Korea. They look very nice at least they do to my eye. The salesman who is Korean himself is asking $140 each, without a frame or $250 each with the frame. Included is delivery and hanging them on the walls of my living room.

I am tempted to ask my friend and his wife to go with me to look at the paintings but they are busy and my friend might laugh!

There must be away I can obtain oil paintings without spending a fortune on them. Any ideas?

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Have you considered trying painting your own? It's a hobby I have often considered taking up...
The problem with Korean paintings, it seems, it that you end up with a dozen or so, all by different artists, and all signed ""Park"".
It could become confusing.

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Learn to develop a good eye for art. You will see then why some paintings are great and others , not so great. The sale of "sofa sized" paintings by "starving artists" inc are often some of the worst stuff out there and the sellers count on people being intimidated by the sales hype at these "shows" . Ive gone to a few(usually held in hotel conference rooms to give them a real sense of the ironic). Some of my best deals involve paintings that come as lots of frames or are in large packs of sketches at auctions from estates of known artists. One of my art teachers from years gone by was a noted colorist. His friend, who owned a lot of my teachers art, died in the 70s and they disposed of his estate in the mid 1980s cause there was noone in his family that was in this country. There were a number of his oils which, on the surface , looked dingy and needed conservation. I got a number of them that were sold for the frames and had them cleaned professionally and now we have a small room with them.
I always s cour auctions at home and when were up here in Maine. You can never tell what you will find.

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No Mirriwinni, painting is not for me. I am not a cleanliness freak but painting is messy and although I am retired I have other interests as well that I enjoy such as reading and writing.

farmer man, you have some good advice. Especially about developing a trained eye. These Korean paintings I mentioned are probably what you refer to as "sofa sized" as they are 36X48". As a "beginner" perhaps I am a bit overly impressed by these paintings. Still I am tempted. I am going back to look at them again today and talk about price.

I placed an on-line ad yesterday stating I was interested in paintings portraying city life. One individual said he had two large paintings of the Grand Canyon if I was interested. Smile

I could continue to visit yard sales, estate sales etc., and hope to be lucky but I am interested in getting something nice on the walls soon.

Suppose I would have a better luck looking in Los Angeles or San Diego but I don't like the fuss of getting into that game.

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Books and courses, and get some friends who are knowledgeable on your side. Dont turn it into a competitive "Im a connoisseur, and youre not" sort of thing. Make it a passion where you and some friends go and visit some museums (Like the Getty) and learn to understand what makes a painting good and what artists were doing in mastering their"art of visual deception" Buying art will be an outgrowth and a reult of your passion over it. I find that artists always have the biggest collections of other artists work.

There is some godawful stuuf out there and, rather than buying some crap (unless you, as a friend of mine has, want to start a "kitch 'room wherein you display the paint by numbers stuff, the Elvis on black velvet, Kinkaid prints, the weepingclown pictures and the pastel shaded Venice scenes that seem to be cranked out by some cross eyed machine), you will reserve shelling out major purchase money until you feel comfortable with the stuff.
Many gallery owners are fantastic scources of information and here on A2k there are people like Lightwizard and ossobuco who are , or were, gallery owners and artists.
Go for it! sounds like you have a whole new world opening before you.

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I have some cheap figure studies from when I was in college. PM me if you're interested.

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I told the man my price and left my card with him. He called the next day and agreed. He framed them, delivered them and hung them: Two 3X4' oils of French street scenes. If I paid too much? I don't give a damn!

No, I believe I came "at least close enough" and when I woke up the next morning I had no regrets. Couldn't wait to get out of bed and look at them. Smile

I knew the feeling of the room would be different but these paintings changed the entire "mood." This afternoon I ordered new drapes to enhance the paintings and make the room even better. Smile

I'm now thinking: Go ahead with the green ceramic tiles for the bathroom and the kitchen.

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Finding oils I can afford.

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