Friday, April 8, 2011

First Sale


So I am officially a proper artist. Last night I sold my first painting!

I have been taking a painting class in the local evening school since I arrived to Lieksa. I really enjoy it. The teacher is super nice, at first I could not communicate with the teacher at all but my Finnish is getting better and so is her English so we can somewhat communicate now. Before she would just hug me, point at my paintings and say noh nie (all right) and I like, is very good.She always calls me Sophia and I don't have the heart to tell her that, that is not my name.

Generally we have a model whom we paint. His name is Vladdie (or at least this is what the teacher calls him) and I am 99% sure he is Russian. He is not a brilliant model and I don’t enjoy painting him.

A couple of weeks ago I painted this picture of him.



I was struggling to get it right the whole night. At the end the teacher complimented it and showed it around the class (who are all much older, it's an adult painting class) and some guy who is an artist in Lieksa said to me ‘how much?’!

I didn’t know what to say . I needed to think about a price, before bringing it back to him the next week to make the sale. The next week he wasn’t there and the week after that I was in Russia so it was not until last night that I made the sale.

Not much can beat the feeling of selling a painting or piece of your own art. I was so sure that I would never want to part with any of my works (a bit of a problem if you want to make a living as an artist). But when someone wants to buy your art it is the greatest compliment. They are not just saying its good, they are saying that they really love it enough to pay good money for it.

2 comments:

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  2. First follower and first comment?
    Wow, I'm awesome!
    I love your blog Sophie, keep posting, don't get lazy like I did!
    Big congratulations on selling your painting, that is so cool.
    xx

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