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| A screenshot from my art database (Open Office Base) |
In my last post, I spoke generally about making a living as an artist. Now I want to delve into details.
A professional painter—or even a hobbyist, who wants to keep track of things—needs a computerized system to record paintings and sales. Sure, you can keep a paper ledger for all of that, but a digital version makes it much easier at year-end to prepare taxes and reports and to create mailings. Although there are several systems you can purchase, I've been using a simple database and a simple spreadsheet for many years.
Although I once used Microsoft Office's Access and Excel, these days I find it more economical to use OpenOffice, which is free. (I'm glad I've moved away from Microsoft Office, but I stand on false moral high ground; rather like a meat-eater who has turned vegetarian with the mistaken idea that it is better for the environment. Microsoft Windows is still my operating system.) Of the different OpenOffice modules, I use only two for record-keeping, Base and Calc.
I use Base to:
- Record information about paintings (inventory number, title, size, medium, creation date, exhibits, special notes, etc.)
- Sales information (purchaser and contact information, sale date, price, where sold, etc.)
- Export new buyers to a mailing list
- Record sales and other business income (for me, this includes writing and teaching)
- Record expenses
- Create year-end reports on income and expenses
- Compare the data of successive years (e.g. how did this year's income-to-expense ratio compare with last year's, and did art sales do better than teaching?)
- Collate information for tax reporting
None of this is rocket science, as they say, but there is a learning curve. Mine was short because I used databases and spreadsheets a lot back when I worked in IT. If you're comfortable in building a system like this, you might try it. But if you'd prefer, get a store-bought solution.
What about images? Although you can link an image to a record in Base, the database quickly become unwieldy. (MS Access isn't much better.) Anyway, it's rare when I actually need to view an image when I look up a record; I'm usually more interested in the information noted there. Instead, I use Google's Picasa to keep a database of my images.
Google, alas, has retired Picasa. You can't get it now. I still have it on my computer and plan to continue using it, since new-and-improved Google Photos doesn't have anywhere near the capability of Picasa. There are, of course, other programs out there, such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, that will do a decent job. The day my computer crashes, rolls and burns, I'll probably move to Elements.
I keep images of my paintings in folders, with the filename of each image containing the title and inventory number. With Picasa, I can easily find the image I want, using the inventory number or title from Base. All in all, the three of these together—Base, Calc and Picasa—meet all my needs for record-keeping.
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| Picasa screenshot |
Speaking of computer crashes, how many of you have had a crash and lost everything? Having been in the IT, where data is your lifeblood, I'm more paranoid than most about keeping backups. I have three drives besides my main computer. One I have attached to my computer at all times, and it backs up new data on demand with Beyond Compare. Once every couple of weeks, I add a second drive and back up everything to that, using Windows Backup. Once every month, I back up my computer to a third drive, using AEOMI. One drive stays in my office and also travels with me between my winter and summer studios; the other stays in a separate building, in case there is a fire in the studio or house. I also keep three or four versions of backups on each drive. I am fairly confident that, from one of these drives, I can pull a recent backup if necessary. I sleep well at night.
Below are a few screenshots of Calc. In my next post, I'll write about mailing lists.
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| Income summary sheet |
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| Expense summary sheet |
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| Income-to-expense ratio graph |
