I sell my art in a variety of places. I exhibit at local art group shows (I am a member of four local art groups.) In addition to this I do several open air exhibitions a year. In the recent past I have sold work at craft fairs and have had some one person exhibitions of my paintings. More recently I have been selling my paintings online. Being a member of four local art groups allows me to exhibit at regular times through the year. Other benefits of belonging to several groups is getting varied opportunities to attend interesting lectures and workshops. Each group has something beneficial to me. One group circulates exhibition opportunities by email as well as having a fantastic outdoor painting programme. Another group I belong to has a varied club exhibition programme. The downside of exhibiting at club shows is the expense. It is costly to pay membership fees as well as entrance fees for the paintings, although commission taken on sales is usually quite low, usually 10-20%. Also there is often a lot of paperwork involved, filling in exhibition application forms, as well as labelling etc, which takes time , not to mention moving the paintings to and from exhibitions (which can be hard when you are reliant on public transport). Also the more the paintings are moved about the more the frames can get damaged no matter how careful you are. In the past I have exhibited work at craft fairs, however, I did find that often sales were poor and balanced with the trouble of organising, carrying and preparing the artwork it was not really worth it, therefore for the moment I am not really selling at craft fairs. Open air exhibitions are a favourite of mine. I enjoy being out in the open, chatting to people. Often the venue is scenic, along the river or at a festival where there is lots going on. Sometimes I take the opportunity to sketch things going on around me while looking after the paintings so I am using the time well because the downside of these open air exhibitions can be having to stay with the paintings all day. Although my sales at club shows have increased in the past year or so a lot of these sales come from, I find, mounted paintings and greetings cards which are sold at a cheaper price than framed paintings. Generally I find club shows a good place to sell work because of the opportunities to sell cards and mounted paintings. However, there is a lot of competition from other artists. In the last five years or so I have had several one person exhibitions in various places. For me they have been one of the cheapest ways to exhibit because I have not had to pay anything to exhibit. I have been able to put up as many paintings as I can fit in and been able to arrange them how I want them. I have made quite good sales from some of these exhibitions and often there has been none or very low commission. Lately I have been selling art online. I am currently exhibiting in three online art galleries, however, only one gallery seems to sell my art. I have sold five paintings from that gallery in the last year. This is a great way of selling art for me, because, having a two year old daughter, it is less time consuming. The order is emailed to me, I package up the painting and take it to the post office and that is that. There is no trekking about carrying heavy paintings and collecting them from exhibitions. I do not have to spend evenings filling in application forms and labelling works. However, it can be time consuming initially registering with online galleries, photographing and preparing the images. Overall, I enjoy exhibiting and selling my art in different ways. I would not want to sell only online because I wouldn't get to talk to people about my art as I can at craft fairs or open air venues. However I do definitely see the many advantages of selling online. The paintings can stay on the gallery for as long as you want them to be there unlike an exhibition where they are only there for a short time, maybe only a few days. Also being online may mean that many more people have the opportunity to view them than would be the case in a local exhibition. In conclusion, I have sold work in all of these different places and exhibiting and selling artwork in different ways has opened up further opportunities for me. I only wish that I could afford to give up my part time job to give more time to organising my exhibitions and painting in general!