Affordable Artwork – Is there such a thing?
If the word art is conjuring up dollar signs in your mind, it’s time to re-think your art attitude. Not only does art come as paintings, sculpture, textiles, etc it also comes in many prices.
If you’re looking for something to brighten your walls (or garden), and not break the budget, here’s some clever ways to find affordable art.
Local Art Galleries
Purpose built galleries, as well as cafes, homeware stores and even bookshops that use their walls as galleries, showcase a range of art, usually from local artists, at a range of prices.
- The Gallery Sorrento in Sorrento’s main street
- The Nook Gallery, 18 Progress Street, Mornington
- Oak Hill Gallery, 100 Mornington Tyabb Road, Mornington
- Merricks Art Gallery, Merricks General Store, 3460 Frankston-Flinders Rd, Merricks
- Art Box at Silver Leaf Yoga School, 3361 Frankston–Flinders Rd, Merricks
- Noel’s Gallery Cafe, 1175 Mornington-Flinders Rd, Red Hill
- Michael leeworthy Gallery,133 Shoreham Rd, Red Hill South
- Whistlewood Private Gallery in Shoreham – holds exhibitions of Indigenous art
- The Red Hill Bakehouse, 3050 Frankston-Flinders Rd, Balnarring
- Antipodes Bookshop in Sorrento
- Felix, 167 Point Nepean Road Dromana, exhibit distinctive wares of local artists/craftspeople
- Commonfolk Coffee 16 Progress St, Mornington – has in house studio artists
- There’s also a fantastic Open Studio Weekend on the Mornington Peninsula in November, where a trail of Artist studios are open (this year on 12,13,19 and 20th of November 2016)
Merricks Gallery
http://www.lovethepen.com.au/events/exhibition-paintings-gee-ryan-love-one-another-care-planet/
The Nook Gallery
Local Art Competitions & Exhibitions
Where there’s an art competition, there’s an exhibition – and you’ll usually find the pieces are for sale. It’s a great time to support local artists and grab yourself an art bargain.
- The Continental Hotel in Sorrento displays Art all your round and has an Art prize in October, and works are on sale from opening night
- MPRG National Works On Paper competition- Entries Close April 15 2016, Exhibition 16 July – 11 September 2016 at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington
Markets
Visit the local markets and often you’ll find paintings and sculptures, both original and affordable!
Red Hill market – sculpture, woodwork, glass and craft galore!
Student Exhibitions
Universities that offer Art Degrees (Fine art and graphic design such as RMIT, Ballarat, Monash) hold exhibitions of student artworks at the end of the year. Pieces are for sale, so not only can you help a uni student pay back their HECS (or their rent), you can grab an original piece for a great price.
Prints
Artists will sometimes offer prints of their artworks, which brings the price down. Homewares stores such as Red Hill House, White Nest (Blairgowrie), Loft (Dromana) as well as bigger stores like Ikea and Freedom sell framed prints that will brighten up your home without breaking the budget!
Online
Etsy: This creative marketplace is a great place to find original artwork, prints, sculptures and more.
The interiors addict (theinteriorsaddict.com) have a list of great online sites to get gorgeous art for equally attractive prices such as urbanroad.com.au or sketches by birdy and me (http://www.birdyandme.bigcartel.com).
Domain featured some great on-line sites for art, such as bluethumb.com.au, and artpharmacy.com.au
http://theinteriorsaddict.com/10-places-to-buy-affordable-art-2013
http://www.domain.com.au/advice/the-best-places-to-buy-affordable-art-20160118-gm88j9/
http://www.realestate.com.au/blog/affordable-art/
FYO Art (Frame Your Own)
If you’ve travelled you’ve almost surely got a frameable piece of art amongst your travel snaps. The resolution of the image will determine how far you can enlarge it until it pixelates (becomes grainy), and you can play with it using editing programs to enhance the colours.
INSTAGRAM has brought us a whole new world of artistry, filtering our images from ordinary to wow, and there’s websites that turn these into a collage artwork, or smaller single prints:
https://sticky9.com/posters
http://www.socialprintstudio.com
https://www.photobox.co.uk/shop/instagram-product
Pick-a-wall
Removable wallpaper as art, who would have thought?
With access to the enormous image libraries of Getty and Alamy, you can choose an image and customise it to the size of your wall, or the space you want to display in. You can also use one of your own images depending on the resolution.
Enjoying Art is so much more than spending a day wandering through an art gallery, and finding affordable art that brings you joy is much easier than you think. Whether you spend a day wandering between coffee shops doubling as art galleries, or curl up on the couch and search art on-line, you can find something you love at a price that fits your budget.