Advice on Bea's White Cat - Pricing & Posting Artwork

Bea is a recent member that completed this picture of a White Cat. As a member Bea can request advice on her picture. She would like help with the whiskers and also wants sell this picture and post it abroad. Bea writes:

Please can you ask Colin if this is good enough to presume finished. I can't get the whiskers any clearer and I am messing with it now. Sensitive question, is it good enough to charge somebody. I usually end up giving them away as I have no idea what to charge or receiving a couple of pounds towards materials. Could you give me any tips on posting. I have to send this to China when good enough.

Listen or read Colin's advice for Bea below:Hi Bea Colin Bradley here. Steve sent me your lovely picture of the white cat and you've got a couple of questions which I'd like to answer for you. First of all, the whiskers, which are always a bone of contention, you may remember that from the past, really hard to do. What I've done in the past is obviously you use a very, very sharp pencil, sharp as you can and you, you zip them in. You remember my telling you that probably in workshops zipping the main means you don't actually draw them.On the many, many, many pictures we've done with whiskers of cats and tigers and other animals, you'll see how I do that. So it's probably worth just looking at that again, looking at several of the pictures again. And as far as the pictures, cause I think it's great and I certainly feel you should charge for it.It's good enough. And I would say about 50 pound would be a starting block if you give it away then the person receiving it doesn't really place any value on it. They don't feel that they've actually made a contribution to the cost of it. So I would charge. And of course you've also got a charge for postage. That's imperative. You don't want to come out the loser on this. I hope that helps. Now the other thing is you said how to post what I've done in the past and I've sent pictures away is I've got two pieces of hardboard, thinnish hardboard and I always mount it. Now you don't necessarily have to finish it off with a mount, but as long as you've got to push the, the paper away from the hardboard in this case, it might even be worth before you put the hardboard on top of the picture, which is mounted.You perhaps put a sheet of tissue paper or something just so it stops the hardboard from actually touching it. And we put one on the front and one on the back. Cut the hardboard, I used to cut the hardboard out exactly the size of the mount. So you see what you've done is sandwiched the picture in there. That usually is good enough. But bubble wrap over the top of that is a good idea before you actually package. Anyway, I hope those tips have helped you. It was love to hear from you again. I do remember our workshops and you've obviously learned something from it. So I look forward to hearing and seeing more of your work later on. Bye for now.To learn more about becoming a member then please click here.