How do you sell your painting to earn money for your daily life? -

After you finished painting, you want to sell it to earn some money to live. How do you do that? Thanks before and after.________Okay, one thing first off - No gallery, and rarely ANY agent will represent you right off the bat. No offfense to the other answers. I have been selling my art for 3 yrs now, and I m JUST getting noticed after finally I have built somewhat of a name of myself. It s like any other career, you have to prove yourself to others before they will accept you. What you need to do FIRST is. Take a look at your paintings, what style do you have ? more then one ? are you versatile with your subjects ? Have a presentation of your work, a portfolio, Biography, statements. Your words will sell your art more then JUST looking at your art. The majority of regular people who don t know ALOT about art don t understand what you are trying to express through your paintings, as experienced art collects may. So you have to have a reason for each painting. Why did you create this piece, what was your inspiration ? How do you feel on the painting. Never tell the people WHAT your painting is, let them decided what it means to them, you can tell them how you feel about it, but dont tell them HOW to feel about it. -Have good photographs of your work -sign it with a clean signature( something ppl can read) -presentable portfolio -Sell yourself as a artist. Then goto local cafe s, restaraunts, shops.... Enter ANY contests that include paintings to be judged. The more awards you have the more you will be recognized. Then you can move on to having a agent and gallery offers. But for right now, you re a self representing artist. Also try Ebay.com .... but on there - market your page WELL. don t make it look cheap. And one more thing, never under sell your art.________What you need to do is sell yourself, yes really, sell yourself. By saying this I mean you and your paintings must have a relationship so that you can earn a living by painting. I urge you to enter every competition you can find that requires painting as the main subject. Also galleries you must have a PORTFOLIO of your work and even a description below, such as what medium you used, brush strokes, etcetera. take your portfolio to galleries and even a free community gallery and have an exhibition. Why not rent out a small place invite freinds and family, the local news paper and display your work? There are so many prgrams to help artists out there take the innitiative and let your work shine :)________Find an art dealer and let him or her see your work. If the person likes it then he or she will want to show your work and sell it for you. Other wise, you can take out an ad in the paper and announce an art sale.________Showing your work as soon as you think it is ready is really important .Try commercial and public art galleries .You will need to have a portfolio of your work ready to present your work to dealers ,curators.This question gets asked a lot on here and there is a lot to know so I strongly recommend you read several art marketing books ,network with other artists who have achieved what you want to and find out about art associations local,provincial or state and national.Good luck!