Buying your first artwork

January 22, 2023

Dipping your toe in and starting a collection can be daunting, but DROOL was created so you don’t have to be an art-buying pro or flush with stacks of cash

girl lying on the sofa drinking a smoothy with her legs in the air and a large gallery wall of artworks behind her

2 men standing on the pavement drinking coffee with one holding a large framed artwork under his arm

In this guide, we’ll break down the following topics:

1. Mediums to start with

2. Open vs limited edition

3. Tools for the job

4. Next steps

Illustration and graphic design are fantastic mediums to shop when buying your first artwork. Prints of these mediums are usually priced a bit more affordably than photography or paintings as the cost to create them can be a lot lower. Plus, due to their digital nature, they often include more adventurous colours and be scaled from small to x-large, making them endlessly enjoyable, no matter what space you’re trying to fill

Open edition prints are artworks that can be sold by the artist an unlimited number of times, whereas limited edition prints have a set number of prints that can be produced. The artist sets this, and as a result, limited edition prints often warrant a higher price tag. So if you’re shopping with a budget in mind, it’s better to look out for open-edition prints. At DROOL, you’ll be able to find out if it’s a limited edition print if it’s mentioned in the artwork description

When speaking to our customers, the biggest difficulties they faced when trying to purchase art was visualising the artwork on the wall, seeing which artworks look good with others, and deciding on what frames look best. So we decided to do something about this. This is why we built a Gallery Wall Creator tool which allows you to drag and drop artworks onto a wall to better visualise how artworks look. Don’t be afraid to play around with the size, scale, layout and framing of them to achieve the perfect look

When buying art, letting your imagination run wild is great, but some people like to keep tabs on the practical considerations too. Like how much space are you working with? What’s the lighting like? Could new artworks overshadow existing ones? Even though they might seem obvious, they’re often points that are overlooked. Check out the other guides on these topics

Design your dream gallery wall

Head to our Gallery Wall Creator tool HERE and start building your dream setup. The more you play around with the tool the easier you’ll find it to select artworks that work great together. As you’ll start to pick up on little things, like how certain mediums and colours complement each other. You can also get started with our pre-made templates

Put your skills to the test:

→ Beginner: Start by building a gallery wall that looks great featuring any 4 artworks, the more creative the layout the better 🙂

→ Hot shot: Now push yourself, build a cool looking gallery wall that features 4 artworks, but all the artworks have to be different sizes

→ Baller status: Pull this off and you’re a pro. Build a stunner of a gallery wall that features a minimum of 3 portrait artworks, 2 landscape artworks and 2 square artworks

We’d love to see your creations. Download or screenshot your designs and share it on your Instagram story tagging @drool_art