If you are like most of us the walls of your home or office space is decorated by some form of art whether it be prints or original works of art.  Many people don't realize that often for far less than the cost of a print they can locate and buy original art on EBay.

There are a number of reasons why an artist might decide to sell their work on EBay. Firstly the market is firecely competitive and it is extremely difficult for an emerging artist to gain recognition from Galleries regardless of the quality of their work. Just as there are many gifted actors who you will never see in the movies there are probably a greater number of fine, talented and gifted artists whose work is never seen by the public. For the most part, art gallery owners are in business for the money and not for the sake of enriching the world by bringing new artists into public view. Also  galleries and large well known art auction houses extract a very high commission or percentage from the sale price of an artists work. That is why if you visit a well known gallery most of the works you see are priced in thousands of dollars and are the work of a few well known artists.

This being said, many fine and gifted artists have been turning to online sources to gain exposure.  Given that a site such as EBay has millions of hits and is viewed by collectors every minute it is a natural forum for some very gifted artists to offer their work to the public. The other advantage to the artist is that the works can be seen almost worldwide by anyone with a PC and an Internet connection. EBay also has a very reasonable fee structure and allows the Artist to price a painting lower than they would if they were selling through a gallery.

For the buyer this translates into a golden opportunity!  If you browse the section on Paintings for example you will find thousands of original works of art. Many of these paintings are very good both technically and pleasing to the eye at unbelieveably low prices.  When you consider that a print which may be copied thousands of times may sell for $100 or more at a retial store compared to a fine original painting which may sell on EBay with a starting bid of less than $50 the question becomes why own a print when you can have a one of a kind original work for a fraction of the cost.

In addition, by buying an original painting you will an supporting emerging artist who may well be the next Thomas Kincaide.  As an artist, I paint because I cannot "not paint".  For most of us our work is not about dollars and cents. This having been said for an emerging or little known artist the costs of paints, canvas or other mediums can be quite high and by buying these fine originals you are not only obtaining a beautiful and meaningful work of art for yourself but you may well be providing an artist with the means to cover the costs of producing his or her next work.

Perhaps the exception to what I have written would be what I call "Artist Sweat Shops" located mainly in developing countries where artists sit for hours churning out duplicates of the same piece over and over. Most of these shops will sell you a painting for 99 cents and gouge your wallet with the shipping costs so beware as these companies do appear on almost every online art sales site selling their "junk" paintings which are worthless and are not even worth the 99 cents plus shipping. A large number of these sites sell paintings not on stretched canvas, for example. They ship you a painting in a cardboard tube. My advice would be to avoid these sellers unless a particular painting appeals to you for some specific reason but remember this same painting probably has been painted and copied perhaps hundreds of times.

In conclusion, perhaps the best advice is to buy what you like and not what you think someone else might be impressed with. You are, after all, going to be the person who sees this painting every day in your space. Art is very subjective..so if you like it..buy it on EBay and take advantage of the awesome opportunity of owning an original work of art at possibly the lowest prices in all of the wordwide market.

You will be very pleased that you bought and who knows...you ,ight have bought a future Rembrandt or Picasso!!!