Considerations

As of late, I've been working on exclusively large scale works on (h5' x 5' on gallery heavy duty stretcher bars, copper tacked and reinforced, double hand-primed in oil), canvases.  Also, I work exclusively in artist quality oil paints which are quite expensive.  Due to the high costs of these materials and the enormous amount of time it takes to execute work at this scale (it's a bit difficult to work on multiple pieces simultaneously at this scale, because they are cumbersome to shift around in the studio)... consequently, the price is prohibitively high.

Current price: $25,000.00 flat rate per piece.

Consequently, the work doesn't often sell... especially in the current market.

Willing neither to buy lower quality works nor reduce the quality of my execution, I've begun to consider another alternative to prospective buyers:

I'd be willing to sell for only $1,000.00 (roughly the cost of materials)
if the buyer is willing to pay upfront with zero input on the painting that I am to execute.

Essentially this means that I put absolutely no money in my pocket for all of my time (including hand stretching the canvas, priming it, waiting for 6 months to use it, and all the time it takes me to execute the work, while I'm not able to work on anything else).  For me, the trade off is that I get to keep painting (i.e. I can afford the materials to continue).  For the buyer, it would mean that they would get a large scale painting for 1/25 my standard price.

This price includes everything except shipping (yes, I would permit the buyer to save the shipping expense if they'd prefer to pick it up from my studio personally.

So:

A)    Browse through my works and pick one (5' x 5') for $25,000.00
        (available for immediate release)

or

B)    Buy sight unseen paying only for the costs of materials $1,000.00
       (wait for execution of the work + 6 more months drying time)