Do you know where your paintings are?

Its the end of the year. Starting to think about getting on top of paperwork - annual files, preparing for taxes etc. And this year I need to catch up on 5 months of organization of my paintings. Cathy and I have been traveling/painting for almost 5 months this year and I have let my records slip. I also HATE doing this stuff.  I have tried numerous approaches to organizing my paintings from file cards, to my own spread sheet to three different commercial databases designed for artists.

I have about ( if my records were up to date I could give you the exact number ) 60 pieces in galleries - some with frames, some not. I have had two art fairs each displaying about 30 pieces this year - and I like to keep track so that I don't repeat the same paintings. Now I have a bunch in Daily Paintworks and need to keep track of which ones are there, etc. etc.

One of many reports

Last year I stumbled upon Flick,  an Aussie product from  Arawak. It is inexpensive ( $29.95 US)and easy to use. I quite like it - at least compared to the more complex systems I have  tried. It organizes paintings in a variety of ways and produces reports by a variety of criteria .

Because I got so far behind I needed to generate a spreadsheet of all my paintings in the database so I knew which I had yet to add. Simple to do and really helped.

Spreadsheet report 

I don't use the full power of Flick. I use it strictly to inventory my work. There is a good system for managing email lists, buyers, prices, gallery commissions etc. But I have other systems I prefer for those.

In an attempt to not get so far behind, I have moved my database to the cloud system I use (Dropbox) and put a copy on my laptop (no extra charge). Now I can access my data from home or from our RV while travelling and keep up to date.   No more excuses - other than I'd rather be painting.

Its worth taking a look at this one if you are in the market.Good new is that you can get the full version on trial to see if it suits your needs.