Ann Gizzi, left, of Portsmouth, looks over the artwork of Madison P. Latimer, of South Carolina.

WICKFORD — Sung He Wood strikes a hard bargain.

She had her eye on a moody pastel of lush, green woods by artist Tsun Ming Chmielinski.

“Look at it,” Wood said. “It’s more like an abstract. I just love the gradual color, it’s beautiful.”

Not so pretty was the sticker price: $375.

Wood started to haggle, and for a few minutes the two women quietly bargained. Wood, of Providence, had Chmielinski firmly down to under $300, but the artist finally balked at Wood’s $200 offer.

“I can’t,” said Chmielinski, of Jamaica Plain, in Boston. “At that price, I’ll keep it at home for myself.”

The two settled on $250, a real deal for the striking landscape.

Wood may be money-conscious when it comes to purchasing art, but she has a low-key philosophy for weathering these tough economic times.

“One day at a time,” she said. “You have to enjoy life.”

There were certainly more browsers than buyers at the annual Wickford Art Festival yesterday. Sellers talked about a sluggish market on the art circuit this year, and potential buyers looked, touched, but didn’t always pay up.

But amid the hundreds of timid shoppers ambling along the streets of Wickford yesterday were plenty of devil-may-care art lovers willing to open their wallets for pieces that inspired them.

Margaret Flynn, of Wakefield, said that she should have come to the festival with a budget in mind.

But, she said, laughing, as she selected two etchings from artist Joel Beckwith, “If I see something I really like, I usually buy it. I save in other ways — I keep my furnace off until November.”

Beckwith shrugged off talk of the diminished dollar. “One or two people can make all the difference, ” he said.

“You’ve got to be able to roll with the punches or you won’t make it,” said photographer Russell DeGaeto, of Sherman, Conn., who supplements his income by doing commercial photography, developing photos and snapping promotional shots of other artists’ work.

D.J. Mionis, of Sag Harbor, N.Y., said she and her husband cut short their usual three-week boat tour of New England by a week to save money and boat fuel. But money wouldn’t necessarily figure in her decision to buy the few pieces she had her eye on.

“If it’s something you really love, you’ll have it forever,” Mionis said. “It’s an investment.”

Some of the brightest pieces for sale belonged to artist Madison P. Latimer, who drove 24 straight hours from Louisville, Ky., to return to the festival after a five-year absence. Her bold acrylics, in splashes of oranges, reds and yellows, are inspired by the guinea hens, chickens, peacocks and other animals at her farms in Kentucky and South Carolina.

“The people understand and appreciate art” at the Wickford festival, Latimer said. “They’re very well-educated.”

Latimer said she “sells love” with her art, something customers could use in these tough economic times.

“When people feel bad about what’s going on with the economy,” she said, “they tend to want to make themselves feel good at home. I hope people wake up to my paintings and feel happy and forget about the stock market being down.”

Some artists said they weather the ups and downs of the art business by specializing, developing a fan base and knowing their audience.

“I’m unique,” said Ted Schiffman, a wildlife photographer from Vermont. “And my work ranges from $40 to $1,000, so there’s a wide range of choices.”

By 3 p.m., painter Michael Bryce, of Cambridge, Mass., had already sold five of his largest acrylic paintings. He said his customers seemed to be feeling the penny pinch more last year than this summer.

“I had people that came by and they really wanted it, they really wanted it, and they came by four or five times, but eventually they just couldn’t do it,” says Bryce, about last year’s shoppers.

Bryce says he thinks he does well because he caters to the festival’s nostalgic shoppers by bringing works depicting Rhode Island fixtures, like Narragansett Towers or WaterFire. Buyers like paintings of recognizable scenes, he said.

Rebecca Murray was at Bryce’s booth on a mission. She has a big, empty wall at her Providence home that she’s looking to fill, and was sorely disappointed to hear that Bryce’s painting of the Block Island Southeast Lighthouse was already sold.

Instead, Murray turned her attention to a painting of a single sunflower in a vibrant field.

“I have a budget of whatever cash is in my pocket,” she said. “No credit cards.”

It looked like Bryce’s $325 painting would win out, especially since Murray’s other favorite was another artist’s painting priced in the four digits.

“That’s more than my mortgage!” Murray said.

Meanwhile, business was booming for two promising artists, siblings Anna, 8, and Nate Machata, 6.

The two had tacked up their 8-inch by 11-inch construction-paper watercolors with masking tape to the picket fence outside the family’s home on West Main Street.

“I’ve been working on these all season,” Anna said. “This is my special holiday.”

“These are for anyone who hasn’t spent anything at the festival and may be feeling badly,” says Candie Machata, the artists’ mom. “This way, they come away with something and they encourage young artists.”

Anna had made $23, and counting. Nate netted $10 so far.

The price point here, at least, seemed just right — $1 per painting.

The 46th annual Wickford Art Festival continues today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free parking is available at Wickford Middle School on Tower Hill Road in Wilson Park on West Main Street.

mwims@projo.com