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Use a flashlight
I have honed this down to a science and spent countless hours working out the little problems that you have discussed here.
One little tip, if possible with your camera, focus manually when shooting artwork.
Unfortunately, most point and shoot digitals don't let you look thru the lens and focus like my D100. While you are nailing the focus down, shine a flashlight at the center spot that the camera is on to see the paint ridges with little highlights that will allow you something to focus on if your painting is not giving you enough contrast to focus on. Also, manually set your depth of field to about f8, if possible, to give you a little buffer zone for error. Then bracket like crazy. Keep notes on what is working.
When I would shoot with my Nikon 990, I would have the problems you are having now. Also, check to make sure no stray light is hitting your lens. Sometimes you can not notice the lights are glazing over your lens and ruining your contrast. I block out my lights around my camera with large black foamcore boards attached to light stands. My shots improved right away with that one.
In digital SLRs, the lens is everything. The sharpness of your shots can vary dramatically depending on the quality of the glass. With the little point and shoot digitals, you are stuck with what you have. The farther you get back from the painting, the more you will see the limitations of those little lenses. The glass is just not the priority of the camera makers in that product line. Everyone is enamored with mega pixels and forget that a 5 megapixel point and shoot is going to give you this same sharpness problem. I have a 60mm Nikon flat field lens I use just for shooting artwork. It gives amazing sharpness and no distortions.
I have a 28mm-70mm Nikon lensefor figurative shots that can shoot in the dark it's so fast. What's nice, is that my lens collection will follow me to whatever new digital body they come out with(in SLR). Right before I bought my first digital, I bought a Nikon F100 film camera for the "real" photos I would be needing. On a whim, I bought the 990, for fun shots, and ended up never touching the F100 again. It was a waste of my money. I recommend to anyone wondering if they should put any money into a film camera at this point to really reconsider. Sell things to raise the money, do bake sales, take in laundry, try out for American Idol. Do whatever you can to raise the money for a digital SLR.
You won't be sorry.
Morgan
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