I thought I just needed to learn to draw!
It turns out I was never as bad at that as I once believed. Sure, I have much still to learn about colour theory (still my greatest artistic weakness, I believe), composition, and what is ‘marketable’. But as I’m learning, making the art is only one part of being an artist. There’s learning how to develop a style, how to share your work, how to find an audience, how to make money from it, how to take risks, how to accept feedback and how to keep going when things are slow to take off.
I also want to acknowledge that this newfound knowledge has come from following other artists, writers and creators who have generously shared their own discoveries about earning money from their art. In a time when there is much to feel upset about, in an increasingly ‘online’ world, I feel grateful to the people who have been courageously sharing their work, their thinking and their talents online, not only to earn themselves an income, but also to inspire others to be brave and express their creativity.
So here are my ‘lessons’:
1. How to actually make the art
Well, even though I am better at drawing than I initially thought, I do still have much to learn about the other aspects of art – composition, line, contrast, colour theory, value (not in dollars but in ‘saturation’), and so on. Luckily, this is where I started. With lots of practice in a range of media, until I finally settled on digital drawing with Procreate. Well, maybe settled isn’t the right word, I do still enjoy dabbling with real paint! But Procreate is very much my comfort zone.
Then, my exposure to other artists online started to reveal aspects of making art that I didn’t even know existed. Like making things in ‘collections’ rather than just random individual works. Another one is storytelling. I don’t think I’ve really cracked this yet, but I’m starting to see how this could be done within a single artwork, and across a series of artworks in a collection. Then there was the concept an audience. I’d never really considered who my art was for, or whether it even needed to be ‘for’ anyone. I’m still working out the difference between art I make purely for myself, and art I make for an audience, and, perhaps more importantly, who that audience might be?
Sometimes it feels good to just pick up a paintbrush (or stylus) and make something. I often do exactly that. But then, when it turns out to be something I actually like, there’s often the problem of how to use it when I haven’t though ahead of things like size, canvas, colour choices, etc. I’m learning that it does save a fair bit of time to plan ahead, with thumbnail sketches, colour swatches and making things on a larger file than I think I will need. It’s easy to shrink an image without losing quality, but you can’t make it larger.
2. Making a living from art
Full disclosure, I am nowhere near making a living from my art! But, as many people who are making a living from their art attest, being able to do that is less about innate talent and more about showing up and doing the work. Enough people have said it that I believe they’re telling the truth – the ‘starving artist’ stereotype is a myth. But, like any profession, you can’t walk in as an absolute beginner and start earning a top salary. Or at least, it’s very rare for that to happen. Many people try but give up before they get there, because it’s hard! It’s hard to keep putting work out there and only experiencing very small sales or growth, for a long time. It’s also hard not to interpret a lack of sales as meaning, ‘my art is not good enough.’ However, another important thing I’m realising is that there is no such thing as ‘good enough’. There is an ‘audience’ for every skill level and every style, it just comes down to personal taste. Many of the artists I follow don’t believe their art sells because it’s the best, they know it sells because they’ve found their specific audience for their specific art. That’s all.
Another thing they’ve learned how to do is diversify their income streams, which means not relying on one type of income. For example, someone might make money by selling art prints in an online store, or at their local markets. They may also licence their artwork for greeting card companies to use on their cards. Then they may create online art courses where they teach those skills to other emerging artists. Diversifying their income across a range of strategies helps to keep their income steady and be less vulnerable to fluctuations. But the important thing is not to overdo it and try to build all these streams at once! In my own case, I am trying first with my online shop selling greeting cards and prints. I also take these to my local art society’s monthly art shows. Now that I’ve got my website built and am able to keep up with the (not high) demand of fulfilling orders, I’m getting ready to start pitching my work to some greeting card companies. A lot of what I’ve learned about these possibilities has come from artists such as Stacie Bloomfield and Cat Coquilette, who generously share the practical side of building an art business.
Getting my head around all of this has been exciting, but also at times, overwhelming, especially given my tendency to overthink things and try to get things exactly right before taking the plunge!
3. Sharing art is part of the process
It doesn’t seem logical that I would want both of these things: to be able to make a living from my art as well as write and illustrate children’s books; but also, never have to show anyone my art. But who said anything about being logical, because I do want both of those things! Maybe it’s not so much about not showing my art, but about knowing someone will love it before I show them. Or knowing that, even if they don’t love it, it’s still ‘good enough’. Because there’s that pesky ‘good enough’ again – good enough for who?
Reading Show Your Work by Austin Kleon really helped me with this. Because it’s not just about showing your art (although that is a big part of it), but it’s also about showing yourself – how you think, your taste, your personality, your influences, your inspiration, your worries, your beliefs… YOU. This is all a part of how an audience connects with you, gets to know you, and maybe even helps them feel something when they look at your art.
Again, as Kleon says, there’s a fine line between showing your work and oversharing, and that’s a difficult one for me to judge, at times. But I’m grateful to have had my mind expanded by this great book – it has helped me to see that sharing my work, as risky and anxiety provoking as it seems, is the only way to build the art career that I want. I hope it gets easier with time, but I suspect it may not!
I’ve also learned the importance of sharing before I feel ready. Because the reality is, I will never feel ready. The act of sharing gives me the incentive and motivation to keep going, which I didn’t really expect.
4. Your imperfections might be part of your style
Like many people, I do a lot of my initial learning through copying. But I think I might take copying to another level because I will usually copy everything literally, from the colour to the subject matter to the composition, line, texture, everything. And I’ll spend a lot of time comparing what I’ve done to the one I’m copying, usually unfavourably. This used to be where I would give up. I would decide that, since mine looked really bad compared to the original, that meant I was terrible at art and didn’t have any skills.
It wasn’t until I started copying some aspects but not others that I began to be able to forgive my attempts for their differences. When I started to be even looser, and only copied process rather than content, this was even better. Because once I stopped looking back and forth at the ‘inspiration’ image and took my attempt at face value, I realised it still looked like the thing I was trying to make – just not exactly like it.
The ‘exactly’ part still irritated me. Then Brooke Glaser’s teachings (on her YouTube channel) helped me understand that if I wanted it to look exactly like the thing I was drawing, I could just take a photo of it. So why by upset that my drawing looks like a drawing of the thing, rather than an exact replica?
That was a bit of a turning point for me. I was gradually moving from seeing the differences between my work and someone else’s as evidence that I was doing it wrong, to seeing those differences as evidence that I was making something of my own.
Then another thing happened. I listened to a conversation between Andy J. Pizza and Nishant Jain (Creative Peptalk Podcast episode 540) where Nishant talked about how the thing you find hard to do ‘correctly’ as an artist can also be a cornerstone of your style. It can be just as much about what you don’t do perfectly as what you do brilliantly!
This was such a cool thing to understand. Maybe the bits I struggle to get ‘right’ aren’t necessarily problems I need to eliminate; maybe some of them will eventually become part of what makes my work recognisably mine. This idea has helped me free myself from some (not all) of the drive to make things ‘perfect’. It’s still there and probably always will be, but I think I’m getting better at letting things be finished without them needing to be perfect.
5. You don’t have to follow all the advice
When learning from other artists and content creators, there do tend to be certain pieces of advice that come through strongly, like post on social media every day, find your niche, develop one clear and distinctive style, etc, etc. These are great messages, and they’ve probably worked for the majority of ‘successful’ artists out there. As a person who likes to follow the rules, I have a hard time ignoring these gems, even if they’re not really working for me. As a relative beginner, I have a tendency to want to take this advice very literally, which is difficult and overwhelming when there is so much advice out there, and not all of it is in agreement. I sometimes forget that it’s ok to try everything, but discard what doesn’t work for me.
Andy J. Pizza’s Creative Peptalk podcast is such a wealth of information in this area. I love the way Andy shares what he has learned on his creative journey, including how he has taken lessons from other creators and adapted them to fit his own process. Andy openly talks about having ADHD and about how much mainstream creative advice hasn’t worked for his brain. As a fellow late-diagnosed neurodivergent, this has been really helpful as I work out how to apply what I’m learning to my own creative process. In a way, Andy gives permission to take what works and ignore what doesn’t. He also talks openly about how he structures his creative business and income streams to balance creative freedom, stimulation and financial reliability. This has prompted me to consider the ways in which I work, and to feel less like I’m doing it ‘wrong’ when it’s a little bit chaotic and ad-hoc.
The reality for me is that I’m working full time as a teacher while starting a small art business on the side. While I try to create predictable routines and stick to them, this doesn’t always happen the way I want it to, because I only have a limited number of hours in which to work, and I have many responsibilities and needs to attend to outside of work and art. While I wish I had more time to dedicate to art, I have to accept that, for now, my progress will be slow. But slow doesn’t mean meaningless, and it doesn’t mean I’m not getting anywhere.
A podcast I listened to recently about creative constraints has actually helped me reframe this. In Cautionary Tales (Podcast Season 7, Episode 37), Tim Harford talks about how working within constraints can sometimes lead to better outcomes than having unlimited resources. So, I’m trying to see my limited time not only as a barrier, but as an opportunity to get better at prioritising and working efficiently.
6. Being an artist is all about community
This is probably my biggest lesson to date. I had no idea that being an artist is all about community. I have the privilege of feeling that I am a part of a number of online artistic communities, even if I’m an observer more than a contributor, so far. But Show Your Work by Austin Kleon prompted me to go a step further and seek an artistic community in-person, too. I’ve described what that was like in a previous blog post. I’m still grateful that I took that step, and I’m enjoying the new opportunities that are coming my way through this community.
For some reason, this lesson has been the most surprising and also the loveliest. I think I had an idea in my head that art is somehow a solitary practice and experience. In some ways it is. But when I think about it, so much of what we are trying to express through our art is about love and connection, isn’t it? Part of starting a creative practice, for me, has also been learning more about myself and the kinds of connection that work best for me. I’m realising that I need both solitude and community, and that finding the right balance is part of the process too.
Bringing it all together
I’ve created a new page on my website called ‘People I’m Learning From’, where I’ve listed and made links to work by some of my creative influences. I plan to keep adding to the list as I discover new sources of inspiration. I’ve created it as a way to acknowledge the various creators I’ve learned from, but also as a kind of reference bank for myself – I forget these things if I don’t record them somewhere! I invite anyone who is interested to explore the page and check out these artists’ work.
Perhaps the most important lesson of all is that learning is never ‘finished’. It’s an ongoing process and the cool part is we get to veer off into side quests and tangents as often as we want to – no learning is wasted!
