I hope you’re getting some useful tips from this ‘advice for artists’ series so far! In this blog post I discuss the transition into making art your full-time career. This is something that can take a lot of time, so for this blog, so I thought I would illustrate this by sharing a timeline of my own journey. I’ve also included some context for what decisions I made along the way, as well as my thought process on these, so you can decide what may or may not be right for you.
Although the transition to being a full time artist can sometimes feel like it’s taking forever, the old saying ‘good things take time’ rings true here, and it’s important to remember that you’re going to have a higher chance of success if you take 50 small steps, rather than one or two big ones. Warning – this blog is a long one, so go grab a cup of tea and get comfy!
The timeline of my artistic journey:
April 2014 - Full-time Employed
I drew each day on my train commute to work (2 hours), plus during lunch breaks, in the evenings and on the weekends. This is when I was experimenting with sketching, and tried pen for the first time at the end of 2014. I was selling occasional artworks, but mainly just to friends and family. I was also posting a bit of my work on a dedicated art Instagram account, but I was very shy and didn’t have a lot of confidence to say that the artworks were for sale, or share any photos of myself either.
November 2016 - Full-time Employed
I was still drawing as much as possible outside of work hours, and I also started selling my art directly through social media. I’d decided that I wanted to become a full-time artist, so I starting saving as much as possible. I also didn’t take any holiday leave, so that when I was able to finally leave my job, I had savings (and leave payout) to last me about four months, in case I didn’t sell much to begin with. At the end of 2017 I reduced my regular job hours in the final few months too, which gave me a bit more time to work on my art. I created a few large bird originals (and made limited edition art prints) and started booking in commissions (mainly pets). I also approached a few local galleries and starting selling my prints with them.
One of the most important things to do when planning to go full-time with art is to brutally minimise your living costs. I know not everyone has this luxury, but in the first year I also went back and lived with my parents, to minimise my weekly expenses. Shout out to my Mum and Dad who gave me affordable board over this time! Other ways to reduce your living costs are to cancel subscriptions and gym memberships, no café/takeaway coffees, and don’t have any hire purchases or car loans, etc. If you have spare room/s in your house, consider renting it/them out to get some extra regular income. It may even be worth thinking about moving to a cheaper suburb or town where you can get a similar living standard at a lower cost. I did this after moving out of my parents’ house and found that moving to a small rural town in Southland gave me more space at a much lower cost. Because of these lower living costs, I was able to focus on my art with far less stress through any slower-sales periods. There’s also less temptation to spend money, if your town doesn’t have many shops or things to do! haha.
November 2017 – Became a full-time artist
When is the ‘right time’ to go full-time? My opinion is that you’ll know when it is time to quit your job, when you’re consistently making enough income from your art to cover your bills and also have spare money to continue growing your art business (and preferably also some buffer for ‘a rainy day’). For me it took three years of refining my style, slowly building a social media following, and selling my work, to make the leap to full-time artist at the end of 2017.
The majority of my sales for the next two years were pet portrait commissions and a few of my own bird artworks that I could turn into prints. Forward booking these commissions greatly reduced my artistic freedom, but allowed me to further hone my drawing skills, as well as have surety for my upcoming income. Over this period, I invested a fair amount of time and money (which was super scary then!) in building up my retail network, by going on a few dedicated road trips around New Zealand visiting galleries.
After initially selling my work mainly through social media messages and emails, I took a month off drawing to dedicate solely to learning how to build an e-commerce website, which I launched in August of 2019. I decided to build the website myself, firstly because it’s very expensive to pay for one, and secondly I wanted to be able to update it easily going forward. I’m not the most tech-savvy person, but it’s amazing what you can achieve by giving things a go, and Googling questions when you get stuck.
Other than covering my living costs, all the money I earned from my art went towards my art business, such as buying a good phone and laptop, a good scanner, a camera and bird photography lens, building up my stocks of prints, and buying myself my first car (a station wagon - specifically so I could fit lots of prints and supplies for photography trips and visiting retailers). I wanted to make my work stand out in galleries, so I custom made several timber art print stands. This was something that was also scary to invest so much time and money into, but I’m super pleased with how they turned out. I think they look amazing in the galleries, and I feel that they embody the quality level I aim for with my art and brand. Disclaimer: My partner helped design and make these, so please remember that it’s always worth asking loved ones for assistance if they have special skills and are happy to give you a hand.
2020 – Full time native NZ bird artist
In mid-2019 I made the decision to not take on any more pet portrait commissions, so by the start of 2020 I was solely drawing native NZ birds. Although the guaranteed income of booking pet portraits was critical to surviving the early days of being a full-time artist, my income was limited to just what I could charge for the original artworks. As well as birds being what I was most passionate about, drawing them also meant that I could use these artworks to expand my range of limited edition prints. Although this is riskier (as people may not buy them!), it is possible to earn much more overall if you can sell originals and prints, so this can be a better long-term business model. Note: if an artist is able to produce their artworks quickly or for very high value, they may not need to sell prints as well. However, as my originals take so long to draw, selling prints has been critical to enabling me to be a full-time artist. This specialisation also allowed me to be very clear in my branding about who I am as an artist – ie. rather than being an ‘artist’, I was now a ‘native NZ bird artist’. This focus has also allowed me to have the time to draw some rare and endangered birds, and support and fundraise for conservation, which is really meaningful to me.
I continued to invest in improving my retail network and building my brand, such as having some professional photography done (by a friend), improving my artwork info sheets and refining my website content (and creating blogs!). I also spent a lot of time working on improving my packaging and customer experience (both for print customers and also making next-level packaging for original artworks). One of the things I’m really proud of is that a lot of my sales now come from existing customers, buying more artworks for themselves or as gifts for loved ones. Packaging is often overlooked by some artists, but I’ve been told many times that people really appreciate my presentation and the care taken to ensure the artworks arrive in perfect condition.
I’m super thankful for all of my customers, who allow me to create my artworks and do this as a career, so I try to find ways to make things special for them where I can. Usually this is with their orders such as hand-written thank you cards and free gift wrapping. One extra-special thing I did was prior to Christmas in 2019, when I made packs of custom greeting cards which I sent to my best customers, suppliers, gallery owners, and conservation partners. It was a substantial investment of time and money on these gifts, but I received many messages of appreciation and that they were a wonderful surprise.
2022 to present
After drawing solely birds for about two years, I was finding that most of my work was again primarily commissions. As before with the pet portraits, this was great for having a reliable income, however I wasn’t able to have as much creative freedom as I wanted. I therefore decided to take another nerve-racking step, to cease taking commissions altogether. This was scary because there’s no knowing if an original artwork will sell after spending 1-3 months drawing it. I still felt that it was the right thing to do though, because I had a long list of artwork ideas that I really wanted to create, which I never had time for previously. This gamble has gone well so far, and although I no longer take commissions, I still invite people to let me know if they are looking for a certain bird they’d like an original artwork of. This is so that I can put them on a waitlist for if/when I draw that bird, so I can reach out to them. This also gives me confidence to continue drawing my own ideas, as I know that if these artworks don’t sell well enough, I have a backup list of people I could draw for if necessary.
Summary
Key takeaways from this blog are:
Get as far as you possibly can in your art career while still working a normal job. This includes your art, your sales channels, your audience, and your business skills.
Start selling early and see what people want to buy.
Save up what you can while working a ‘regular’ job, and minimise your living costs so you can survive initial ups-and-downs after going full-time with your art.
Always be looking for ways to improve all elements of what you do.
Think of ways to bring value and joy to your customers.
Regularly be trying new things and find out what works and what doesn’t work.
Seek help from friends and family who may be able to help you with things (note: also always be looking for ways to help others too!).
Use online resources to learn things for free, such as YouTube, Google, Facebook groups, podcasts, blogs, etc (I’ll be sharing a list of resources in one of my upcoming blogs too).
Lastly…
If you’re ever feeling a bit disheartened, remember, if becoming a full-time artist was easy, everyone would be doing it! It can sometimes look easy when you see artists online, but it is a huge amount of risk, hard work and financial investment, and most of this goes unseen. As you can see from my journey, this can take many years, chipping away at one or two things at a time, but if you just keep learning, improving and developing, you’ll get there!
Further information:
If you’d like to hear some more of my story/background, you can listen to these podcast interviews, here and here.
Up next:
I’ve got a few more blogs in this series, which will be covering many more topics, with next week’s one being how to approach and work with galleries. I’ll announce this next blog on my Facebook and Instagram, so please follow me there for updates.
For other blogs in this series…
How to become a full-time artist | Part one | The first steps
How to become a full-time artist | Part two | Start selling your art
How to become a full-time artist | Part four | How to work with galleries
If you have any questions or thoughts on this blog, please comment below.