Here’s our step-by-step guide to selling art.

Art is generally understood as any activity or product done by people with a communicative or aesthetic purpose—something that expresses an idea, an emotion or, more generally, a world view. It is a component of culture, reflecting economic and social substrates in its design.

“Why is it so difficult to define art?” Art is best appreciated by the right prefrontal cortex (part of the brain), which deals with direct experience. In contrast, definitions are handled by the left prefrontal cortex, which attempts to convert direct experiences into symbols (e.g. words). Hence the difficulty.

1. Putting Your Art Online. If you want people to buy your art, you need to make it available.
2. Putting Your Art Into the World.
3. Sell Art Commissions.
4. Hire a Professional Consultant.
5. Networking.
6. Build a Client Base.
7. Know Your Audience.
8. Use Social Media.

Artists aren’t lazy; our creativity is challenged constantly and our mind is running to escape from reality. Creativity is a nonstop process in which the mind of an artist is at work all the time.

Pay yourself a reasonable hourly wage, add the cost of materials and make that your asking price. For example, if materials cost $50, you take 20 hours to make the art, and you pay yourself $20 an hour to make it, then you price the art at $450 ($20 X 20 hours + $50 cost of materials).

I notice that most successful professionals generally work 50-60 hours a week.

You’ll need to have:

• artistic talent.
• determination and commitment.
• self-belief.
• the ability to come up with and develop good ideas.
• good visual communication skills.
• business and self-promotion skills.
• technical ability.
• good organisational skills and the ability to meet deadlines.

Here are, in my opinion, the twelve most necessary skills for a fine artist:

1. Realistic drawing.
2. Constructive drawing.
3. Ability to draw from life.
4. Drawing from memory and imagination.
5. Knowledge of art materials and their skillful use.
6. Knowledge of the rules of perspective.
7. Knowledge of golden proportions.
8. Composition skills.

If your criteria for a job is something that you make a living from, then for the vast majority of artists, being an artist is not a job. It is certainly true that most artists do not make a living from their art, but considering being an artist as a job also has extremely damaging consequences.

The Best Ways to Find Freelance Art Jobs

1. Who Hires Freelance Artists?
2. Arts Thread (Production Art, Graphic Design)
3. Indeed (Creative Arts)
4. Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market: 2018 (Illustration)
5. Freelancer’s Union Spark Community (Creative Arts)
6. Glassdoor (Creative Arts)

So I’ve put together a list of twelve things you should know before turning your art hobby into a career. Twelve things no one tells you about being an artist: It’s certainly not impossible to make a living out of art but, for most artists, finding an audience to invest in their work is astonishingly tough.

What Can You Do With an Art Degree?

• Professional artist. Kicking off with perhaps the most obvious of art careers, there is no reason why you cannot pursue a career as a professional artist if you have talent and dedication.
• Illustrator.
• Photographer.
• Animator.
• Graphic designer.
• Curator.
• Printmaker.
• Art teacher/university lecturer.