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| Photo by Marko Blazevic from Pexels |
Before we get into each ways you could potentially make money, it is important to remember that there are no quick ways to make money unless you are lucky enough to start earning instantly, nearly all the steps mentioned below take a certain amount of time to build up and create the income, there is no fast track, there is just the process of doing and it could take months before you start to see regular earnings.
Before considering any of the following ways to make money with your own artwork, you need to really narrow down what type of artwork that you create, so you can make a plan to focus on a handful of these money making ideas and really make the best use of your time.
1. Commissions
These are the first pieces of work that you might have a go at first, friends and family are usually your first port of call to test out this method and really think about pricing, then from there you can think about offering commissioned art pieces as a service and structure your pricing in different tiers, such as (just an example) black and white ink drawings £50, full colour drawings £100 or a larger painting £200.
Knowing your worth in time and effort that it takes to create the art that you do is vital to your pricing.
The best ways to do commissions is to offer either fan art of games, books or movies, customers are always looking for an original art piece that is nostalgic to them or that creates a feeling for them.
You could offer portrait commissions of friends and family or even pets from your potential customers. People often want a good quality original piece of art that they can look at and remind them of a loved one or pet that has passed away or just as a focal point in someones house.
Once you get more established as an Artist you may become known for creating the art that you make and be recommended to other potential clients. Also don't forget about personal work too, you can create original art that has not been commissioned and future fans of your work will buy that.
Speaking as an Artist myself, I've had mixed feelings about doing commissions, on the one hand, some customers have been great and allowed me to do my own thing with great results, but on the other you are likely to get them customers that drain your very life force and stress you out with never ending revisions which make you question your sanity and whether you actually want to offer commissioned art ever again in the future.
In this instance it is a good idea to take an upfront deposit that is often non refundable to allow for any extra revisions, the more you take on art this way you are more likely to weed out those time wasting people who want your art for next to nothing or they may not pay you at all.
2. Art Prints
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| My Venom art prints |
Similar to art commissions, art prints allow you to make limited editions of your original art from ink drawings, to paintings or art that took you a long time to complete. Again you can do a mix of fan art and personal art. Statistically speaking fan art is going to sell more so do more of that artwork and if you can broaden what you offer, for example, if you only draw manga stuff, but feel you can draw Disney or cartoony stuff then aim to offer that in print form too.
Do your own research and see what print companies are local to you that offer good deals on getting your art printed on quality papers. You could print your art prints out yourself if you have a good printer but that option is considered more expensive for you what with buying good paper and printer ink cartridges.
You could sell art prints at Comic Conventions, art fairs and art shows, usually you build up your stock of prints over time and you have to re-invest profits back into getting more prints but selling the prints will pay for this over time as you build a name for yourself.
3. Print On Demand Products
Selecting certain art that you've already done for POD products such as T-shirts, Mugs, Hoodies, Postcards and Skateboards can be quite lucrative if you hit on some best selling designs.
There are a number of print on demand websites that you could join and sell your art:-
Zazzle
Redbubble
Teespring
Society6
Being creative about the best use of your time and fitting your designs on specific products is the main thing you do on these sites. Not all designs you create will fit on certain products, so you have to work out what art can go on each item.
The best thing to do is create artwork that is seasonal which is all through the year, aim for the holiday designs such as Christmas, Birthdays, Halloween, Valentines Day, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, St Patricks Day.
Look for the top trends or best selling designs that are already on the print on demand websites and try and create new designs accordingly.
4. Publishing Books
There are books you can get published, usually through the self publishing route through Amazons KDP (Formerly Createspace) program and the types of books you can upload could include Art Books and Sketchbooks, Colouring Books, Comic Books/Graphic Novels and even low content items such as Journals, Planners and Diaries.
The Amazon marketplace is a great place to have your books available for sale, although it is quite competitive, like anything your have available for sale you have to have a marketing plan in place to get your books out there and seen, hook them customers in!.
5. Licensing Your Artwork
Licensing your art on a companies brand products could be an option for you. either on the in house company products such as cards, T-shirts and Skateboards to name a few, you can negotiate a price for essentially renting out your designs for a limited time or indefinitely.
This is where your own research comes into play, make a list of potential companies to write proposals to on spec. and be prepared to have some good quality samples of your artwork in high definition attached within your written proposal.
Licensing deals have been known to be in the 5 -6 figure range for some Artists as your art could be featured on some household products you may already know as you just never know what is possible until you do the work to get there.
This is something I am working on and will document my results in a future blog post.
6. Create An Art Course
Whatever art you make and create, you might consider making a course on the processes of how you made a specific piece of artwork. and to do this you may have to have written notes on the process, also work out whether there will be video instruction with photos and detailed information that students can follow with ease.
There are sites out there that can help you create a course and help you structure one and have it ready for sale with a link.
But there are some premium sites were you can pay to host an online course or membership, such as Kojabi, but they are expensive.
Let me know which ways you make money with your art the best in the comments. I'll be following up with a second post with more ways to make money as an artist.
If this post has been useful for you, please share with others that may find it useful too, thank you!
Also read Making Money With Fiverr As An Artist
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