How to Make Money as an Artist

Adaeze UC
Adaeze UC
12 Min Read
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How to make money as an Artist
How to make money as an Artist

How to make money as an Artist – Cash is king!

It’s popular to assume that making money with art doesn’t always assure financial stability. But if you’ve heard of artists making more than millions, then you know there is enough money for everyone out there.

Do you want to make cool money by selling your art works? I will be revealing the best places to sell art online so you can earn money from your passion!

Many people want to become artists but aren’t sure how to earn a living selling art. Maybe you already consider yourself an artist, but you are having trouble making money with your art.

Where you sell your art online depends on what type of art you are selling. There are a wide variety of mediums that art encompasses. From drawing and painting to crafting and woodworking, chances are if you’re doing it, you can sell it and make money online.

Here are smart and simple ways to monetize your creativity:

1. Organize Offline Workshops with Other Artists

This is one of the most enjoyable ways to make money as an artist. You can gather children and adult groups and offer lessons regularly. You can also travel and organize workshops for artists.

This may be difficult to do in the beginning since you need to find a venue and handle lots of administrative functions.

But when you implement the right approach, the effort will be worth it. Unfortunately, your earnings may be limited through this method because you are not guaranteed to fill the workshop venue.

2. Sell Ebooks

If you have a blog, then you can create and sell art-related ebooks to the audience you’ve built from blogging. It is easier to sell to people that know you and are also interested in what you have to offer.

So, it is important to portray yourself as an expert so that your followers can trust you and buy your product.

3. Sell Your Paintings at Art Exhibitions

This is a prestigious way of earning as an artist. If you have an agent, selling just a few paintings can earn you the budget of an entire year. You need a good agent that is not greedy to be successful with this method.

You can showcase your paintings at art exhibitions without an agent if you have good connections. This may necessitate you to attend other artists’ art exhibitions so that you can network with other artists in the industry.

See: How to Use your money to say YES

4. Teach Art

You can also make money as an artist by teaching art online. Setting up a webinar or online class is not easy but you can subscribe to some classes to understand how they are organized. You can also use platforms such as How Now, Skills Hare or any of your social media platform like Telegram, zoom or WhatsApp.

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5. Sell Merchandise with Your Craft

One of the easiest ways to make money as an artist involves partnering with a print-on-demand or drop shipping service provider. This way, you can print your art on different products.

Such partnership will help you print, package, brand, and ship your custom products to customers.

Some print-on-demand services that you can use include Printful, Society6, and Zazzle amongst others.

Here are some merchandise that you can sell with your art:

Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Birthday greeting cards, Wedding invitations and party decorations, Mugs, phone cases, and other gifts, Diaries, planners, and journals, Home decors, Hoodies, t-shirts, and kids’ clothes. 

6. Create and Sell Online Courses

You can make money with online courses as an artist. This may require lots of resources when you need to launch your course since you need to buy good lighting and filming tools. You also need to be adept at shooting and processing videos.

There are paid or free online lessons that will teach you how to do these. You can hire the service of experts to create top-quality content and organize your shooting.

After creating your course (such as a drawing course), you can post it on different websites and pay monthly fees. Some of the websites include Kajabi, Amazon and Learnworlds.

See: How To Sit at home and Make Money Online 

7. Sell Your Designs on Fiverr

If you are good at graphics design, then you can make money as a digital artist. There are different active and passive income streams that you can use to increase your earnings.

You can sell designs on fiverr to make money as an artist. In addition to earning a living, it is also a great way to achieve your creative dreams.

There are different things that you can sell on artwork. They include illustrations, character designs, icon packs, logo designs, and other types of templates and graphics.

You’re not limited to only art as an artist; you can also make money from selling music, knitting patterns, ebooks, and lots more. The best part of selling on Sellfy is that you can upload a product for sale within 5 minutes.

Website: fiverr.com

8. Selling digital art on Creative Market

While Etsy lets you sell both physical and non-physical goods, Creative Market is a marketplace that is meant for selling digital art in particular. It narrows down the target audience but attracts customers specifically looking for digital assets.

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Examples of what you can sell on Creative Market:

– WordPress themes
– Clip art
– Stock photography
– Templates
– Fonts
– Business and premade blog logos
– Branding kits
– Lightroom presets
– Illustrations

9. Seeking commissions for original work

Commissions are a popular strategy that many beginning artists and illustrators can use to make money—both online and offline.

The best place to start is by showcasing your work on your social media. Don’t forget to mention in your bio that you accept commissions—be it portraits, artistic photo sessions, or any other form of art.

With any luck, your first customers will spread the word, and your next clients will approach you themselves.

Alternatively, these online platforms unite artists and people who want to commission portraits or other artwork:

– Artfinder
– Artists&Clients
– ArtCorgi
– Art Please

10. Sell Wall Art

If you are a painter, designer, illustrator, sculptor, or graphic artist, you can make money by selling quality copies of your work. You can turn your art into a source of income by digitizing your artwork through photography or scanning.

You can also use graphic design programs, such as Adobe Illustrator, to create printable posters. The following ideas can be used to sell your wall art:

– Sell digital copies of your wall art on Sellfy while the customer handles the printing.
-Use print-on-demand websites that will help you print and ship your posters.
– Sell your artwork on Etsy (here’s a guide on how you can make money on Etsy for more ideas).
– Create a shop on Facebook or sell to your social media followers.
– Sell photographs on your portfolio website.

11. NFT Marketplaces

NFT marketplaces allow designers and artists to upload their digital artwork and list it for sale online as an NFT. You can imagine them to be like Ebay or Etsy—except they’re purely for NFTs! The most popular ones include: Rarible, OpenSea, Mintable, KnownOrigin and SuperRare.

One thing to keep in mind when uploading your artworks onto these is how many you’re going to provide. You can choose to put it on as 1 of 1, meaning there will only be one artwork to exist and be sold, or you could decide to upload a collection of the artwork with multiple copies. This is quite a huge decision to make because—like traditional art forms—the number of original editions and how rare a piece is will directly impact its value.

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The first thing designers need to do on their way to setting up an NFT to sell is create a “Crypto Wallet”. This is going to store the Ethereum, which you will need to pay the minting fees. Then you will need to connect your Crypto Wallet to one of the NFT marketplaces.

See: NFTs: What NFTs are, why they’re worth millions, where to sell and buy

12. Create Video Content

Platforms like TikTok and YouTube can be used to showcase your video content. You can make money on YouTube from views; however, you need to have at least 1,000 subscribers.

You can also make money on Patreon by getting support from subscribers.

In addition, the user support you get on TikTok can also help you increase your earnings. Your users can support you with stickers that you can exchange for money.

It is not that easy but you can get the result you want from actively producing quality content.

More so, you can also do affiliate marketing for different art products and services.

13. Sell Art on Instagram

Instagram is the leading social media platform where art lovers and artists can promote their crafts. It is a great platform for newbie artists to showcase their artworks without being limited by the big names in the industry.

Instagram allows you to easily connect with customers that are willing to pay for your work irrespective of where they are in the world.

However, you can only make money with your social media followers (especially Instagram followers) if they engage with your posts. The more popular your Instagram account is and the more they engage with your posts, the more artworks you will sell.

So if you want to gather more followers for your brand, Instagram is a good place to start.

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Adaeze UC is a Blogger. She is the owner of www.adaezeucblog.com, Adaeze UC Empire, Adaeze UC Foundation, and Online Talk with Adaeze (OTA). She is also a Commercial Model, One of the best faces that can sell a brand and its product.
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