12 Ways to Make Money From Your Art

If you still think that it’s difficult/impossible to make a living from your art then it may be time to revisit your belief system and throw away the old ‘starving artist’ myth.

See, in days gone by that may have been true. In order to succeed in the past you had to go to a prestigious art university, leave with a first-class degree, work your fingers to the bone in a dingy studio in a non-too-salubrious area and hope to be discovered by a gallery owner who believed in your work.

However, now we have access to the internet, many artists are taking control of their art careers and managing themselves. Selling their work directly to the customer via their own website. This has opened up possibilities for many of us to make a full or part-time living selling our art.

It’s important of course that we don’t make art just to make money, the love of creating has to come first! But if we create work that comes from the heart then why not sell it? Give someone the pleasure of owning it. At the very least it gives us money to buy more materials and continue making more art.

Some people mistakenly believe that the only way to sell art is via original pieces or commissions. Those are definitely two ways but they are also a direct exchange of time for money i.e. there are only so many hours in a day/week that you can create so there is a limit as to what you can produce.

If you combine that with some alternative incomes that are more ‘passive’ i.e. you create them once and go on to sell them multiple times, then you now have a combination of income streams to keep you busy during quiet times.

Here are just a few examples of alternative income streams from your art:

• Prints (including print on demand where you don’t carry stock!)
• Licensing
• Wholesale
• Online workshops

….want to know more? Twelve ways to sell your art-1 click to download a free pdf I created ’12 ways to make money from your art’.

Some of the suggestions are short-term solutions to generate income more quickly, others take time to implement and you see the rewards further down the line. Enjoy!

PS Check out my other blog post ‘Want to sell your art but have no idea where to even start?’ Sell Your Art click to view.