In today’s article we are going to be going through 10 ways to make money as an artist. To be honest I can’t even draw stick people but some of my followers have been asking me about this topic.

If you’re talented there are many avenues to take your artistic talent and earn some good money. So let’s get straight on with it.

#1 Sell Your Original Art

It’s the most common and obvious way but there’s a few different ways that you can do this. You can either sell your original art online or through galleries and there are positives to both of these options.

With galleries you’ll be having it in an established place, a lot of people probably go in there but a con is that they do take quite a high percentage of the money.

It can be up to 50% Commission and nowadays it becomes a lot easier to sell it online through places like Etsy or eBay or even your online store.

If you have less of a following than the best possible ways to go are through Etsy or eBay where it’s more of a larger name-brand. If you’ve got a big following then send them to your website and you won’t have the fees associated with eBay or Etsy.

#2 Sell Prints

So if you make a piece of art and you want to make the most money possible sell prints. This is a way to continue making money from that piece of art for an indefinite amount of time.

Once you sell the original piece that’s it but you can make lots of prints to sell. You can make limited edition prints or you could just sell prints where it isn’t limited edition so you can just keep selling them and again.

You can do this in a few different ways you can either make the print yourself or you can outsource it to a printing shop or you even just upload your photos to something like Red Bubble.

All you have to do is upload the photo and they’ll print onto lots of things like mugs and t-shirts. So that’s a really easy way and they handle all the shipping so that’s a great way that you can get another passive source of income from the artwork.

#3 Optimizing Social Media

In today’s society social media is really really important for artists. You need to be building up a following and an audience and people that will want to buy your artwork.

So things like Instagram, Twitter Facebook and even YouTube, creating a following on that is going to be a great way to get an audience which will later go and buy your artwork.

Learn more about: 5 Tips For Making Money With Etsy.

Also it means that if you build up a following on social media then you’re more desirable to certain brands so you can get things like sponsorships or brand deals.

You’ll have companies that are interested in working with you because you have got an audience that their products suits so you can get sponsorships and brand deals from building up a social media following.

#4 Doing Commissions

So instead of creating an original piece of artwork and then trying to sell it, actually have clients where they’ll tell you what they want and then you create it for them.

This can be a family portrait or a specific occasion or it could be something like a pet portrait. It’s a really good option because people like to keep memories and have a personal sort of drawing.

This is a great way to be able to know that your artwork will definitely sell because sometimes when you make original artwork it’s hard to know whether it will sell but if you’re doing a commission you know that you’re going to get paid for that work.

#5 YouTube Channel

This isn’t for everyone but if you want to go down this road of creating art videos or teaching then creating a YouTube channel is a great way to get some more passive income.

When you create videos you can use ads on those videos and those ads basically is how the Youtubers earn money. So it’s a great way to get money for your views and for the time you put in to create really valuable resources online.

#6 Patreon

This is really useful if you already have an established following it’s not so useful if you have no one that’s following you because it relies on your supporters to go over to your Patreon and subscribe to you on a monthly basis and pledge to you.

You’ll be surprised at how many people want to support what you do especially if you’re giving back to them and you’re creating value and entertainment for them.

#7 Creating a Product

An e-book or course is perfect as far as having a tangible product that you can go and sell in your videos or on your social media or just putting it up on Amazon.

If you have a specialized skill or you like a certain topic of art and you’re quite knowledgeable about it then you can create something like an art course or a book. Then you have something that you can sell and you can get a lot of profit from again and again.

Learn more about: Creating Your Own Ebook

#8 Affiliate marketing

Being an artist you use a lot of materials and there’s nothing wrong with recommending them to your followers. As an artist I’m sure you get a lot of materials from Amazon.

Just start adding your Amazon affiliate link in your description under your video or in a post. If you have a good following you can make some good money doing this alone.

#9 Conventions or Art Fairs

This depends on where you live as there might be more available to you but people sell a lot of prints and stuff at conventions, so that’s another great way.

#10 Free Live Streaming and Donations

Live streaming especially on Twitch you can get a lot of donations free live streaming. I’ve heard a lot of people make some extra income this way.

10 Ways To Make Money As An Artist – Conclusion

In this post I’ve thrown a lot of information at you but I hope you found it useful and you’ve learned a few new methods that you hadn’t thought about before.

If you’ve enjoyed the 10 ways to make money as an artist please share with your friends and leave a comment. I try to share various methods in different niches to help those that are struggling to make some extra income so check out some of my other posts.