3 things no one told me about being an artist

I have been working as a full time professional artist for about five years now. When i started out, i didn't really make a conscious decision to suddenly "become and artist" it kind of just happened organically, which i find is a pretty common story. However, when i look back I know i did have a fairly romantic notion in my head of how life would be as an artist. I thought that spending all my time just paining and creating was going to be easy and stress free. However, here are three things that i was not aware of before i began.

1. You will be a one man band. 

Unless you happen to have a tower of money in your backyard, if you are wanting to make an income from your art then you need to realise that you will spend at least 50% of your day doing everything except actually creating. Running a business as an artist means 50% creating 50% EVERYTHING else. This box labeled " everything" contains advertising, marketing, photography, website building, listing items for sale, admin work, accounting, emailing, negotiation, packaging, posting, planing, communicating, ordering...etc etc etc. Sometimes you will spend a lot of time doing all these things and not actually be making any money from it. Unlike most jobs where you get paid for all this work...as an artist you just have to do it in the hope that eventually it will result in some income. When you do finally get around to creating you art, you are still going to be very much alone in your own little world. You have to learn to be self sufficient and to be able to make decisions on your own about which direction your art needs to go in. I do a lot of talking to myself. 

2. Insecurity.

Us artists are an insecure bunch. Because you tend to spend so much time on your own doing your own thing, when it comes to sharing that thing with the world there is a lot of self doubt that comes out with it. Running any kind of creative business that relies on you making something individual and unique and then selling it is like riding a rollercoaster. Will people like this? Will someone like it enough to buy it? Will i be able to make more? What if none buys it? What should i make next? Is that person selling more than me? Maybe i should do what they are doing? 

Unfortunately i don't think this whole insecurity thing is ever going to go away. I feel just as nauseous releasing a new paining for sale onto my website now as i did 5 years go. 

Income is also an insecurity. It is sporadic and irregular. There is no way to predict or plan for how much you may or may not sell from one month to the next. You just have to keep plugging away in the hope that something you make will resonate with someone else out there in the world and they will buy it so you can keep making new things. Although i would consider myself to be quite established now and i can to a certain degree predict roughly how much i will earn each month (based on previous months and upcoming jobs) it is still and always will be a struggle.

3. You can not switch off. Ever.

Now, I know you don't necessarily need to be running a business to have this problem. Generally, being a creative person means that you are always coming up with new ideas and plaining your next move. However when you are relying on it for your livelyhood it can become almost impossible to take any actual down time. My mind is constantly spilling over with ideas that i just don't have enough time in the day for. So i have had to become quite good at being ruthless when choosing what i dedicate my time to and what needs to be put on the wait list. 

All artists struggle with the fact that there is simply not enough time in our lives to do all the things we want to do. And when you are running a business there is even less time. I need to be very specific and strategic when it comes to what i create. Which means that i spend quite a bit if time staring off into the distance with a glazed expression, while my brain is trying to process and prioritise all of the things. There is also a fair amount of risk involved in any new project that you start. Will it be profitable? Will my collectors like it? Is it going to take too long? Is it going to cost too much? 

A big part of being a full time artist is being disciplined enough to shut off a lot of the extra noise in your head. The little voice that is convincing you that learning how to screen print is a great idea even though you don't own any equipment or knowledge and it would take up way too much time to learn. Or the other voice telling you that you need to apply for a grant to create a sculpture in the middle of town even though your not a sculptor. Ot that time your brain thought it would be a good idea to maybe cut out 100 squares of paper and draw a different kind of beetle on each one. 

 If i followed every single tangent that my brain took me on i would never actually get anything done. You need to learn to focus your energy onto one thing and just keep doing that one thing...but that doesn't stop the new ideas from flowing every day. 

There is so much more involved in making an income from your art which is why i have compiled all my thoughts and experiences into my ebook, Painting Money. Painting Money takes you through all the steps that you need to take in order to set yourself up to sucseed as a professional artist. One of the topics i talk about is mindset and how to get your head into the right place. If you would like to read more, you can purchase my ebook via the website here. 

Tools of the trade

The main medium I prefer to work with is Acrylic paint. Over the years I have experimented with every art supply and material imaginable. Early on, while I was studying Viaual Art at TAFE,  I was actually using oil paint because I thought that you weren’t a “real artist” unless you knew how to use oil paint. 

As I have aged and matured I have realized how rediculous that idea is and that you can be a real artist and use whatever materials you like. I also always hated the messy cleanup process that is involved with oil paint. So once I started to get back in to painting on a regular basis I decided to use acrylics.  

The fast drying time, vibrant colours and easy cleaning qualities are all perfect for the way I work.  

I also use a range of brushes to create my art, all of them are cheap and some of them are not even “artist” brushes. I use nylon brushes, house paint brushes from the hardware store and a few mop style brushes that are meant to be used for stenciling or applying gesso but I like the scratchy messy marks that they make.  

I am a terrible brush owner. I abuse them all the time. I let them dry out, or I soak them for days on end in dirty water. I use them to varnish and then forget to was them. I use them to scoop out blobs of paint, smoosh them into containers and clog them up. When they are dead I throw them out and buy new ones. 

I use a few different brands of acrylic paint, but mostly Derivan Matisse, Golden Acrylic and Hydrocryl. I mix different brands together to make up my own colours as well as using colours right out of the tube. If I know I’m going to use a particular colour a lot then I will mix up a big batch and keep it in a plastic container with a lid. I also use Liquitex paint markers to add in some of the fine details on top. 

I paint on both stretched canvas and watercolour paper, I have my canvas custom stretched and sent to me and I purchase my watercolor paper in large sheets or pads. The canvas is 12oz cotton and the paper is always 300gsm cotton or above. 

Open Studio 11th-12th November

This year I'll be taking part in the Yarra Valley Open Studio Tour which is held over three areas and three weekends between September and November. The Warburton area will be on the 11th and 12th of November from 10am-4pm.  

You can come and visit me in my studio at 21 Woods Point Rd in Warburton (in the YREC Business Village opposite the caravan park). I will have original artworks for sale, including paintings on canvas, paper and a exclusive collection of hand painted original ceramics.  

To find out more about the Open Studios, including the other participating artists, you can visit the official website at  https://www.yarravalleyarts.org.au/yvaopenstudios

New Year. New Studio

I mentioned on here a few weeks ago that I was planing on moving out into a new studio space. Well the time has arrived. I picked up the keys to the new studio last Thursday and I've been slowly moving in over the last few days.  

I have been a full time professional artist for about three years now, however now that I have a "real studio" I actually feel like a real professional now. So silly but that's how my brain works. 

I'm really excited to see where this next year takes me and to see how having a studio outside of my home for the first time ever changes the way I work. I'm hoping that I will be a bit more productive during the week. I find it hard to not procrastinate doing other things when I'm at home, it's always much more tempting to just sit on the couch with my knitting and Netflix. Hopefully having official working hours and a place to go every day will make me more accountable and productive when I need to be.  

It will also be awesome to be able to welcome clients into my studio without having to lead them through my lounge room and messy kitchen first. I am happy for anyone to pop in and see me whenever I'm there (which will be quite often during the week and by appointment on weekends).  

After the Christmas and New Years break and once I have settled in I am planing on holding an official opening/open studio day. I'll let you know when that's happening via Facebook early in the year.  

Does every painting need to have a story?

Many beginner artists start painting because they enjoy the process. They enjoy the feeling of mixing and adding colours to canvas, the challenge of representing something in paint, of creating something from scratch and saying “I did this”. It’s for the love of it.

If that desire to create goes further and they begin to feel as though this is how they want to make a career, a whole other world of problems are opened up. When moving from the world of amateur into professional suddenly there is a whole new set of expectations put upon you. Suddenly you can’t just create something just because you want to, because people will begin to ask that one elusive question…why?

Collectors, critics and fans will begin to want to know why you are doing something, what is the deeper meaning behind it. What message are you trying to get across? What point are you making?

To begin with I really struggled with this. Even way back when I was completing a Diploma of Visual art (back in 2002-2004) I would be asked by my tutors “what are you trying to say with this piece”…my answer would be a shrug of the shoulders followed by “I dunno”.

I was never interested in creating a political argument with my art. I never had religious views that I felt needed to be expressed or a statement that I was trying to make. As a result I always felt inferior and as though my work wasn’t worthy of anything important because I wasn’t trying to make a point or send out a message. Everyone around me was creating artistic statements and deep hidden messages within their art about the environment, racism, social issues, feminism…the list goes on. There is of course nothing wrong with that, but I personally really struggled with it…because I didn’t have any. Even back then, all I wanted to do was make pretty paintings, but that never seemed to be enough.

So does every painting need to have a story?

It has taken a very long time for me to realize that the answer to that is…no. It is ok to create purely for the love of creating. It is ok to not have a deeper meaning behind each stroke of the brush. There is nothing at all wrong with painting JUST because you want to paint. Does that make my art shallow? Not at all!

The purpose of my art is not to make a statement, first and foremost I want my paintings to be seen as beautiful. I want the viewer to look at it and say “wow…that’s so pretty!”. I want to create a reaction within them that sees the piece for exactly what it is….a pretty picture. I want the colours to be pleasing to the eye, calming and attractive. I want the shapes and composition to remind the viewer of nature and tranquility. I want the details and textures to be noticed once the view comes closer and becomes engaged in the piece. I want them to be able to look into the layers of colour and pattern to see the work and process involved. I want them to WANT to have this hanging on their wall in their home and not have to explain the deeper meaning of it all to everyone that comes over.

In my opinion, creating something that is beautiful, peaceful and calming to look at is just as important as creating something that is challenging, thought provoking and has a strong message to put across. There is a space for both within the art world.

Now all this being said, some of my paintings do have more of a story to them than others but that story usually has more to do with what inspired the piece than a particular subconscious message I’m trying to make. For example if someone approaches me to create a painting based on a mountain view near their home, and I am to include the flock of pigeons that the neighbor releases each afternoon into the skyline…then obviously this piece now has a story connected to it.

Or if as I am creating a painting, the images that are coming forward remind me of a particular time or place or event then I can happily match up that piece with such story and give the painting more meaning. But at the same time I no longer feel the need to do this with ALL my paintings. Sometimes it is just what it is and nothing more. The piece was created spontaneously with little to no thought and it is now just a pretty picture.

What do you think? Do you have trouble finding meaning in your work? Or do you totally disagree with me and believe that if there is no meaning behind it then there is no point creating it?