How do artists make money?

That's a great question, Amanda. And it's good to be aware of the future and how you will support yourself.

Right off the bat I will say that it's not easy to make money as an artist. There are many different ways to make a living as an artist. And of course it depends on the type of art that you do from the visual arts to performing arts and even literary arts.

But just to simplify, there are two primary career paths for the visual artist: fine artists and commercial artists.

Fine artists generally make a living selling individual pieces of art through galleries to individual collectors. Getting into this career path takes a great deal of talent and the ability to market yourself and your art style. You'll need to know that some of your pieces could sell for thousands of dollars, but you might only sell a couple of them a year.

Commercial artists can be broken down into two categories, freelance and in-house. In-house artists are full-time employees for a specific company and work exclusively for them. Though generally in advertising or entertainment (movie studios, comic book companies, video game companies, etc.) many large companies have their own in-house artists to develop their brands, social media/web presence, etc. Freelance artists might work for several different companies in a short period of time. Freelancing allows the artist a wider variety of projects to work on but may be less secure and stable work.

And of course you might work simultaneously in these fields, working by day in-house at a company and then pursuing freelance or fine art opportunities in your spare time. And just because you begin in one area doesn't mean that you can't move to the other.

I hope that this has been helpful. I've tried to keep it general though more focused on visual arts. It's good to hear that you're passionate about art. I wish you the best of luck in pursuing art as a career.

Hi Amanda,

Good question, being an artists isn't difficult it's really about mindset. I work with fine artists who double as graphic designers, both are artistic careers. I work with illustrators who work as graphic designers, and so on, and both compliment one another. I know photographers who work as fine artists, so it really is about mindset when it comes to your chosen fields. In fact I work with art history professors who are painters in their after work life and they earn a decent living.

Once you get down how you can utlize your passion through your developing education, you then just have to either sell yourself or market yourself. Whether your a freelancer, an agency freelancer or an in house artist, you're always going to be selling yourself whether you're selling your art as a freelancer, or selling your skill in an job interview.

Also do not limit yourself to one medium. You can do both traditional and digital, photography, video, and more.