My Art in Practice (aka my roadmap to make a living as an artist)
I’ve been drawing for a long time, taking on drawing commissions here and there, but never had an actual focus of where I wanted to take this endeavor. Is it just a hobby? Is it a side hustle? Do I want to make it full time?
Could I?!
For the longest time, I struggled with impostor syndrome and wondered why anyone would want to support my work given all the other amazing artists out there. The competition (at least in my mind) seemed overwhelming. But then, I started seeing people who put themselves out there and got something going; they got the ball rolling, got some projects out the door, started a community, and within a few years - which sometimes feel like the blink of an eye, they find success.
I’ve lived my life so far under the guiding principle of “it’s better to regret taking a chance than regret missing opportunities” and so I thought: what if? What if I could scale my art content business? What if I could illustrate children’s books? What if I could grow my YouTube channel? How different would my life be?
So those thoughts led me here, where I’ll be laying down my artistic roadmap.
Streams of Income
Before I dig into the roadmap I’ve created for myself, I want to list out all the potential income streams for illustrators like me: we can go into industries (gaming, publishing, animation, graphic design -either in-house or as freelancers), have our own shops (Etsy products and prints), become teachers (through courses and Patreon), or become content creators (all social media). And if you can think of any different opportunities, please let me know!
For each of those areas, there are specific skills to cultivate in order to succeed. After reviewing my past experiences, interests and potential for growth, the income streams I’d like to focus on are content creation (YouTube) and having my own shop (Etsy). Later in the future, I’d also love to create workshops and courses as well as illustrate books.
My roadmap
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will my art career. So the following roadmap is a tentative plan for a long-term process. Therefore, this plan can be modified at any point and will likely look very different a year from now than it does now.
I divided the roadmap into 4 phases. Here they are:
Phase 1: Start building an audience. The goal: reach 5K subscribers on EN Channel and get monetized. Target due date: 2024.
At least 2 monthly videos on YT: highly searchable, focused on quality. Education vs. entertainment.
Blog posts: both as an update on what I’m doing to improve my art and a record of my content creation learning curve.
Phase 2: Develop a strategy for comparative advantage. The goal: make $1K/month, get 100 newsletter subscribers, prepare a product launch. Target duration: 8 months.
Phase 3: Make more money! Target income: $6K/month. Target duration: 1 year.
Varied sources of income (art book, paid course, digital planner for artists, art commission checklist, guide to striving artists)
Phase 4: Make it last! The target: scale income further to the ultimate goal of $10K/month. Embrace opportunities and take over the world. Target duration: indefinite.
Hire a video editor
Embrace opportunities
This is a high level view of my roadmap and I decided to create this to avoid overwhelm and pace myself rather than to rush and potentially burn out before making some progress.
Now, I’d love to hear about your own career journey! Feel free to reach out on my Instagram or by email at clarissabittesart@gmail.com
