Hi! Iāve had a tiny bit of success makingānot a living, but a side jobāof my artwork. Canāt find a job, but Iāve been selling art stuff this month and I have a vendor fair coming up (20 bucks to set up tables, hopefully I can make like 50 bucks there minimum!)
Long post warning!
I like your art, by the way!! Have you thought about seeing if someone in your city wants a wall mural done? I notice your art stenciling is really great, maybe you can do some lettering for businesses? You might also like working with vine charcoal, itās like smudgy pencil. I can see you making some great pieces once you get the hang of blending the charcoal with your finger (looking at the dog pic and how great that would look in charcoal)
As for myself, I found a small venue for a city-wide art venue thing. I got some exposure from thatāsomeone tried to commission a painting (but backed out later). Another wanted a print. I decided to look into prints. Fast forward like a lot of hours on the internet watching youtube videos and searching through different American printing shops and this is what I found:
Make greeting cards. Iām switching from a cheap Kinkoās cardstock greeting card to somebody else, Iāll post the link to the place Iām considering at the end of this post. It should be better quality, but I will have to pay for shipping (find local printer if you can, but be warned that local printers might not have the quality or speed that others online might have, take shipping into account). I spent 15 bucks on under ten cards at Kinkos, but, should I sell them all, Iāll get like 24 dollars back, my investment plus like 9 bucks. I only print out a few, since Iām broke, but once I get some more venues and sell what little inventory I have so far, Iām investing in bulk, which is cheaper and I could also sell online.
I also got my art printed on stickers, spent like 20 bucks on 24 stickers (includes shipping), and I plan on selling them for 1.25, so if I sell them all Iāll get 30 bucks back and make 10 in pure profit. Not much, but Iām trying to be affordable, so I am okay with a low margin of profit. Link at the bottom.
I also do prints and photos. The photos are cheap to print (like three bucks for 8 wallet sized metallic chromogenic photographs), so I put them inside a cute frame or magnet frame for your fridge and sell them for a small profit. They donāt last for a long time, but theyāre cute āthrow away artā and affordable (selling the magnets for 2 bucks each, or a little under double what I put into them). I have āthrow away artā and good giclee art. The throw away art runs under ten bucks. The giclees start from ten bucks and go up from there, depending on the size.
My current goals include signing up for swamp meets, flea markets, anything with the word āvendor fairā in it. If itās a city event, find out how to get listed as a vendor. Youāll probably have to submit your product for review, be confident!
For the giclee prints, I am still working on how to market those. Giclee prints are art industry standard printing methods, and itās expensive. I just get one or two printed out at a time, smallish sized, and then I stick it in a simple frame. Theyāre supposed to last for decades without fading. Theyāre on special, archival, bumpy paper that absorbs the special, archival ink the best. So, I just spent 15 bucks on a smallish giclee of an abstract painting (shipping included). I will now put it into a frame I bought in bulk quality for 24 bucks on ebay and sell it for 22-26 dollars. Iām still working on pricing. Basically, I take the price of the giclee, add the cost of shipping the giclee, add a studio fee (ranges between 2 dollars to 6 dollars, depending on how good the art is and how much time I spent with it) and then add any other fees (i.e. a fraction of the modelās fee or special materials fee whatever, thatās unusual for me and I havenāt done that yet). I havenāt sold a giclee, but I technically only have two for sale.
DO NOT sell photos as āart printsā because theyāre a) just photos that fade and b) not considered a real print and c) your customer will get mad. DO mention that theyāre just photographs (I recommend metallic chromogenic photos, since they look cool) and put them inside something like a fridge magnet, key chain, or something else that adds value to a photograph.I still have to see how the magnets hold up, so Iām selling them really cheap at only 2 bucks a piece for a wallet sized magnet. I might leave one out in the sun to see how fast they fade.
Must emphasize these points:
find a reliable printer with good archival inks and good printers
save up a little bit to invest in starting an inventory. I spent like fifty bucks on a tiny inventory, but Iām not spending more until I get my money back.
Donāt sell anything that you printed on your printer. There are good printers out there whose job it is to make high quality photos and giclee fine art prints, trust them.
Look into stickers, I think your graffiti style would sell really good with stickers, especially!
download picassa, a free photoshop that lets you add contrast, color tints, cropping, straightening to a photo.
Start taking photos of your work as professionally as you can. I use a 16 megapixel camera, but I want to take it to a professional photographer at a later time. A good giclee needs a good photograph to be replicated from.
Spend time shooting your art from different angles, in different lights, with different settings. Iām still working on this part. Just ordered a light diffuser box (itās like a little fabric tent for your painting that makes photos look better).
Keep your eyes open for city art events, city vendor events, and city galleries. You never know, maybe a real gallery will love your work and then poof you get a monthly stipend!
Other things Iām looking into putting my art on: custom mouse pads, bookmarks, collectible cards, mugs, tank tops, paper wallets, vinyl wall decals
These ideas are all that Iāve come up with, but if I can think of something else, I will post it!!! Iām still working on making this real side job, but at the art venue this week, the owner wanted to buy the original painting I did (I got nervous and said it wasnāt for sale. 
)
Links::
giclee art prints and greeting cards that I am looking into paying for instead of going to kinkos for greeting cards:
Custom sticker shop:
https://www.stickeryou.com/2
Giclee art prints and cool metallic photographs for expensive and cheap āthrow away artā
*this is the one I use and Iām happy with the results, so far)
Custom gaming mouses (sell it for like 18 or 20 to get your money back, kind of pricey, so maybe sell those online?? bigger market):
http://www.inkedgaming.com/products/custom-gaming-pad
Iām not selling online yet. I DO have a facebook page with a professional name, a tumblr account, a deviantart account, and I always make little videos of me making art and posting that in case anyone is curious. I have a Sony handy cam and a tripod. I set it up and draw in front of it. Later, I put the videos on my computer and use a cheap Sony Vegas editing software (price about 60 bucks) to edit the hour into like a three -five minute video where I create the art. Then, I post it on vimeo or facebook or wherever. Itās not for money, just for publicity and to get people interested.
If I do sell online, look into shopify (Thanks, got that idea HERE!!), paypal Here business for receiving payments (get their free credit card reader if you can), and maybe ebay. Be careful to always treat customers with respect, even if theyāre major jerks, and know that even happy customers might not come back and itās not your fault. Have a refund policy, an exchange policy, an inventory to start off, and keep track of how much you spend, how much you earned! I just use microsoft word for now. KEEP ALL YOUR RECEIPTS for IRS purposes!
That reminds me, this art side job all started back in 2012 when I signed up for free for an IRS tax ID on the IRSās website. I now have a formally documented business name/tax id, and it came in handy since both paypal here and facebook pages demanded my tax id to āverifyā me!!
Eeeks I wrote a novel sorry. BEST OF LUCK TO YOU @Reggie!!
