How To Run A Profitable Creative Business As A Multi-Talented Artist
Lately, my inbox has been flooded with messages from artists who are feeling overwhelmed and pulled in a million different directions with their art.
The question hanging in the air is, "How do you focus and turn your art into a sustainable career when you're interested in so many different things?"
I've wrestled with this question myself, so I understand. That's why I wanted to share my thoughts on this with you here.
I get it… You wake up full of ideas, eager to dive into a new digital painting, maybe try some collage, lino printing, or finally finish that watercolour you started last week.
But by the end of the day, you've dabbled in a bit of everything and completed nothing.
This is such a common scenario for many of us who love exploring different mediums and techniques.
While exploring various art forms is exciting and fulfilling, it can sometimes feel like you're just spinning your wheels and not making progress.
You might wonder if you'll ever be able to turn your passion into a profitable business, especially when you're constantly jumping from one project to another and your portfolio feels all over the place.
The good news is, that you can absolutely be multi-talented and profitable—it just takes a bit of strategy and focus. In fact, being multi-talented can be a huge advantage if done right.
I've taken some time to think about what has worked for me to find balance, and here are the steps that worked for me:
A Step-by-Step Guide to Balancing Creative Freedom & Business
Step 1: Understand Which Phase You Are In
Maybe I am a hopeless romantic, but I believe that most journeys worth taking start by looking inward. So, let’s take a moment to reflect on where you are in your creative journey.
I like to think about growing as an artist in two separate phases: the Exploration Phase and the Mastery Phase.
Exploration Phase: This is where you spend most of your creative time trying out lots of different mediums, techniques, and styles. It's about learning and discovering what resonates with you. In this phase, you learn more than you earn – but every skill you acquire here is an investment for the next phase.
Mastery Phase: This is when you focus on a specific path or vision for your work, honing your skills and developing a signature approach. You will never stop learning and exploring as a creative, but during the Mastery Phase, all the skills you gathered in the Exploration Phase will work as a strong foundation that allows you to still produce signature work reliably while you keep learning.
Are you in the Exploration Phase, where you're trying out different mediums and techniques? Or are you in the Mastery Phase, focusing on refining specific skills?
Knowing your phase helps you set realistic expectations for yourself and put into perspective the fact that if you aren't yet selling your work, you are making an investment in the future.
Step 2: Managing Expectations Vs. Reality On The Path To Mastery
It’s crucial to take a birds-eye view of the journey to mastering a skill and becoming proficient enough to make a living from it.
One way to see this is to look at the graph below.
In the beginning, when we learn a new skill, we don’t have massive expectations, and we might even learn really fast.
Think of learning how to speak a new language. You might get “Hello, how are you?” fairly fast, but after you introduce yourself and have to continue that conversation forward, it becomes exponentially harder.
And that’s where we often quit.
Whenever we learn a skill in art (or anything else), we get the beginner's high and feel good about ourselves. But then we get to a point where it gets much harder, and we often feel overwhelmed.
It’s at moments like these that we often go seeking something new, something easier, where we can get the good feelings again and the confidence that comes with it.
I’m just as guilty as the next person for doing this, we all do it.
The way to get past the quitting point is to stick by it no matter what, knowing that the hard time will eventually pass, and our confidence and skill will continue to build in the process.
Only when we do that can we start the mastery phase and really get to a point of earning a liveable income from those skills.
Give yourself some tough love and ask yourself:
Are you quitting a skill because you’re getting to the quitting point and getting overwhelmed?
Are you trying to juggle and learn all of those new skills because you’re passionate about them, or are you seeking a beginner's high?
Step 3: Create Boundaries to Set You Free
Painting by John Warwick Smith.
Being creative and having the constant urge to try new things is amazing.
That desire to see what happens and push yourself to try new things is what makes you an Artist.
But the truth is, we can live with our heads in the clouds only when we have our feet firmly planted on the ground. That means you need to grow a skill to a point where it is "good enough" to make a living.
So, you will eventually have to settle on something long enough to get proficient with it.
In the short term, that means you might need to sacrifice some interests to make progress in others.
I know it's not fun to hear…and I had to come to terms with it myself, but I've learned to see the short-term sacrifice as fuel for future freedom.
“Today’s discipline is tomorrow’s wings.”
If you play your cards right, you will eventually balance to a point where you have a strong foundation of skills, a steady income, AND plenty of time and resources to learn new things and play.
So, how do we set these boundaries without stifling our joy and creativity?
Step 4: Find Your Niche and Clarify Your Service
If there's one point I want you to take away from this entire email, its this: If you know who you are creating art for, and what service you provide to them, it doesn't matter how many different mediums or styles you use.
The first rule of making money in ANY kind of business is to ask yourself, "Who do I serve?"
If you are making art for fun right now, there is nothing wrong with that. Just remember that, in this case, you are actually offering a great service to yourself!
It’s true, that some people are lucky, and the things they create for themselves have huge appeal to buyers. But most of us have to find a sweet spot between what we love and what sells (that was me a few years ago).
Step 5: Work In Series To Create a Great Portfolio
The single most important action I took with my art to both find my style and help manage my impulse of constantly trying every new medium, style, and idea was forcing myself to work in series or collections.
A series is anything from 5 to 12+ paintings that share the same theme, mediums, and style.
They can tell a story or just be designed to complement each other, like a set of prints of cats as zodiac signs painted in red ink. Or coasters with different wildflowers etched in them... Anything you can think of that appeals to both you and your target audience.
This not only helps build your skills but also deepens your style and develops a consistent body of work.
By the end of your first series, you will have improved more than you would have if you had created the same number of stray art pieces.
You will also have created a "mini portfolio," which is more marketable, as collections are often more appealing to buyers and licensers.
The best part? After you finish the series, you can choose to stick with the style, tweak it, or try something completely different!
You can have it all once you’ve learned to find balance.
So never feel bad about your creativity, and remember, being a multi-talented creative is a gift.
With a bit of focus and strategy, you can turn your passion into profit without losing the joy of exploring new things.
Now it’s your turn! I want to gently encourage you to implement these steps and see how they transform your creative process. I'd love to hear how it goes for you!