Can I make decent money selling drawings online?

[sean83]

Do you think it is possible I can make decent money selling drawings online? i've been trying to figure out things that i'm good at, and the only thing i'm good at is doing potrait drawings of people and animals. Do you think theres anyway I could make money of this?

Thanks Anyone

[juicemcnewton]

I think you can do that. For instance if you were on a site like myspace or if you got ahold of anyones picture. But the main problem here is that you need to be REALLY good. Now I'm a talented artist, everyone I know says so, but even just when I went to college I saw guys that blew my art out of the water. And that's just locally. In a place as gigantic as the internet, art is one of those things that you need to be REALLY one of the best at (ok maybe not the best, but top tier) to make anykind of living.

The term starving artist does come to mind

On the other hand, drawing is basically free and if it's what you really enjoy then go for it. Worst case you sell a few drawings for 1 cent and improve your artistic abilities.

Of course for the actual question, I'd say build a website. Maybe you could even combine your gallery with a blog, but seriously, so many people are such good artists... To make money from drawing alone online, you'd need to be very very good in my opinion. Got any sample work?

[sean83]

Originally Posted by juicemcnewton

I think you can do that. For instance if you were on a site like myspace or if you got ahold of anyones picture. But the main problem here is that you need to be REALLY good. Now I'm a talented artist, everyone I know says so, but even just when I went to college I saw guys that blew my art out of the water. And that's just locally. In a place as gigantic as the internet, art is one of those things that you need to be REALLY one of the best at (ok maybe not the best, but top tier) to make anykind of living.

The term starving artist does come to mind

On the other hand, drawing is basically free and if it's what you really enjoy then go for it. Worst case you sell a few drawings for 1 cent and improve your artistic abilities.

Of course for the actual question, I'd say build a website. Maybe you could even combine your gallery with a blog, but seriously, so many people are such good artists... To make money from drawing alone online, you'd need to be very very good in my opinion. Got any sample work?

The idea came to me when I met a guy who said he made lots of money from his hobbies, he said made money from, poetry, djing, skateboarding and breakdancing. And appartently he had made almost £100,000 from all those things combined, but surely he can't be the best at everything in all of those fields.

I was thinking of maybe my art work could be sold as abit of income, not as main stream of income, more or less like abit of pocket money while I could find other ways of making money on top of that. I do kind of agree with your point about there being tons of much more talented artist out there, but I think that probably the same with most things.

I was thinking maybe the internet was so big, that somebody out their would probably like my artwork as there would millions of people that I would have the opportunity to show it to.

Anyway here is a sample of my work, its a quick sketch I did with a red biro pen, I did about five year ago, that I put towards my portfolio to get into art college.

[GuerillaInternetMarketing]

Do some research on others doing this on Ebay. There is a whole category called 'Self representing artists' that are promoting and selling their own work. I for one have bought many pieces through this channel.

Best of luck!

[Brutha]

If you want to sell art on the internet you need to be good at marketing.

Take someone like Steve, if he would paint something and wanted to sell it on this site he would get money, even while he doesn't has incredible art skills.
He has an audience.

Take someone like xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe .
He sells art and make a bit of money with it. Dilbert comes also to mind.

[juicemcnewton]

I agree about the marketing, but if he's selling only art, his audience would have to be an art audience I guess. I just mean that not many people actually BUY drawings/sketches. Of the people that do, they're generally already in some type of community (deviantart for example). Simply sketches however you probably will make some type of money, if you're not looking to survive off of it, then I say go for it. What's the worst that could happen. Especially if you're already drawing in your free time anyways.

I like your drawing btw. Brutha brought up Dilbert, maybe you could take the drawings one more step and create some type of comic or graphic novel. Hell, this is the internet, you can pretty much make crazy combinations.

What are your ideas so far Sean?

As I said I'm a budding artist, so that's why I'm 'drawn' to your situation I guess

[sjpeer]

I do think you could make money online. The key is having patience and scheduling time to take consistent action. I'm currently participating in the Thirty Day Challenge which is a free program that shows you how to make money online. It's really been spot on so far. The goal is to teach you how to make your first $10 online in 30 days. Even though the challenge has already started, you can still download all the materials and follow along at your own pace.

It teaches you have to identify a niche and get traffic to your website. You may need to expand your horizons a little from just selling your art work to things like teaching others how to draw.

I disagree that you have to be the best artist. Beauty is subjective and you could find those who really love your art.

Good luck.

[InterfaceLeader]

It's actually easier to sell 'traditional' art offline than on. (By traditional I mean portraits, paintings, sketches etc.)

Check out your local art community. I knew one guy who only started drawing and painting two years ago, and now regularly sells large paintings for £4000+

Online, it's easier to sell stuff like anime and 'posters' and the like, and possibly commissioned sketches from photographs people send you. At least in my experience. It is definitely possible to make a living at, but I really would start with the local scene as you're competiting against far less people.

[aaronsalls]

While I draw and photoshop only as a hobby (although I have done some work for my university to promote some shows,) I do think you can make some money from this. Consider Jim Hsieh, who sells his digital art for like $400 a pop - and I intend to by some once I get my own place out of college.

But I think a great way to go now is definitely digital - photoshopping with a wacom tablet. If you haven't seen any of the speed paintings on youtube, check out YouTube - LOST - John Locke - Speed Painting by Nico Di Mattia or go to his site at www.speed-painting.com. You could probably make some money affiliating some art supplies or from adsense. But those are just a few ideas.

[Peter S C]

I have heard good things about a site called Etsy which is a place to buy and sell all things handmade. Check out my friend's site if you want to see an example of a simple "shop" someone can have for their art online.

[Gene]

Originally Posted by aaronsalls

But I think a great way to go now is definitely digital - photoshopping with a wacom tablet. If you haven't seen any of the speed paintings on youtube, check out YouTube - LOST - John Locke - Speed Painting by Nico Di Mattia or go to his site at www.speed-painting.com. You could probably make some money affiliating some art supplies or from adsense. But those are just a few ideas.

I find this video of drawing you refer to in your post simply amazing! If an artist would draw and then print using this I think it would be a fantastic tool.

[juicemcnewton]

Don't you love those speed drawings on youtube? I'm a spider-man fan, so look at the spider-man one... Maybe saying you need to be one of the best was taking things too far, but with competition like this running around...
I-... It's kinda scary.

[aaronsalls]

Don't be discouraged - starting is half the battle. I ran into this just this week when I was debating starting my blog. If I'd sat around thinking of the competition (say, shoemoney.com) then I'd never get anywhere. But by seeing the competition, you can get ideas and figure out how to differentiate yourself. While my blog is still a work in progress (read: major updates and content still to be fleshed out in the next week or so), I've already come up with some ideas of how to branch out and find my niche.

I say go for it - at best you'll find success, at worst you'll develop your art and marketing skills some to gear up for a second serious run.

[The David]

The term 'starving artist' certainly comes to mind. Then again, so does 'starving writer', and look at all the (financially) successful writers.

[juicemcnewton]

Maybe, but I think being good at drawing and writing useful information are completely different. While anybody can start a blog and write about a topic they know about, not anybody can pick up a pen/pencil/photoshop and produce an image that appeals to someone enough to get them to buy it.

To actually SELL things on your blog, you have to be good. But anybody can put up a site with content and throw ads on it. (even if you want to say that's a form of selling, imo online, writing a blog and selling drawings are incomparable.)

[andrew]

You can try to post them up at http://deviantart.com/ and see how that goes. You can also sell them there as well.

[Caveman Joe]

Sean, yes, you can. You certainly can - and to prove it, here's a website I built for a lady in Cumbria who takes commissions for animal portraits, and who makes enough money doing it to pay me a decent rate. Probably not your thing, but it shows what you can do if you focus on a particular area. To echo what aaronsalls said, you'll need to find some sort of niche or speciality, or you're just another general artist.

Hey, how about this: get friendly with some of the folks on writer's forums - especially the sorts of folks who are giving their stuff away online, a la fictionpress.com - and see if any of them would like illustrations doing! Do a few freebies to get your name out there, and then take commissions. Can't be that hard, eh?

Good luck, mate. Come and talk to me about a gallery site when you've made a bit of cash.

[1 4M M3]

Hi there i was just thinking the same, and just wanted to ask if it possible for me too? BTW....Im ummm 13 years old..

[reapwhatyousow]

Why not think outside the box a little...

YOu mention your friend skateboarding - got me thinking, why not set up a site doing custom skateboard graphic designs (pimpmydeck.com ), or how a bout's doing a few illustrations and submit them to threadless.com and see how they sell. How about contacting some musicians on myspace or soundcloud and offering to illustrate graphics for music releases - i know for definate there are LOADS of electronic music label that would pay someone to do every release for them for a consistent look across labels - might not be much, but would amount to something every time.

Why not do a set of really nice drawings and get them on flicker and subm,it to digg? Read the reaction in the comments this guy got when he did just that

Ghost in the Machine - a set on Flickr

Kerrrrching !

Loads you could be doing!!

[stewartM]

Gapingvoid | "Hugh MacLeod" Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards

Hugh's 'famous' in the blogging world, his cartoons sell, and his reputation is awesome, he has a niche, and he works it, if you can do the same then there's no reason that you can't make money at it...

[GhostGoat]

A good portrait artist can make a lot of money, once you have established a reputation.

I'm not sure whether or not the internet is the best way to market this sort of work; keep drawing, improving your skills, and build your portfolio, so you will be ready when you figure out the best way to market your work.

If you feel your work's already up to snuff, go ahead and post some and see how it goes. What have you got to lose? I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, so to speak, you should display your work at local art shows, get a booth at a local arts & craft fair, that sort of thing. Perhaps you could have some of your work hung up in a restaurant or coffee shop, and get some cards printed up to leave with them. There are many ways to get exposure for your art. Good luck!

[Mist]

Yes you can do it as a side project but do not expect to make a living out of that. The hard part is the beginning you really need some crucial marketing effort to establish a reputation.

[sirkinm]

Try Fiverr.com, where you can have people pay you 5 bucks to draw a pic (or anything else). There are many artists that literally have more work than they can handle - I know, because when I contacted one about making me a drawing, he told me the wait period would be several weeks.

[vartann]

Originally Posted by juicemcnewton

Maybe, but I think being good at drawing and writing useful information are completely different. While anybody can start a blog and write about a topic they know about, not anybody can pick up a pen/pencil/photoshop and produce an image that appeals to someone enough to get them to buy it.

To actually SELL things on your blog, you have to be good. But anybody can put up a site with content and throw ads on it. (even if you want to say that's a form of selling, imo online, writing a blog and selling drawings are incomparable.)

It is NOT different.

[ellie]

try Etsy - Your place to buy and sell all things handmade, vintage, and supplies the top illustrators sell quite a bit, but you really have to have an "in" style.