Category: art

Confessions of an Artist Part 2

Last week in the first post of the “Confessions” series, we talked about how a major common mistake of artists is to be discouraged by friends, family, and others. I received so many heartfelt responses from all of you, many who have also experienced similar challenges and I wanted to say how inspiring it was to know that we are not alone. We cannot underestimate the power of a simple vote of confidence. Inspire yourself and inspire one another.

This week, I’d like to talk about another common mistake I think many of us make: comfort zones. Or more specifically, not leaving our comfort zones.

In the last Confessions post, I talked about how sometimes college made me inject themes into my work that I did not feel were ‘me’. At the time, I really hated abstract art and thought of it as overpriced pieces of dribble made by people who could plop giant red dots on canvas, price it at a bajillion dollars, and call it art. Though I may express some bitterness over my college years, I can’t emphasize enough how this dissension and frustration was essential to making me a better artist.

I remember a conversation I had with one of my favorite art teachers at my college who constantly challenged me to ‘think outside the box’. I was working on a series of paintings to depict a dream sequence and instead of using figures, she challenged me to draw myself as an abstract shape.

“Why?” I asked. “No one will get that. I don’t get the point of that.” I ranted and raved and argued with that particular teacher so many times about why I thought abstraction was pointless and how I really loathed opaque painting. I missed my faithful color pencils and pens and my beloved tight detail. Now, I was forced into switching thinking modes, collaging leaves, and painting with less controllable media. All was chaos and new and I hated every minute of it back then. I went to bed angry and woke up frustrated.


It was not until I threw my arms in the air and decided that getting even was better than getting angry. I endeavored to make the most obscure abstract paintings I could. I threw myself into an effort to purposefully do the weirdest things I could think of with burnt paper, mod podge, broken glass, and mixed media. And somewhere along the line, I found I began to like it. I began to realize the reasoning behind some abstract artists where the process became more expressive than the final image, or that atmosphere was sometimes more jarring than an identifiable subject.

In the end, I left college with a successful senior exhibition that would not have been as immersive as it was if not for my teachers pushing me to get out of my comfort zone and try new things. I was able to combine sculpture work with paintings and mixed media in a truly strange dreamlike atmosphere that I would not have been able to achieve otherwise.

The most important thing I learned from these experiences at college was that every media has a life of its own and an asset it can add to a painting. Using and experimenting with various media is the only way to learn what works for you, personally, and how best to achieve the vision in your mind’s eye. If you never experiment, you will never grow. If you never challenge yourself, you will never improve.

Today, I find myself drifting back to color pencils and ink, but the years in school being ‘forced’ to experiment have given me a bravery in trying new things I never would have had before. Color Pencils and Ink have been happily joined by Watercolor and Digital in my repertoire.

To be sure, there are still comfort zones I need to venture out of. I do admit a propensity for drawing people over animals and for using traditional media. I’ve found I am particularly enjoying drawing birds and feathers recently and plan to one day revisit my obsession with drawing Siamese cats that I had when I was young. I also want to learn how to use oil paints and mix my own tempera like the Old Masters of yore. Ceramic molds have also been calling my name again as well. The search for an adequate kiln in my rustic town has yet to begin.

So much to explore, so little time!

Now it’s your turn. What do you wish you had experimented more with? What comfort zones have you been afraid to leave? Share and share alike.

Confessions of an Artist – Part 1

As I enter the current round of trials in my life where I seek to find a way to organize myself professionally and to push my artwork to the next level, I’ve realized there were a few things I wish I could have done differently in the past or that I wish I had received proper advice on. I’ve made some mistakes and I feel that sharing some of them might help others, which has thus begun the first of what I hope to be a series of “Confessions of an Artist” so that hopefully someone might avoid the mistakes I made, or at least be able to face their own challenges with some sort of advice in mind.

As an artist, I’m still growing and still expanding my horizons so it’s not my intention to speak down to you as if I have already learned everything there is to learn. More than likely, I’ll keep making mistakes and learning new things as this wonderful world of art evolves.

My Confession of Discouragement

This is the biggest mistake I have ever made. Moreso than a mistake, it was an attitude I nourished early on in my life when I was in high school. I got a failing grade on my AP Art portfolio and despite my love of the arts, I let other people, including my parents, talk me out of trying for scholarships to attend art school.

“You’ll never be able to feed yourself as an artist.” Everyone intoned unanimously. “Art school is just a waste of money!”

I tried not to listen, but when you are young and reliant on your parents for college funding, you tend to go with what they want for you. And so instead of even trying for those scholarships, I went to a state school to earn a degree in English so that I might one day teach school and be able to afford to feed myself. That is not to say that teaching is not a noble profession and that I won’t someday do it, but I’ve always felt my fate lay elsewhere in more business-related ventures.

The more college classes I took, the more I started leaning towards art, art education, and business courses which soon pushed my education past the 4 year mark. By the end of it all, I had a double major in Art and English, a partial minor in Business Information Systems and far too many years of school under my belt. I regret my indecision and how much time I wasted as an unfocused student in a fine arts program that taught me next to nothing about commercial illustration, the field I was truly interested in. I must not be too harsh on these years in my life, however, for I learned many skills and met so many wonderfully talented students and professors at my college. My life would not be the same without having attended the college that I did and meeting the inspirational people that have entered my life since.

It was not until I worked through my lump of doubt after 7 years of undergraduate school that I bit the bullet, applied for a scholarship to the Savannah College of Art & Design, and managed to somehow obtain a significant fellowship, without which I would never have been able to afford graduate school. It showed me that it can be done, if I tried hard enough, and kept on trying. I only wished I had tried earlier. Now as a graduate of a Masters program, I’ve only just now begun to accept the mistakes I’ve made in my earlier decision making and have learned to move forward with my art career, a career which you are destined to fail at if you are not determined.

I am driven by the thought of “What if I had tried for those scholarships earlier? What if I just take the safe route and get a 9-5 job with my own cozy cubicle?” Sometimes the answers to these questions still terrify me…

My parents, and most parents, are right to worry about those of us with a twinkle in our eye and an itch in our palms to be artists. It is not an easy profession. You will most likely starve for your first few years until you are more well established. Only the most organized and driven of artists get jobs right off the bat. The competition for art jobs is massively high with more qualified candidates in existence than there are jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. To survive, one must be driven to improve, organized in their finances, and willing to work more than 40 hours a week starting off in most cases, particularly in the illustration field where you must meet serious deadlines.

The most common mistake I see in younger artists is that they think to themselves “Hey I like to draw. It’s fun. I should be an artist!” They give no real thought to how they can unite their love of art with a marketable format. This is a mistake of mine as well that led to much discouragement with the fine arts program at my college because I just could not find a gallery which would accept my kind of work. I felt like I was playing myself false…trying to inject themes into my work that would make me appeal to a wider “fine art gallery” audience when my heart lay elsewhere in more literal illustration. It did not even occur to me that someone COULD make money off of fantasy and book illustration until much later on. There were more options than the gallery (especially with the advent of new internet technologies) and I believe that to be a major discouragement for many artists going through traditional fine arts programs even today.

Even without the insistence of the gallery world, most young artists I know fail to even research what markets are out there that they might apply themselves to. Again, I cannot reference the GAG (Graphic Artists Guild) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics enough. Young artists, or even those who just feel lost, I encourage you to inform yourselves about your options. Art as a profession is not simply about drawing or painting. You must siphon your talents and skills to where they most suit your artistic drive. There are set designers, art directors, fashion designers, concept artists, scene designers, graphic designers, greeting card artists, and a whole multitude of specialized industries dealing with all facets of art. If you cannot reconcile the market with your work, you are merely pursuing a hobby, a personal pleasure, that will end up discouraging and frustrating you in the end if you try to make it your sole means of income.

Sometimes, even if you like to draw or paint, it is better not to pursue it as a profession if you find it impossible to push yourself to adapt to the demands of a business environment. And sometimes, this is okay. Some people are happier and more inspired without the expectations of business dealings hanging over their heads. That does not make them a failure and that does not make those of us who do business ‘sell outs’ ( a whole other rant there I’m saving for another entry).

In the end, all I can say is this.

Keep your eyes open, always work to improve yourself, research your options, expect to be driven hard and keep your head held high. There are artists who have become successful out there. They are not just random figures of serendipitous fate. They worked hard to be where they are now and they ignored those who told them that they couldn’t do it.

I wonder, how have you all faired? What mistakes have you made? And what have you learned from them?

My Confessional is always open.

Selling Yourself Short


I cannot count the times I have heard the following from fellow artists:

“Raise my prices?? But then no one will buy my work! I have to be competitive!”

“I just don’t think I’m good enough to charge more.”

“If I charge less, I’ll sell more!”

I have thought these things myself at one point in my education as an artist. After all, we all start at a level which is inevitably not as good as professional and well-established artists who are painting masterpieces in oil when we’re in class learning about the color wheel and the basics of line, shape, form, etc. When we decide to combine money with art in order to sell our work at this early point in our careers, we look around and decide that it’s better to sell ourselves and our work for cheaper because we think that’s all that people will pay for it.

This works for awhile, as people tend to pay that $25 for a character sketch or a portrait of their dog. It brings in a little extra money for pizza and art supplies. However, as an artist grows and enters the level that their work is taking more time, is of a consistent higher quality, and the artist decides that art is a career and not a hobby, they need to evolve past the point of accepting less. Artists, please get serious about your prices!

When you continue charging less for more, you not only undersell yourself, but make it harder for other artists to make a living and lower the standards and impression that customers have of artwork. This pattern of underselling is especially rampant in the community of fantasy art, my personal port of call. It seems the general attitude is that fantasy art is ‘cliche’ and therefore is not worth as much as fine art displayed in a museum or gallery.

Fellow Fantasy artists, I encourage you to fight this stereotype! Charge what you are worth! Show those who don’t know fantasy art just how talented and professional we can be.

No matter your genre, if you expect to be professional, this means acting professional and pricing professionally. Some may disagree with me and say that pricing competitively is the only way to sell, but when it comes to selling original work, I personally refuse to back down on charging what I’m worth unless I am really not proud of the piece. If I want to make a quick buck, that is what prints and ‘fluff’ pieces are for.

To be certain, it is smart to price your work to be fair for selling to a certain audience. For example, I would not charge more than $100 for a piece at a smaller anime convention, as the general attendee at an anime convention is in their teens, is still dependent on their parents, and is not independently wealthy. On the other hand, larger fantasy conventions tend to attract more eccentric audiences of all ages, including older independently wealthy fans, therefore it is easier to sell a higher priced item. These are just the trends, however! You never can predict when someone will buy a work if they connect with it. I had a person buy a framed print of mine for $80 at an anime convention, a truly surprising thing! This was a print of a piece of mine that hardly EVER sells anywhere else. I tend to fit the pieces to what sells at the convention, which means I will generally have less original work at anime cons, as they are naturally too high priced to sell there due to the fact that they are original paintings.

I myself am at the point where I have now stopped taking commissions unless they are near the prices suggested by the Graphic Artist’s Guild, the organization that sets the standards and ethical guidelines for professional artists. My prices are negotiable based on the budgets of the commissionee but I use the GAG guidelines as a reference point. I did this for many reasons, including the fact I no longer have time to charge less for commissions and also for the fact that the work turned out for these commissions, due to their underpriced nature, was decent, but not what I consider to be portfolio quality with the exception of a very select few. As an emerging professional, I need to pay more attention to building a successful portfolio with work that I have taken great time and care on. This time and care was cut short on my earlier commissions to help them be cost-effective, something which I find myself no longer willing and able to do.

In the end, we must temper competitiveness with fairness to ourselves and to our work. Foster an attitude of positivity and faith in your own talent and success. Be honest to yourself and never sell yourself short. Raise your prices as you develop and grow your talent so that others will not be dragged down by the expectations of buyers who see cheap prices for quality work.

It may be hard to do this at first, but you will be thankful in the future when you finally reach the point where you can be paid fairly and are considered a ‘professional’ in your field instead of yet another starving artist in need of a handout.