How You Can Become a Professional Artist

Artistic expression is one of the most fundamental pastimes that has pervaded human history. Artistic hobbies have numerous benefits for the human psyche, and creative careers are highly sought after. Thanks to the internet, pursuing a career creating works of art has never been more accessible, but it’s still not easy to get yourself the job of your dreams. Getting paid to do you what you love will require a major commitment and some planning. Here’s what you need to know.

Build a Portfolio

The most important way that you can build toward a creative career is to build a portfolio of your work. This will give your potential employers or clients a reference for your skill level, something that will help to convince them that you are the person for the job. However, your portfolio will also need to be packed with quality work, and that means that you’ll need to put in the time to develop your skills to a satisfactory degree, as well. Otherwise, your portfolio may be the reason that you’re passed over in favor of another candidate. The best of both worlds is working on commission when and if you can swing it. For example, an amateur photographer can often find gigs working as a wedding photographer, taking pictures of couples with their engagement rings and capturing moving moments from the wedding ceremony in earnest. By doing this kind of work, you can get a feel for working with clients while also building a portfolio and honing your craft.

Targeted Practice

One of the most common weaknesses for artists is the over reliance on crutches and the inability to adapt their work to new styles. This in turn prevents overall growth. For example, an illustrator may forgo investing their time into studying more realistic art styles because they “don’t need it” for their own work. However, even simpler art styles benefit tremendously from learning how to replicate how things actually look. For an artist to thrive as a professional creator, they’ll need to pull out all the stops to improve, and that means that they’ll need to identify their strengths and weaknesses and invest a tremendous amount of time addressing those weaknesses. Many big name artists have gone on record as saying that being self taught was a hurdle that eventually needed to be overcome in order for them to become the success that they are, and targeted practice is an integral part of undoing your bad habits and improving on the whole.

Social Media

Social media is perhaps the primary reason that creative careers have become so accessible to the masses, because various social media platforms have given amateur creators the tools with which to build a following and find work. For starters, platforms like Instagram can be a great place to curate your portfolio in a way that you can passively share with other social media users, as well as recommend it to potential employers or clients when a printed portfolio isn’t an option. Social media marketing has become an integral part of marking for both corporate entities and freelancers alike, because it enables a form of marketing that is totally free in terms of both funding and consequences. By simply posting regularly on social media, you will necessarily accrue some followers here and there, and SEO best practices can help you accrue many more followers. Social media will also be a great resource for making connections and finding clients, both of which will contribute to your odds of success making your hobby into a career.

Thanks to the internet, many amateur artists itching to become something more finally have an outlet that can help them do so on their own terms. However, a common mistake is thinking that tools like social media can make becoming a professional creative easy. It will still take a lot of work, and these tips will help you beat the odds.