When I was 15 I held my first art exhibition at the local library, this was during the Myspace days when all I was interested in was looking cool and going to gigs, a few years before the birth of Facebook. I paid £1 to hold the exhibition and made about £30 (I think!) selling 1 piece of work which I was over the moon with at the time. I carried on drawing regularly through school for a few more years until the debauchery of University life took hold.
After graduating from Uni and falling into various mundane call centre/office jobs, I decided to dust off the paint brushes again to re-ignite my passion for creating things and potentially some well needed money. I decided to hold a few more exhibitions at local Civic Centres and Libraries managing to sell a few more pieces, mainly to locals who were familiar with the places I was drawing. I learnt that people like seeing drawings of places they are familiar with and can feel a sense of nostalgia towards.
Circa 2013, Back when I was exhibiting more regularly
Like most who have had to earn a living working the 9-5, I’ve still never made much money off of selling my artwork. I put this down partly to do with lack of time and energy however I will admit I have also been lazy with my artwork. I gave up trying and was drawing a lot less, unmotivated with juggling an unfulfilling low paid job and creating art; spending most of my not-working time and money in pubs and bars.
I thought hard about how to get my work out there into the public eye so I set up a Facebook page for my work that I still use to this day (albeit less regularly). Facebook can be a great platform for getting your friends and family and “Facebook friends” to view, but how could I sell stuff? The audience isn’t the right one – there’s only so much you can ram down your “followers” necks before they start losing interest. What I needed was to connect with the general public and other artists to gain more interest, I needed to be a bit more savvy. Who is the audience? Why are they looking? Why are they following your page? Because you asked them to probably.
I tried Twitter briefly which was useful when interacting with other artists and taking part in online competitions, but still not the best for targeting potential buyers and long term followers, especially with the 140 character situation, in my opinion.
Instagram has been the platform I have been most successful on in terms of gathering a following that is genuinely interested in my work, probably due to the visualised format it works in. As you’re probably well aware the use of the hashtag is key to promoting your pictures on IG and many artists are on the platform sharing their work, which is inspirational and created a nice little community! I’ve managed to build up some genuine followers there and have marketed my website quite well in order to sell prints of my latest batch of illustrations. However it’s not quite enough in order to make any decent profit.
It’s not just about money though, many artist (including myself) want to connect with other artists online and share ideas. I’m still new to Steemit but what I really like about the platform is the ability to blog, inspire, share and connect with people while potentially make something on the side… it’s an exciting new concept and community that I can’t wait for artists to get their teeth into!
Thanks for reading and please share your comments and thoughts on the best platform for artists and if you think Steemit will take off for us!
Have a great day, keep sketching and sharing!
Peace
Urbanart88