Be a Successful Artist

Being an artist provides a creative outlook. In order to be a successful artist you need to dedicate time, space, and passion to your art. Whether you plan to sell your art for profit or use it as a form of expression you can create inspiring works for others to enjoy.

Steps

Making an Inspiring Place to Work

1. Decide how much space you need. Depending on the type of art you’re creating, you might need an art studio the size of an entire room, or you may be able to just use the corner of a room. Think about the art you’ll be making before setting up your studio.
   • Jewelry making can be done in a smaller area with just a table.
   • Painting needs space for an easel and floors that are easily cleaned
   • Sculpture creating would need a larger area.
2. Find a place to make your art studio. Having a dedicated place to create your art can help your brain switch gears into creative time. Find a space in your home to dedicate as an art space.
   • A garage or basement make great art studio spaces.
   • Clear some space in the corner of a room to keep an easel or a craft table.
   • If you don’t have any space, you can just keep a filing cabinet filled with your art supplies in the kitchen and use the kitchen table to work.
3. Make an area for a gallery. You need a place to keep your work after it’s finished so it doesn’t get messed up. Create a mini gallery in your home studio to show off your finished work.
   • Use a blank wall to hang paintings on.
   • Keep shelves to display sculptures, small pictures, and pottery.
4. Organize your art supplies. Organization can help help keep your space clean and keep your mind focused on being creative. Use file cabinets, drawers, art caddies, pencil holders, bins, buckets and baskets to organize all of your supplies.
   • Use utensil dividers in drawers to organize small art items like pens, pencils, markers, and erasers.
   • Consider purchasing a rolling cart or caddy to hold all of your supplies.
   • File cabinets can make great organizers for different types of art paper.
5. Keep distractions out of your dedicated art space. It’s a good idea to keep food, drinks, and electronics like cell phones out of your art studio. Food and drinks can easily spill and mess up something you’ve been working on, so make sure you eat and drink outside of your art space. Electronics like cell phones can distract you from creating your art and interrupt your creative process.
6. Set the lighting in the room. It’s a good idea to have an art studio in a room with lots of natural light. Natural light creates a bright and airy atmosphere that will help get the creative juices flowing. Rooms with light colored walls also help brighten the room.
   • Add floor lamps to add more ambient light.
   • Install track lighting or spot lights to accent specific areas.
7. Add creative inspiration to your studio. Surround your studio with things that inspire you and get you thinking. This can be anything from pictures on the wall to comfy furniture.
   • Many artists like having their favorite music playing while they create so consider having a radio or music player in your studio.
   • Hang pictures of things that make you feel happy, relaxed and intrigued on your wall.
   • Keep a beanbag chair or a floor pillow in a corner for you to relax on and envision your art.
   • Put up motivational quotes on your wall or desk.
   • Make a vision board filled with magazine cut outs of inspiring things.

Learning Basic Art Concepts

1. Read books about the fundamentals of art. Check out books from your local library about the basic concepts of art. You can also buy books about art at your local bookstore or from garage sales to build a home library of references.
2. Learn about lines. Lines are the most basic concept of art, and used in every artistic creation. Lines can show movement, define when a shape ends, lead a viewer’s eyes in a certain direction, and do many more things. The different thickness of lines can also create different looks within an art piece. Understanding the different ways you can use a line in art will help you convey your vision.
3. Create different shapes. Shapes are created when lines connect. There are the basic, geometric shapes that we all learn in primary school like circle, square, triangle and rectangle, but there are also other shapes you need to learn about to create great art.
   • Organic, or free form, shapes are shapes that don’t seem to follow any rules. Unlike geometric shapes, organic shapes can’t use math to understand them. Shapes like an inkblot, a tree, or a cloud would be considered organic, free form shapes.
   • Positive shapes are the shapes of an object that lines have made.
   • Negative shapes are the shapes of the area around an object.
   • Static shapes are shapes that appear to be at rest.
   • Dynamic shapes are shapes that appear to be moving.
4. Understand form. Form refers to a shape that is 3 dimensional. This can be an actual 3D object like a sculpture, or a rendition of a 3D object in a drawing or painting. When creating form in a drawing or painting you need to understand highlights, midtones, and shadows, and how they work together to give a shape its form.
5. Learn the color theory. Color refers to the spectrum of light being reflected off of an object and into an eye. The color theory is made up of three parts that build upon each other, and understanding them will help you chooses the right colors to create your art.
   • Part one of the color theory is the color wheel. It'll takes the rainbow (Roy G BIV) and puts it in a wheel. The wheel is made up of the primary colors red, blue, and yellow and the secondary colors green, purple, and orange. The primary colors can be mixed to make the secondary colors. For example, red and blue mix to make purple.
   • Part two of the color theory is color values. Color values refer to the darkness or lightness of a color. These are referred to as tints or shades. You get different tints by adding small amounts of white to a color. You get different shades by adding small amounts of black to a color.
   • Part three of the color theory is color schemes. Color schemes are the ways different colors are put together to contrast or compliment each other. Using colors from a specific color scheme can make your art pleasing on the eyes.
6. Realize how space is used. Space is the area around, above, below, or within an object, and it is important to create space to give depth to your artwork. There are 6 ways to create space in two dimensional artwork like a drawing or painting.
   • Overlapping objects.
   • Placement of objects on the paper. Objects placed higher on the paper will appear further away.
   • Size of the objects. The smaller the object, the further away it will appear.
   • Detail of the objects. If you want an object to appear further away, it should have less detail.
   • Color and value. Objects that are further away should have lighter colors than objects appearing to be closer.
   • Perspective of the objects.

Sketching Your Ideas

1. Doodle with pencil and paper. Freely sketching on paper whatever comes to your mind is a great way to get your creative juices flowing. Drawing with pencil and paper whenever you have spare time will help you expand your artistic abilities.
   • Carry a notepad and paper with your wherever you are so you can sketch freely when you have any down time.
2. Explore your visions on paper first. If you have a vision of painting a canvas, creating a sculpture, or even sewing a shirt, you can sketch your ideas first to explore your ideas. This will help you create multiple options within your design concept.
3. Keep a sketchbook. If you make all of your sketches in the same sketchbook you can use it as a reference when looking for inspiration for your next piece. You can sketch in the same book every time, or you can keep a file cabinet or folder with your sketches in it.

Selling Your Art

1. Decide who your ideal audience is. Different art sells to a different demographic of people, so consider who you think will buy your art before trying to sell it. When you know who your demographic will be you can market your art for them to sell more of it.
   • Is your art geared towards kids or parents?
   • Do you create fine art that would best be sold in a gallery for art collectors?
   • Would your art sell best to the indie crowd at festivals?
2. Pick where to sell. There are many avenues to sell your art, so you need to pick one that will target your art’s demographic. You can try selling in a couple of different avenues and then decide which one your art sells best at.
   • Sell Your Art Online on websites like Etsy, Ebay, or Artpal.
   • Art festivals
   • Art galleries
   • Your own personal website
   • Garage sales
   • Local businesses
3. Promote your art. You need to market and promote your art to get it notice and create a buzz for sales to start happening. This is sometimes hard for an artist because it takes some business know how to accomplish it.
   • Promote yourself online. You can start a blog to promote your art that talks about your inspiration, your creative process, or art tips. You can also promote yourself on social media sites to gather a following.
   • Join your local art community. Most places have art communities that actively host events to promote art. By joining and volunteering with your local art community you will make contacts with people who can help you get your art noticed. This is also a good way to find people in the business to learn from.

Tips

• Surround yourself with people who support your artistic endeavors to keep a positive atmosphere around you.
• Keep your art studio free of distractions and carve out dedicated time to focus on creating your art.
• Learn about the medium you want to use. If you’re interested in creating sculptures, learn about all the different materials you can use to create one. If you would like to paint a canvas, research the different types of paint available to use.
• Make art a part of your daily life. Go to art museums, join art communities, and participate in art forums online to engulf yourself in art. If you make art a primary part of your life, you will find more inspiration to create great art.

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References

See also

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