Do we HAVE to Make Art That Sells?

with a side of can we JUST make art

A recent piece made inspired by some of my Morning Ink pages

I started writing a response to this article, by Signe Wohlfeil, and it got REALLY REALLY long, so I’ve turned it into my own article instead, because it got me thinking hard about some things I have been thinking hard about for a while.

I'll let you into my life so I can make art and money

Yes, it’s definitely possible to make a living from illustration

There are absolutely plenty of people who make a living from illustration. Illustration is one of the main (I would say) commercial applications for art. There are loads and loads and loads of publications and products and companies that need illustrations and illustrators. It is a very very valid career to choose. And I honestly don’t believe it’s necessary to jump through all (or any) of the social media hoops to have that career.¹

Do we have to become influencers to be successful illustrators?

I actually think that social media has made us feel like we SHOULD be able to do so via social media. I think it is often made us feel that we can ONLY be successful (and by successful I mean earning a COMFORTABLE living from it, rather than being FAMOUS). Social media has taught us shat social media is THE way for people to find us, whether art directors and other art commissioners, or the general public, buying art for themselves. Because we have seen creative influencers who have done extremely well this way. Because we have been taught (either in the MANY online classes, or just by what we see again and again and again) to show ourselves as though we are successful and continually earning money through these channels. We have been trained to shout about our book deals, our latest ‘collaboration’.²

But the trouble with that, is that it stops us from following the more traditional channels of finding such work. I don’t mean going up to London (or New York, or wherever) and traipsing round with your big portfolio (though maybe we actually should be doing that again, too). I mean working out what sort of work we want to be doing, researching who commissions that and getting in touch with them. Making work that is suitable for that purpose. Showing them how we can do this. Marketing ourselves using emails and postcards. Reaching out to the very specific and targeted people who need the illustration services that we can provide. Networking, where we can, with these people. Ideally in person.

Rather than throwing ever greater quantities of our art at the fickle algorithm monsters. Only for it to be fed into datasets to be regurgitated as a blurry soulless thing that will seem ‘cool’ and ‘fun’ and ‘enough’ to much of the general public.

If we want to be making that comfortable living from illustration in this day and age (when the landscape of social media is evolving at an even greater rate to before, and it was already pretty bloody fast), I think the answer might actually be to turn entirely away from social media.³ To put all of that extra time and effort and EMOTIONAL ENERGY (because boy does social media use a heck of a lot of that!) into (not to sound like a Tory soundbite) GOING BACK TO BASICS. I think it might be time to try to stop feeding those algorithms and start making our personal career recipes. Picking one or two areas of illustration to focus on and going all in. Making targeted portfolios or lookbooks. RESEARCHING the companies that need that type of illustration – including the small ones; big famous companies might be the dream, but they are unlikely to provide the sustainable regular income – and making really targeted pitches.

But do we want to make our living from illustrations?

And, on the other side of all of this, as well, is the issue that comes to me every year or two... Is this actually something we do want to do, especially those of us (like myself), who already have another career and are trying to pivot to making money from our art?

Fifteen to twenty years ago, I happily did my work⁴ and then I used art and creativity of varying kinds as my way to unwind. I got pleasure, mindfulness and a nice feeling of satisfaction. Sometimes I showed friends and family. But mostly it was just for me. I enjoyed making improvements in my skills. But I didn’t try especially hard. Because it was just for me. It was a pleasant, calming hobby. But I never considered it as anything other than a hobby.⁵

What social media did was to suddenly (it felt like suddenly) show me people doing similar things (at that point – and, let’s be honest here, now too – too a much much higher skill level) and earning their entire living from it. It also frequently (by the very nature of social media and the algorithms and expanding the reach of people who already have reach) showed people earning WAY MORE than a comfortable living from art. Oh! But what a dream! To Make Art That Sells.⁶ To do this beautiful, thrilling and fulfilling thing I had been doing and that gave me such calm and joy. And to have PEOPLE PAY ME for it!

And I went for it. I took ALL THE CLASSES. I drew and I drew and I learnt about colour and pattern design and I learnt about composition and picture books and all the markets for illustrations and patterns and decorative art. And I learnt about editorial illustration. And I followed illustrators and pattern designers. And I made many many friends with people in classes and groups. And I drew and I drew. And I bought an Surface and then a Surface Book and then a Wacom and then an iPad. And I drew and I drew. And I made pictures and patterns for people and they paid me money. Sometimes teeny tiny bits of money. Sometimes big chunks of money.

And all that time, while I was drawing and drawing, I was sharing it all on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, on Pinterest. I was taking classes to teach me how to GET MORE FOLLOWERS. Classes on what hashtags to use. Classes on what times to post. Classes on what and how much to write. Classes on how to BE AUTHENTIC – in the way that would GET MORE FOLLOWERS (not how to actually be authentic). Because social media was where art directors found new illustrators. Everyone said so. All the successful people were ‘found’ on Instagram. All the people with massive follower numbers, got more successful, and got more followers, and made money from the social networks as well as from the people commissioning them. They released prints that cost three figures and sold out limited editions in seconds. So I took more classes and joined memberships and learnt more and more about trends and how to pick the right one. And social media showed me more people and different people making money in new ways. So I took more classes.

And making art stopped being about finding calm and peace and joy. It became all about speed and producing ever more NEW ART, NEW things to share. And doing so faster and faster. It became about making the exact right art to fit the exact right trend that would GO VIRAL and show me to all those art directors out in the ether, who would see me and contact me with an AMAZING PROJECT that would pay HUGE FIGURES that would mean I could stop my other work and just be able to afford to SIT AND DRAW.

My Morning Ink practice continues to be wonderful.

Morning Ink and the 100 Day Project

I love that it is the (pretty much – I am actually trying to switch to do yoga first, because I need movement first thing) first thing I do every day. I get lost in whatever is calling out to me at the time (currently it seems to be a lot of drawing little decorative tiles, quite a few flowers and cats on almost every page, but next week, or next month it might be animals, or kids, or airplanes or men with beards and buns, or insects, or a mixture of all of those things). I love drawing them. I love flicking through the growing pile of full sketchbooks seeing how the days progressed and what I was drawing then.

I do also enjoy sharing them in Substack Notes. And, yes, I do enjoy the likes and the comments. That’s almost certainly a hangover from the social media decades, but it’s also an element of connection and I do think art comes into its own when it is shared in some way. The other day I realised that, actually, very few people are seeing these, and had a momentary panic about that. I thought maybe I should upload them all to my dormant Sketchbook Instagram account and start sharing them there at the same time as I do on Notes. I thought maybe I should share them to Bluesky. Maybe I need to create a page on my website to post them (that might actually be a good idea). Because I NEED more people to see them.

But I DON’T need anyone to see them, except me. If I use them to produce other work (which I have done a fair bit) then that’s what people NEED to see. It’s fine if people do see them and it’s fine to keep using Substack Notes to provide my accountability. But they are made FOR ME and they are made for the most part as a mindful, calming, day-setting, creative, joyful exercise. And not with any specific commercial purpose in mind.

And they will stay and be done every morning whatever season of work I am in. In this particular season, it is quite busy, and all educational publishing and mostly development editing. And that is absolutely fine. I am happy to live with that being the only thing I create on any given day. Or it being the first thing I create and working on something more defined in the evening. Or it being the first thing I create and working on a whole bunch of other illustration work throughout the day. I have realised that I would actually be happy with it being the only thing I create every day for a whole year or two years.

But I don’t think it WILL be the only thing I create for that long. Not remotely.

I DO still want illustration and pattern design and writing to one day be what earns me a comfortable living. So when I am in a busy OTHER WORK season, I will think about and make notes about, and even draw, new pieces. And I will think about and make notes about, and even implement, new marketing ideas, to get my work before the art directors and other people who would find my work useful. WHEN I have the physical time and also the emotional energy. When I don’t, it will absolutely be enough for me to keep my daily practice going and to share it for those who happen to like it showing up in their Substack Notes feed.

Because we don’t HAVE to make art that sells. We can JUST make art. If that’s what works for us.

By the way, if you would like to help my art make me some money, please feel free to share this article and my publication or to recommend me, or to upgrade to paid (take out a paid subscription today and I will send you out a zine-like mini booklet IN THE POST on the first of next month) or visit my website and follow the links to places where you can buy my work or products with my work on.

1. Caveat that I do not make all my living from illustration and/or pattern design. Sometimes I make some of it. Some weeks or months I make most of it. It has never ever provided my only or even main income. But I do believe it can.

2. When did jobs or projects become ‘collaborations’? That’s social media again.

3. Don’t worry, I’m not including Substack in that quite yet.

4. Working, freelance, for educational publishers, editing, typesetting, designing, project managing – and, actually, sometimes illustrating.

5. There actually was a brief moment, in my teenage years, when a friend who worked part-time in a local gift shop said that the pattern-filled cards I made for friends and the doodles and hand-lettering I covered my exercise books with, would totally and utterly sell and I should get some printed. There was a brief moment there when I considered the fact that this lovely pleasurable activity could actually be a career. But only a moment. Because I was set on going into a publishing.

6. With apologies to

Beth Kempton

and

Lilla Rogers

, whose courses were one of the first ones I took and from which I gained a vast amount. I am not criticising, or even regretting these courses, at all.