How To Be An Artist : Huge Hacks to Kickstart in 2021

“True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist”, says Albert Einstein.

It’s never too late to invest in your career and do something you love doing. But a career in art or to be an artist is not happening overnight. Becoming an artist takes determination, hard work, a deep connection with nature and a perspective of finding art and creativity in just anything! While some people are born with artistic and spatial abilities.

On the other hand, some have to study to be fluent in the language of art. For the ones who are looking to go into an artistic field here are some useful step-by-step tips that will help them find the right direction and platform, to begin with.

1. Select From Different Art Mediums

If you have never spent too much time on creating art then a field of an artist can be a little daunting. The truth is everyone is an artist and they just need a little polishing so that they can express their creativity to the fullest! Every artisan has its own medium and style of expressing creativity and choosing the medium can be a little difficult. An” art medium” refers to the material used in creating a piece of art.

A piece of art can be made by either one or more than one mediums. Finding the medium in which you might excel is not an easy task, you need to give yourself time to experiment with different types of mediums. So what are the basic types of mediums?

A). Drawing

This medium can range from the most basic sketches to intricate architectural designs. Drawings are generally created by a pencil, pen, charcoal, crayons, paints, etc. you can draw either by placing an object in front of you or either by the images out of your imagination

B). Painting

This medium uses paintbrushes to create both real-life and imagined images with paint. Where pigments are held together with a brush. There are many kinds of paints available like acrylic paints, matte paints, watercolors, tempera, gloss paints, and oil paints.

Painting often delves into an abstract a painting made in red and purple hues might be a representation of a feeling such as love that the writer was feeling while he/she was feeling when he/she worked But once you have tried all types of art mediums, decide which ones you are stronger at and which medium you enjoy working with most. So keep looking!

2. Takeup A Course

You don’t have to necessarily give 4-5 years into an art school to develop your skills to be an artist. Rather take up a short course or visit art workshops. This will bolster your strengths and improve your weaknesses taking up a course will give you the required knowledge as knowledge will give you the power to make the right decision at the right time, knowledge of what to buy and when to buy is something of great value to the art collector, understanding different types of art paintings.

Styles, competition and the market will surely help you more in your art career. However, your research on the internet on where what and when you would like to take up the course. You can refer to a few of the links to their short and interesting art courses:

3. Read And Know About The Famous Artists And Blogs

Explore your knowledge of what’s happening in your desired field by signing up for newsletters, reading industry trades and searching for the famous artisans. You can keep u with the daily industry news at ArtsJournal or other blogs like hyperallergic, Indian art newsletter, artzolo, the Engrave blog and many more. Subscribing to these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire and empower their readers with frequent updates to the high-quality information.

Plus you can follow and get inspired by the famous artisans and their famous works of all time. Artists like M.F Hussein, Leonardo da Vinci, Syed Haider Raza, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent Van Gogh. You can go through this list of 14 best artbooks for art lovers. Following these revolutionary and self-taught artists will highly inspire and broaden your horizons you in your art career and will also help you in understanding art from ancient times and how it has changed from time to time.

4. Visit Art Studios Or Galleries

Another way to see what other artists are creating in your medium and style is by visiting art galleries in your area. Art galleries are great places to meet people and see other artists work. Open up your mind about what you are looking for in an art painting. In addition to this art galleries will help you to connect with other artisans. Art galleries will inspire you to try new techniques and plus will keep you updated with the new and different styles used by another artist. So never underestimate the advantages of art galleries as they help you a lot!

5. Study With A Mentor

Mentors are an invaluable resource for artists. Mentors are those people who have been down this road in the past and who have learned from their old mistakes A good mentor is experienced, confident in his/her abilities and far along in his/her career. Some mentors start off as tutors, and others are just good-hearted friends.

A good mentor will offer you constructive criticism, helpful advice, and a listening ear. You can work with your mentor to polish your skills, techniques, and styles but the best contribution a mentor can do is to give you the advice you about going into business as an artist. Setting rates, handling clients, managing finances and other aspects of being an artist can all be challenging as a beginner. Learning from your mentor will give you a leg up as you find your way up as an artist

6. Create An Art Portfolio

The most curtail step to becoming an artist is creating a portfolio is very important. A portfolio will consist of the collection of your best work that you will show to the potential employers, clients, galleries, etc. a portfolio will be a reflection of how creative you are as an artisan. Only select the pieces you feel are the best artwork and could impress others.

7. Participating In Art Forums

Art forums have typically dual purpose- as an educational resource and a place to get answers to questions. For artists forums mean learning about art techniques, getting critiques, art promotion, etc . Most popular types of art forums are:

A). Deviant Art Forums

They are the largest and the most active forum for artists on the internet. All types of artists are welcome, though the majority on the site seems to be digital art, comic art, and manga. The deviant art forum is the best way of promoting art.

B). Wetcanvas Forums

The WetCanvas is a huge site made up of many subforums organized into channels. Set channels by using channels menu. There are specific forums dedicated to abstract art, acrylic, airbrush, art business, art history, clay, creativity, drawing, photography, and sculpting. In this, you will find lots of great advice for art techniques and promoting art

C). ArtistForum.com

ArtistForum currently has 344,580 members and 40,367 posts. Participate and these discussions organized by art practice, medium, and subject.

D). Singular Creation Forums

A singular creation is a combination of a portfolio site art community and artist resource website. They regularly list new contestants, hold their own monthly art contests and prize this forum is a great place to post new artworks, get critiques and to find tutorials on art techniques and art promotion.

8. Develop A Network

Networking is highly significant if you want to get known. Networking helps artists make contacts that can lead to sales, gigs and local exposure. Get active on social media, create your own blog or website and maintain consistency. Discusses topics like local art-related news, art shows and your personal experiences with art.

You can also Keep in touch with your competition, attend art and design conferences and workshops, make your own business card, join local networking groups, try freelancing, etc. all of these networking tips would help you to the network to your fullest potential.

9. Place To Showcase Your Artwork

Showcasing your work is the best promotion and the best way to get recognized as a new and fresh artisan! Find the place where you feel is the most crowded like the city center or famous market, where can set up a small workshop or a look book of your best artwork. You can also connect with the local art galleries and ask them if they allow you to showcase your piece. If they do it can be an “icing on the cake”!.

10. Learn to Run A Business

Till now you have learned to every possible step that will contribute to successful art career but all of the above steps will not keep any relevance if a person fails to impress people with his/her artwork and eventually fails to convert all of his treasured talents into money. Do you want this to happen? Of course not! So to prevent this learning to run a business is

important. So there are a few steps that will help you run a perfect business:

• Set Goals

As an artist you, you need to have short and long term goals. Common long term goals involve developing a steady client base, quitting a part-time job, earning from freelancing and so on the other hand short term goals should have deadlines and they must have to specify.

Your short term goals might increase your number of industry contacts, marketing your website, etc, establishing goals will prevent you from wasting your time in wandering. As you work on your goals re-evaluate your progression on a regular basis and make the needed amendments

• Create A Budget

Budgeting is highly important in managing a business. Many artists struggle to answer questions like am I making a profit?” am I enough charging my clients?”Are my prices appropriately competitive? And how can I make more money over time? The answer to this entire question is making a budget.

A budget can help to manage money efficiently and will also help determine how much money you are making in profit and whether or not you’re charging an appropriate amount for your time. If you are not that efficient in the account you can also hire an accountant to keep up with the money updates.

 

• Be Reliable

Many artists struggle to maintain open lines of communication with clients. Answering emails, updating progress, sticking to deadlines and giving advance notice about changes in scheduling or direction is an important part of keeping good relationships with the clients. Whenever possible, talk to your clients or customers on calls or in person. All this will help you in keeping a good relationship with your clients and will ensure you whether or not the clients will work with you in future

Conclusion

Well, I am pretty sure that you are clear enough with all the steps that might lead you to be an artist. You never know what might happen, if people would like your work they will obviously try to connect with the artist and lots of opportunities might come. So keep up with the good work and maintain consistency