Millions of people create art of some kind. A large number of people show their artwork at galleries, festivals, or other events. But there are a lot less people who sell pieces of their art on a regular basis. Art is not, of course, all about selling your work. In my opinion, if you create something in the realm of "art," you're an artist. You don't have to show it or sell it the way I see things. But there are lots of people who want to sell their paintings, drawings, prints,sculptures, songs, books or other works. Here are the basic things I did to sell about 50 large works in one year, and I did it while homeless, starting with $15 when I moved into the tent. Oh yeah, I didn't have a phone either, just a two year old laptop.
What do I mean by "large" or "major" pieces? Most of the drawings I sold are poster size, 18" X 24". My Sharpie technique is very time consuming, and these drawings take me, on average, about 35 to 45 hours each, to complete. I think a week's work is worthy of calling something a "major" piece. I'm not talking about 50 little sketches that take 20 minutes each. I don't know the exact number, but about 50 original pieces, about 40 of them took a week or more to finish, and the others were smaller, 8 to 15 hours of work each.
Here's what I did:
I built a following for my work with a blog and social media before I tried to sell art.
In the 1980's, I got into the weird little sport of BMX freestyle, trick riding on 20 inch bicycles. Along with spending time every day learning to do tricks on my BMX bike, I started a zine, and wound up working in the BMX and skateboard industries in Southern California. I worked for magazines, a newsletter, and worked on videos. Many years later, in 2008, I moved to North Carolina, and in the process, lost all my raw video footage I shot over the years, that I planned to make a BMX freestyle documentary out of some day. After that I started blogging, telling lots of weird little stories about what it was like in the early days of that sport. In the course of my BMX, and other blogs, I built a small but fairly loyal following for my BMX tales. Those were the people I initially tried to sell my artwork to.
For ideas and techniques on how to build a following using today's media platforms, I suggest books and YouTube videos by Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Guy Kawasaki, Mitch Joel, and singer Amanda Palmer as a good start.
I actually created reasonably good art (very original, technically pretty good)
My Sharpie marker, "scribble style" of drawing, was something that I started playing with in 2002, I worked out this technique and style in 2005, and I had been working with that technique from 2005 to 2017 to develop that style, and get good at it. Even so, I knew I had to draw different subject matter to really start selling my work.
I committed myself to the process of building a small business out of my artwork, no matter what it took, or how long it took
In my case, I've been drawing, sporadically, my whole life, but I never considered myself a visual artist. I was just a guy who drew pictures a lot as a kid, and now and then as an adult. But back in 2015, I was 49 years old, and living with my mom in a small apartment, in a small town, in North Carolina. I could not get hired for any job. The one thing that made me any money was selling one of my Sharpie drawings occasionally. For me, it wasn't some dream of, "Oh I want to be a famous artist!" It was me thinking, I can draw well enough to turn this into a small business, if I really work at it for a while. Simply making a living again, that was the idea. So I committed myself to making that happen, make a living with my artwork and writing. Period. There was no Plan B. Three years later, there still isn't.
A lot of people don't want me, or anyone, for that matter, to make a living as an artist. It's not "real work," they say. Hey, 140 applications for "real jobs" got me one call back, and a I got turned down for that fast food job for whatever reason (probably being too old, fat, and ugly). The "real job" thing wasn't working. So I'm creating my own job. For some reason that continues to piss a lot of people off. But another group of people, who aren't as uptight, are stoked on what I do.
I asked myself the simple, but powerful question, "What would I want to put on my wall?"
I got on the computer one night back in November 2015, and spent 2 1/2 or 3 hours looking at all kinds of art. I started with classic stuff, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Monet, Renoir, and all that. It doesn't do much for me. Sure, it's great art, but it doesn't get me excited. Neither does Picasso or most modern art. Then I started looking at graffiti pieces, which I love. I searched street art pieces, I love Banksy's stuff, Shepard Fairey's early stuff, Blek Le Rat, Swoon, and sarcastic stencil street pieces. I love the black and white Xerox art us zine makers were doing in the 1980's. I also looked at a lot of things most people don't consider "art," like skateboard graphics (Mark McKee's World Industries work is epic), BMX, skate, and surf sticker art, and bike/skate/surf T-shirt designs.
When it came down to it, I found a simple, stencil, street art piece of Bruce Lee's face. The martial artist/movie star was my first hero as a little kid, and someone I respected more the more I learned about him later. So I printed it out, blew the picture up, and transferred the basic image, and drew it in my own "scribble style." Then I taped it up on my wall. I knew I was on the right track, I needed to draw people, specifically, high contrast images with lots of shadows, of really interesting people.
I stepped up my art game, and worked hard to improve
I was mostly drawing, goofy, cartoonish aliens smoking cigarettes before I drew that Bruce Lee. They were funny, but not really worth selling. With the Bruce Lee drawing above, I moved into new subject matter, and I had to become a much better artist. I have been drawing people, mostly athletes and musicians, which seems like the same thing over and over. But nearly every drawing has some little, technical aspect that makes me step things up a bit. So I keep improving.
I used Facebook, and Facebook groups, to start selling my drawings
I did the Bruce Lee drawing, and a couple skateboard and BMX drawings, and I put them on Facebook, and in a couple FB groups, and asked if anyone wanted me to draw them something. I can't remember exactly, but within a week or two, I had someone ask me to do a drawing. Then came another one. I've been drawing consistently ever since, and selling nearly everything I draw.
I used Go Fund Me to set a public goal, which helped me find work
I set up a GoFundMe campaign, with a goal of $1,000, in early 2016. My initial idea was that I could get about $1,000 over 2 to 4 weeks, then I'd have the money to promote, by art supplies, and really get a small business going. As usual in life, things didn't go as planned. But I DID, eventually, reach my $1,000 goal. Basically, I drew 20 drawings over about four months, making about $250 a month. I was living with my mom, still, and most of the money I made was immediately "needed" by her for one financial crisis or another, that's the nature of her life (and part of why I left). But the GoFundMe campaign did two things: 1) I earned some income from actually selling artwork, on a continuing basis, and it was a easy way for people to pay me initially; and 2) I was able to draw, every single day, for about four months. I got into the routine of living as a working artist. That really changed things.
I actually did the the day to day work, drew the pictures, met my deadlines, and shipped out the work, on a continuous basis
Here's the key to being a "working artist." Working. I got up, day after day, and sat down and drew pictures. I learned how long it took to do things, and was able to set deadlines, and meet them, or come real close. I figured out how to pack and ship my drawings (poster tubes are pretty cheap and work well for drawings). Day after day, I simply did the work. If there was an issue, I contacted the person I was drawing for. I slowly began to build a reputation of doing pretty good work, it's in my completely original style, and I actually finish in a reasonable amount of time, and get the drawing to the customer.
It sounds basic, but all those little things really matter. In today's hyper-connected world, reputation is huge. These last few months, since landing in Richmond, Virginia, I've struggled with that, as I tried to keep working, while having to live completely on the streets and rebuild my life (yet again). I've strained some relationships because simply surviving a winter on the streets is really tough. Surviving winter on the streets AND trying to continue to build an art career, in a completely new city, is a ridiculous thing to try and pull off. But I keep plugging away at it.
I sold my work inexpensively, and still do, at this point, building my name and body of work, and getting original work into the hands (and on the walls) of lots of people before I start charging big prices
I sold some of my first 12" X 18" drawings for $20 or $25, and then 18" X 24" drawings for $50. Those early, large drawings were less detailed, and took me 18 to 22 hours each to draw. My drawings have slowly risen in price, and but they've become more detailed, and now take a lot longer to draw. For three years, through all kinds of crazy personal drama, I've made $2 to $4 an hour, on average, for the drawings I've done. Most artists (the ones who create a lot of work that doesn't sell), will often diss me and say I "don't respect my art enough," or that "I'm just giving my stuff away." I look at things differently.
A little over three years ago, I was in a miserable living situation where I was unable (for a variety of reasons), to make any kind of steady income. Now I'm homeless, living on the streets of a city I'd never been to before last August, sleeping outside much of the time in temperatures from 14 to 40 degrees at night. It's far from an ideal situation. BUT, I have a fucking HUGE body of work now. No one can take that away from me or say I'm some poser pretending to be an artist.
Go back and look at the 120 or so different drawings in the 23 blog posts before this one. You may not like my work, and that's fine. It's not for everyone. But you can't deny how much work I've done, and sold, in a little over three years. Most of those drawings took 30 to 45 hours, each, to draw. You can't say I'm a poser artist or a wannabe. You can say I'm a loser (many do), but not a wannabe. Pretty much every person I've done art for is actually happy with the drawings I've done for them. Everyone's told me they're happy, but a handful of drawings didn't come out as well as I wanted, or maybe weren't quite exactly what the person was expecting.
The phrase "selling artwork" has two words. You have to create the work, AND you have to sell it. Selling is a completely different skill set. Sales of any new thing is a process, there's an arc to it. If I could have given away 1,000 prints of some of my drawings, to get my name out, I would have. But I didn't have the resources to do that. An artist has to build their name, they have to get word out, they have to promote their work, like any other product. That's the "selling" part.
I sold over 100 drawings, for about half of minimum wage, for the time I put into them. But I now have my drawings on walls of houses and offices in North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, California, Texas, Kentucky, and in the U.K.. I have three drawings hanging up, in two galleries, here in Richmond's Arts District. My living situation is not what I want it to be, though I did see two bald eagles while walking to the bus stop this morning, which was really cool. Homelessness has its moments (not many, but some). But my name has been building. I have a big body of work out there. And I haven't even begun to promote here in Richmond's art scenes, let along around the rest of the U.S. or the world.
This Sumatran tiger drawing is hanging up in Workshop Gallery (420 W. Broad, Richmond), with a $350 price tag. It may not sell immediately. But it will sell eventually. A year or two from now, that tiger will, most likely, be worth $1,000 or more. My drawings were $25 in late 2015. My large drawings were $50 in early 2016. I sold drawings for $120 to $160 all through 2017, with a handful selling at a studio/gallery for $250. You know what? No one that bought a drawing for $50 is bummed that they cost $150 this past winter, or $350 going forward from here. While most people didn't buy my drawings for investments (a few people did), no one's complaining that they sell for more now.
I'll be going into these specific ideas, in more detail, and a lot more ideas about making art, selling art, the creative process, and how creativity is a key part of the world 's economy, in future blog posts. Hope you liked this post, there are a lot more to come.
You've found my blog, here's more:
Facebook - Steve Emig (in Richmond, VA)
FB Fan Page - Steve Emig The White Bear
Instagram - @steveemig43 #sharpiescribblestyle
Twitter - @steveemig43 (I've ignored Twitter til now, starting to tweet soon, though)
Pinterest - Steve Emig - (stevenemig13) GUYS- Pinterest is cool for dudes, really.
Email - stevenemig13@gmail.com (Best way to contact me, I never answer my new phone, yet)
#sharpiescribblestyle
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