I know a lot of you are new to selling your art online. And some of you have been at it for awhile but are still not satisfied. I wanted to take a moment today to share a little about me. A bit of personal information that I rarely share.
I started selling my work online 5 years ago. I started on eBay. My first painting I listed was ugly. Im not going to mince words. It just was. But someone bought it. At that time there was not much competition on eBay and people were buying out of the excitement of bidding and winning. It was great!
But within 6 month the competition became fierce. My work had improved, but that was not good enough. I had to paint more. Learn more. Perfect techniques and produce a steady stream of artwork just to stay afloat against eBay fees.
At one point I was painting 28 paintings a week. That is right. 4 paintings a day. I did this day in and day out for about 4 months.
I had days of extreme depression. I would cry while painting. Big tears of frustration running down my face while I painted. My husband begged me to stop. He said we didnt need the money that bad. He would find extra work so I could stop. It was pathetic!
Oh I thought about quitting many times.
But I was determined to make it. I knew I could. The best thing I ever did was I started offering commissions They sold very well. This freed up a lot of my time because I no longer had to photograph and list every painting I created. It was already there in a listing and people just bought. Perfect I thought.
Then I was painting commissions day in and day out 7 days a week. The same paintings were popular so I sometimes painted the same piece 5 times in one week. Basically the same 4 or 5 paintings over and over and over.
And I never gave a rats butt what other artists thought of me or what I was doing. I had goals and a clear vision of my future.
I was becoming very successful financially. But draining my body and soul. On top of all of this pressure I was putting on myself, I had other artists on eBay watching my every move. Every successful person has a line of people behind them that hate their guts. It is just a cruel irony of human nature. Certain people cant learn from the success of others, they want to sabotage and attack instead.
I had listings removed left and right for very minor eBay violations that I was not aware of until the listings got removed. I couldn't burp without another artist making sure it was within eBay rules.
I got hate mail regularly. I got hang up phone calls. I was harassed to no end. I was on the phone to eBay almost daily. Chinese rip off artists copied my work and I had to fill out forms every week to get eBay to remove the fake listings. People stole my images to use in their listings. It was 2 years of pure STRESS!
My body started talking to me with vertigo and neuropathy.
The day came when I said this is crap! My painting had improved immensely in this time. People were begging me to paint for them by now. So I started raising my prices. I have doubled them every year and people still keep coming.
THE BIG DIFFERENCE NOW: I now only paint 2 or 3 commissions a week. No more. I take some weeks off from painting anything. Other than that I paint what I want when I want. Some weeks I dont paint anything other than my commissions. Sometimes I am on a creative streak and paint like crazy. And it just feels GOOD not stressful.
I have reached my goal: make more paint less. I got off of eBay for 6 months a few years ago. Then I "dabbled" there for awhile. But I kicked it to the curb for good in 2007.
I still have stress now and again. But overall, I have exactly the life I wanted. I am my own boss. I do what I want when I want to do it. I turn away commissions if I dont want to do them. And sometimes people have to wait. I feel good telling them my commission schedule is booked for 6 weeks solid. I could paint for them if I wanted, but I stick to the 2 or 3 per week. It is a good pace for me. I no longer compromise my body or my soul. It's all me AND I make an income that is 5 times what I was making as a personal trainer/fitness instructor/gym manager before I started selling my art online.
I get weekly massages. Every day I take a 30 minute nap. I fix myself healthy meals. Take a long walk with my husband every morning. Play with my dogs out in the sunshine everyday. Spend time with my daughter when she gets home from school.
Life is good.
Im not suggesting that you allow yourself to stress like I did. I suggest you pace yourself and take breaks when you get stressed. No one deserves the kind of punishment I inflicted on myself.
But what I want to emphasize is that with hard work, determination and a clear goal, YOU CAN SUCCEED.
Thankyou Sharon for sharing your story. It is extremely inspirational for artists like me who are struggling to create a name in the art industry. I was not a artist by profession . I am educated with a commerce degree and then did management. After working in the corporate industry for 8 yrs., I realised I was not happy. So I traded a GOOD salary for my passion. It is hard to be an artist and earn enough to support the family. I am blessed to have a husband who is
doing good enough for both of us:-) This makes it possible for me to follow my dream of being a successful artist.
I am thankful to have friends like you who are generous to share their ideas for success:-)
o man !! you are adorable Sharon....4 paintings a day!!!....i was reading it and i am still not over it....it must be definetly stressful...i can imagine it....nobody plans all this ....everything happens on its own....it is just the truth in you was hidden and it came like that....i am happy for you that you know for sure what you love...even if that is for any reason....you know what you want...!!! though it took some time...but it happened too...!!
things should happen...life should change!!! change means growth ...growth means knowledge and knowledge is happiness...happiness is an art...
yes i am just starting....you are helping me a lot in so many ways Sharon!!...i'll never forget this....but there is something in me which is stopping me to be myself as my dear friend Jerome Goodwin told me once... i love to piant ...i just love to paint, i know this and it is important for me to remember this...yes , i am so happy to be here :) thankyou BG....thankyou Sharon !!
Sharon, I also did the eBay thing, at much more of an "off-the-radar" level than you, but when you are selling, there is no such thing as off the radar on eBay... and now artwork images are stolen whether the artist is selling or not!
I did well for a window of time there and, as you said - the window closed, and it became something entirely different, and I got out - early, pretty much around the time of the first search changes. I've been an internet professional since the very beginning days of it, and I've come to see windows open and windows close, and successful people don't hang on too long and look for the next window. Lucky people find themselves at the doorstep of the next window when it opens.
I think, because of what art is, there is always a natural tension between creating art for the love of it and making a living at it, which can often take the love out of it. There are some who find an equation that works for them (and nothing works forever, things keep changing) and many artists continue to struggle to find an equation.
This is obviously a story of an exception (versus the rule) but I know of an artist represented by one of the top galleries here. He's a manic depressive. So he'll go through a manic stage and paint maybe 12 paintings and then sometimes not paint again for two years. Then he'll get manic again. The demand for his work has shot through the roof (over $100k) and the clients can not wait for his next painting phase to return. His pieces are almost pre-sold. He makes enough to get by when he can't paint.
There are so many paths to success... and so many definitions of what constitutes success.
Great story thanks for sharing it with us. I commend your fighting spirit. I'm really glad Sharon brought this up, because I really wanted to say this....
I too was ripped off on ebay when I started there and indeed since I started a few years ago and found my work all over the web on hundreds of other people's chat sites, and I was also ripped off in China. I ALWAYS watermark my work.
I recommend that EVERY artist WATERMARK their work.
When my husband (an IT whizz) sat down and blew up all my painting thumprints, to a very nice quality size I felt physically sick.
WATERMARK YOUR WORK NOW. So much is copied now: since we are all online. I was refused on some art sites because I watermarked my work!! So, I never exhibited on these sites. I hate seeing beautiful artwork unprotected.
The software costs about $40, which is a small price to pay for the protection and peace of mind. With this software you can make your copyright mark as feint or as obvious as you like, you can also place it where you like, so that it doesn't fully obscure your painting. You purchase so much piece of mind with this software. Even I can use it, and I only started working on a computer three years ago.
Also, I think it maintains the value of all quality artists' work.
:) Laurel
...And i love and i like, i fuly agreed with yours, Kathleen, so many, so many and the oneS that we choosed, the ones that is choosing ourself, ..(...) i'll get back when i'll be less tired, have to be in a bus at 5am for few hours drive to hang on before 11am my paintings of feb exhibition , but geez how it drives me, i just Loove it yeah i'm a color Junkie .. Yan
Laurel ? Can you give me the 'program' !? to buy that you are talking about for watermark , thank you in advance, caus i find it so long to write on images and, not realy attractive fior costumers... Thank You All programs using as Laurel's mentionned would be welcome to me, Thanks Yan
Dear Sharon, thanks for sharing your story with us..it is indeed inspiring, you sure are a very gutsy and strong willed person in addition to being talented. I am not trained to be an artist either, I am a scientist by profession. Art, however, happens to be my first love, and I've painted on and off since I was in kindergarten. . After I had my first baby, I found that long commutes and baby's don't mix, so decided to stay home for a while, ...and that gave me some time and motherhood gave me inspiration to pursue art on a more regular basis. However, with only one source of income, and the added expense of a new baby, I figured I should try to sell my art...that has turned out to be easier said than done! I would love to paint more regularly, but at some point, the cost of the oil paints and canvases got too high to be practical...maybe I should move to a cheaper way of pursuing art..
You're a great guy Yan, but I really find it hard to understand your English. Have you tried freetranslation.com ? You can put in all your sentences and it will translate for free. Hope that's helpful. :) Laurel.
