Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash
My heart was in my mouth…
I’d just set up the first auction of a piece of my work on my web site.
My mouse pointer was hovering over the “publish” button, but I just couldn’t seem to bring myself to click it.
Who do you think you are?
The closer I got to persuading myself to click, the louder the doubting voices in my head became.
“Why would anyone want to buy my work anyway?”
“I’ve probably missed some important setting in the software and the thing won’t work. I should check over it again.”
“The painting won’t sell anyway, it’s just not good enough.”
“I’m just not ready for this. I’m just not ready.”
Then I clicked the button.
You will never be ready
This is perhaps the first and most important thing to understand about any new venture. It’s doubly true for us, as artists, putting our work out there online.
You will never feel ready.
The painting I was about to auction was a small one of two lemons on a cloth, this painting:
This was a painting that I’d laboured over for some time. Objectively, I knew it was one of the better paintings I’d done at the time, but that didn’t stop me thinking it just wasn’t good enough.
Surely no-one would buy it.
But someone did
In fact, four people bid on it and it went for more than twice the reserve I’d set.
Even though I can laugh a little now at how nervous I was about trying to sell my first painting on my site, I still have some of that fear and uncertainty every time I put a new one up.
It really is hard putting your most important work out there in front of people.
Because if you’re an artist, it’s not just your work, it’s yourself you’re putting up there.
A more meaningful life
But it’s worth it.
It’s worth it because whether you’re looking to make a side income from your paintings or from teaching, or whether you want to turn full time, it’s the most meaningful kind of life you can live.
Connect
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I do know what got me to the point where I could start to take making a full time living from painting and teaching online seriously.
It wasn’t anything to do with the work itself or feeling ready (although obviously, you do need to be producing a certain standard of work in order to sell it).
No, it really came down to just one thing.
Connecting with people.
I don’t mean just having lots of facebook followers or youtube subscribers. That’s not connecting, it’s just numbers.
I mean real, meaningful connections.
Because when people know you, when you’ve shared something of yourself, something that matters, and you’ve helped in some way, you develop enough trust to move beyond just the follower counts and likes into something much more meaningful.
It’s true of course that you do have to reach a good number of people in order to seriously consider going full time. And that’s why it takes time to get there.
It’s not going to happen overnight.
How to grow
But that doesn’t mean you have to be producing amazing work and have a flash website before you can start.
In fact, I think you should start now. Because you never will feel ready.
Here’s how that worked out for me:
Before I could really paint well and was at the very beginning of my learning journey, I shared what I could.
I started this site in 2006. All I did was post what I was doing. From the beginning, I made myself publish everything. My doubts, my fears, my frustrations, my failures and my successes.
What happened, and what really surprised me, was that other people connected with what I was sharing.
Although it wasn’t planned when I started out, I realise now that actually, that’s the best way to be if you want to build meaningful connections with people, online or otherwise.
It took me a long time to build enough connections to be able to start to make a living. Looking back now, with the lessons I’ve learned, I could certainly have done it more quickly.
So although you may not be ready to start selling your work yet, or to build a course yet, you are certainly ready to start sharing something meaningful.
There is no “5 step plan”
If you saw the title of this post and we’re expecting a list of steps you can follow, I’m sorry. I don’t have that for you. Because I don’t think it exists.
There is no template for success. You need to write your own script for this, because no-one else is quite like you.
What I do have to share is an approach, a way to gradually build an art business online which has worked well for me and I think could very well work for you too.
At the heart of it is real, meaningful connections. The threads that join one person to another.
Threads
It may seem like an impossible dream that you’d be able to make an income from your work online. It did to me. And I’m still surprised that it works at all, but it does.
There is tech to learn. It’s not for the faint of heart, because there is a lot to do and a fair amount of commitment required. You need to get comfortable with sharing not just your work, but how you make it and what you go through to create it.
How much time and commitment you’ll need to put in will depend on how far you want to go.
There is a real opportunity now for artists to make an independent living that has never existed before.
So later this month I’m going to be opening up a new membership program I’ve been putting together called Threads.
There are two parts to it:
- First, regular teaching to help you develop your painting skills.
- Second, in depth live webinars on all aspects of how to grow and run an independent business online, doing what you love.
In return for an affordable monthly subscription fee, I’ll be doing at least two private live streams a month, just for subscribers – one on painting and developing skills and one on an aspect of building an independent art business online.
Because the teaching will all be live (if you’ve seen my live streams on facebook you know what to expect) I’ll be able to make sure what I’m giving you is relevant, and you’ll have a say in what I cover.
I’m going to take you right from the most basic aspects of getting a web site set up to how to grow an audience for what you have through connecting with people – openly, honestly and in a meaningful way.
Basically, the stuff I do. All of it.
Find out more here
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in supporting and getting involved in, just enter your email address below.
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be sharing more details of how it will work, and demonstrating the live workshops and webinars that I’ll be doing as the core of the program.
Here’s what the opportunity is:
To be completely independent.
To do what you love.
To make a meaningful difference to peoples’ lives.
To have a more meaningful life for yourself.
(by the way if you’re one of the 140 or so people who’ve already signed up to hear more, you don’t need to sign up again don’t worry!)
Why threads?
I’ve called this new program Threads because it represents the connections we make with each other.
But it also represents the threads that run through our individual lives. What drives us to draw and paint. And the importance of holding on to that thread and following it.
This poem by William Stafford is a personal favourite, the name came from here:
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
I see this thread as what drives us to draw, to paint, to create. I’ve let go of my own thread in the past and have suffered because of it. Now I’m following it as if my life depended on it – because it does.
Threads is more than a teaching program. It’s a network, built by connecting our individual threads into a larger whole.
This is the dream I have for it, and the dream I have for you.
Don’t ever let go of your thread.
Best wishes and thanks for reading,
Paul
Good and helpful. Thank you!
Good to hear, thanks Igor.
Thanks, Paul, for this post which came at just the right time. I have opened myself and my passion up to the Universe and it has answered! I can’t wait to be on the other end of one of your ‘threads’ and look forward to your advice, instruction, and suggestions. Amazing things can happen when you really look at the threads in your life, right?
Absolutely they can Sharon! I’ll have more info for you soon, including a webinar later this week with a bit more detail.
Your new offer, threads, holds promise. My tech ability is very low, so my tendency to do anything involving such things is low also. Not sure if I would be a good candite. Someone said I should have a website so that my challange right now. I hope to sell work via the internet but I have to have other things in place.
Please keep me in mind for the future.. BTW. I love you lemons….
Thanks Kathleen 🙂
Yes the tech stuff can be a challenge for a lot of people. I’ll be walking through much of it slowly, but of course it won’t be possible to support everyone individually – although I will try as much as I can!
With any new knowledge to learn, though, I think the best approach is common sense, and a little at a time.
I’ve been waiting for this Paul. You are such an inspiration. Thank you.
Thank you Judy!
Paul,
Your name is on my lips continually. There are several people who have asked me to teach them how to paint or that they want to study with me. Tell me how to get them to you.
Very inspiring blog– all the things with which I fully agree. Thank you so much for what your are doing and planning. You are changing my life.
Best regards,
Susan Givens
Thanks Susan, that’s very kind of you! If you want to put someone in touch with me, the best way is probably for them to subscribe to the email list here:
https://www.learning-to-see.co.uk/subscribe
Or ask them to send me a friend request on facebook, if they’re on there.
And thank you very much for following along. I do aspire to make your life better in some way with what I put out, that’s perhaps the most important thing I aim for. So thank you, it means a lot to me that you said that.
So glad to see you are doing well with on-line teaching. The sky is the limit! When you started out, your work was good, but your teaching skills and how you are able to distill and transmit what you were learning from others actually may have made you a better teacher than the ones who were more skilled that were teaching you. Many of the most talented artists are not good teachers. Also, they may hold things back, not intentionally, just taking for granted you knew certain basics. If you are still up and running in a year and a half or so, I will check in. I will be retired by then and will have more time. You may want to branch out and offer the business part of your course to all creative startups. Why limit yourselves to artists? You can reach out to crafters on etsy and elsewhere. They certainly will have a need to learn how to grow their handicraft businesses. You could be a real help to them, as a lot of them also are growing small startups at home. You can apply the web part of your course to any creative business. Wish you great success.
Thanks Jan. I think you’re right. I often see well known artists put out learning materials and do demonstrations that shows what they do now, not what got them there. And I worry that people will then attempt to emulate the obvious surface effects of their processes and technique without having the basics in place to make it work.
Personally, I think it’s better to get a good foundation of the basics, and then do the harder work of evolving a process and approach of your own more naturally, through trial and error. Of course we all do borrow things we other artists that we admire doing. I know I do. But without the basics of good drawing, a knowledge of materials, understanding of colour, light and form – it just won’t work as well.
I wonder if often, people become convinced that these artists just have more talent than them because they don’t then understand why the thing didn’t work for them. That’s a real shame.
As far as the online marketing side of things goes, that’s a nice idea but I think I’ll stick to trying to help realist artists like me. Otherwise I think there’s a pressure to simplify and generalise, and I want to make sure my advice is as relevant as I can make it for the people that follow me – that’s painters 🙂
Looking forward to reading more about Thresds.
Coming very soon Allison 🙂
This sounds quite exciting Paul. I’m sure you’ve put a tremendous amount of work into getting it ready. I’l looking forward to signing up when registration opens.
Yes it’s a lot of work but I think it will be worth it. I hope more than worth it. I’m trying to put everything into it that I’ve learned from producing online materials for a few years now. Sometimes I’ve got it wrong, sometimes I’ve got it a bit right and more usually I’ve got a bit of both 🙂
But I’ve learned something from all of them. This is the first one that will have a big “live” component with the streams, and there are two big advantages of doing it that way:
1. You can ask questions live as we go along and give me live feedback on whether it’s useful
2. It’s not set in stone like a pre-recorded course, so I can be more flexible and cover what people specifically need.
I must admit I’m very excited about it 🙂
So exciting, Paul! The concept of “Threads” is so true! Looking forward to the development of your concept!
Thanks Trudy 🙂
Hi Paul,
Very excited to be part of this….my painting style is quite similar to yours but I have always felt a bit hesitant to engage with the internet and the consequent loss of privacy even though friends and family have been encouraging me to do this. Think this may help me to make the leap.
Best wishes
Louise
Yes that loss of privacy takes some getting used to. I did it in small stages, and my comfort level has increased with time, to the point where I don’t mind sharing very personal things now if I think it will be useful to someone.
I hope this does help you 🙂 Like anything, the best approach is a little at a time.
Is the teaching aspect an essential part of making a living with art online, or is it something that those of us who aren’t, and don’t want to be teachers, can ignore and still have success in creating these connections and making more than that of side gig on the web? I’d be interested to know what percentage of your income comes from the teaching and what comes from actually selling your art. Or are the two so tied together they can’t be separated out?
By the way, your trigger-responsive, habit creating plan is brilliant and has worked wonders for my calligraphy which I quickly adapted to your method. I appreciate everything you’ve done, and consider you a very good, inspirational teacher, but I just don’t feel I have that part in me!
Very good Question David.
It’s not necessary to have a teaching component, no. There are artists out there making a living from selling paintings this way without doing teaching online.
But people are more likely to pay you for something when they can see a direct benefit to their development. So if you have something useful to teach, that’s likely to do better initially I would say.
If you really don’t want to teach, just be prepared that it might take a bit longer to build it up.
And if it changes anything, I never felt I had any teacher in me either at first. I was just sharing stuff I thought might be interesting or useful. People tell me I’m a good teacher now a lot, so I’m starting to accept it, but I’m not sure I’ll ever completely believe it!
It’s a bit like that with the work, too, I guess.
For me, the split between which generates the most income varies depending on what I’m doing. If I’m blogging about colour a lot, then the colour course will tend to do better. If I’m painting a lot, then I will tend to more with that.
I would say if I took a long average over a year, the teaching probably does slightly better. But it really does depend on where I put most of my energy. I generally put more time into that than I do into painting.
What an amazing opportunity :~}
🙂
Looking forward to hearing more about it, Paul!
Coming soon! I’m planning a webinar for later this week actually, for people who have registered their interest so far – assuming I can get through all my emails (and paint a bit) first 🙂
Thank you, Paul.
I am looking forward to more on this.
Allison
Very soon Allison 🙂
I have also been waiting for something like this. Thank you, Paul, and bless you for sharing yourself so generously and so openly with us all.
You’re very welcome Terri, and thank you for such a lovely comment.
I’m wondering if most of your sales are from the artists you teach since that is who you’re connecting to? If I want to sell to people who don’t paint how do I connect with them? Do they care about the struggle to create?
Yes, absolutely. Most of the people who follow me are painters, so the people who buy my work are usually other painters.
I think it’s one of the determining factors of this new economy for artists: other painters will be buying your work, either full time or, more often, people who do it part time or just because they love it. (I don’t like the word “hobby” because it implies something you don’t take it seriously or do it just for ‘fun’, and in my experience the people I know who paint take it very seriously, whether it’s their living or not).
Do non-painters care about the struggle to create? I’m not sure. I think they would be interested. But you’re looking for people then who are interested in just buying paintings, and I don’t know where those people are. Walking round galleries perhaps, and I’m not in any of those 🙂
Why particularly do you want to sell your work to people who don’t paint?
Hi, Paul-
What a terrific idea! And just what I’ve been needing-I have a website that a friend set up for me, but I don’t really know how to update it so I pretend it’s not there…as the work on it gets older and older. Thanks, and I’ll be looking forward to hearing more about Threads!
hehe, pretend it’s not there, that’s funny 🙂
Yes I will be covering all that, and recommending a wordpress site as the best way to do it. Do you know what your site runs on on at the moment?
Hi Paul , love the poem and it’s concept. Sorry for my rant in our last correspondance.
I look forward to learning and sharing in your/our thread.
Craig
Never Craig, that wasn’t at all a rant! I’m just sorry I didn’t get back to you quickly. Don’t ever feel you can’t share things like that with me. Unfortunately my in box does get very full and there are times when even though I intend to reply to an email I don’t get to it, and it gets crowded out.
I’m sorry. It means a lot to me that you would share that with me and I must tell you that you’re not alone in that. Other people who are interested in signing up are in a similar position. It’s a challenge I will be trying to help with as much as I can – at least I’ll be considering it as we go along.
Hi Paul,
My best wishes for a happy, colourful 2019.
This blog sounds very interesting and I’m looking forward to reading your next one.
Thanks for all the advice and eye-openers.
Kindest regards,
Joke
You’re welcome Joke, and a happy new year to you too! I hope you have a great 2019.
This is a wonderful idea! I do have a web site for my glass art but not for my paintings. I don’t know how to update the web site myself. Is this subscription offer restricted to realist painters? I paint most of the time in a stylized/abstract style. My work consists of paintings and items made out of glass. English is my second language. Looking forward to hear more about your project soon.
Hi Sabine. Well, it will be aimed at realist painters, yes, because it will be covering improving your work as well building an audience for it, connecting with people and teaching too.
Because I’m a realist painter, all of the advice on how to improve will be aimed at realist painters. I’m not qualified to talk about abstract art because I don’t do it.
All the other stuff will very likely be relevant to you though. I have no problem giving refunds to people who try anything of mine and find out it’s not for them, so you’d be welcome to try it out and see how it fits with you.
Thank you Paul!
As usual, you are always thinking about others. The Threads is a great idea and I’m sure you will have many students joining. Over the past few years I have learnt a great deal from your webinars and posts. I truly admire you for your constant support and willingness to keep moving forward and this time to help,others. I am looking forward to hear more about your new goal.
You are so different from other art teachers, you have given out so much information and I believe you wil be getting back ten times more of what you have given. You are an amazing master, sincere, hard working artist. Everything you wrote on this post is so true! It feels it was written exclusively for me! I constantly doubting myself, considering in getting a Facebook account, maybe a website, etc. So much to do and so much to think about it. I agree with you, when I think about a website and posting your work! It is not only your work, it is you entirely transparent and ready to get hot with the good, the bad and the ugly! But we all need time to get through the first steps. I have given your name to some friends who were asking me where or how do I get some inspiration so I do hope they will be soon looking for your website.
Thanks Paul and the best for this year and each day!
Thank you Crisalida, and great to hear from you 🙂 I hope you have a wonderful year too.
Yes, not everyone will be at the same starting point, some people are more comfortable with tech than others. Since I’ll be doing all the teaching as live streams, I should hopefully be able to tailor it better. We shall see 🙂
My painting skills are not there. If I work hard, maybe another year or so. Maybe. But that’s after I finish the real job.
If the painting is not actually there, with no guarantee that it will get there, is it too soon to start thinking about selling online? And by that, I mean learning the skill set for that. I don’t want to teach, can’t. I’m self taught with loads of help from workshops, online courses, and so on.
I understand about wondering if you are ever ready, but I know I don’t have it yet. Not enough brush mileage and practice. But I keep getting distracted by this other aspect of art that has been integral to my learning process…and buying. I have purchased loads of original art over the last 18 months.
Just wondering.
Hi Becky. That’s a great question.
No, it’s not too early. Because if you do want to make some income at some point in the future from your work, people who have connections with will be much more likely to invest in it – and invest in you – than someone who doesn’t know you.
So my advice would be to set up a blog (preferably a wordpress blog on your own hosting, NOT on wordpress.com) and start building that audience straight away.
You will have interesting and useful things to share already, although you may not realise what they are yet. Start sharing, start connecting, and everything else will follow from that.
Please, can I catch you later ? are you will record these lessons ?
Yes Marwan, the webinars are always recorded and I send out the link to the replay to people who registered afterwards (usually the next day).
I bought the lemon painting do I’d have a tangible reminder to follow my dreams.
It’s framed and hanging in my studio.
I’ve also just signed up for your Threads webinar. I love that the painting that is a touchstone for me, marked a turning point for you as I follow in your footsteps.
Threads is a very appropriate name for your new venture as I see how much we, as artists, influence, encourage and connect with each other.
Another interesting connection, Duane Keizer, who you mentioned in your last webinar, taught the one painting class I took at university. Really nice guy. My class was many, many years ago, and it was his first year teaching painting!
Looking forward to the next steps as Threads unfolds!
Erica
Erica! That means so much to me!
Yes I remember you buying that painting. As you move forward with this, remember also that I was very nervous -actually, just plain scared is probably closer to the mark – to put it up for sale at all.
Thank you, you’ve just completely made my day 🙂