Monthly Bonus: Money

Illoguild Question: Can illustration pay the bills?

My answer: Yes, but that can look different for everyone.

Right now, illustration pays me exactly zero dollars. I’m still in the “invest” phase of any new career. You know, the part where you go to school, learn, study, put in the long hours to improve until you’re ready to be hired. The part where you ignore looking at how much time and money you’re spending while you happily write and create and eat ice cream. I believe everyone should invest in themselves. We only get one life, right? Might as well have some fun.

What does pay my bills right now is my faux taxidermy business. Yup, that’s right. I make and sell fake taxidermy. It’s cute. It’s weird. It’s fun to talk about at parties. The image above was taken by a customer at an art fair, was featured on the front page of Reddit in 2018, and brought in over $17K in online sales in 48 hours. Unpredictable? Yes. But, the more you put your work out there, the more you make it possible for things like this to happen. This “little business that could” has been paying my bills for 15 years, believe it or not! But, when I started out designing and sewing toys, it was just a hobby. I used to be a Creative Director and also taught a college level graphic design course. Fancy, right?

My point is that art can pay the bills. I’m 44 years old and every bill I’ve ever had has been paid by art. My husband and I even paid off our student loans with art. It’s possible, and I’ll show you just some of the ways I’ve done it.

Selling products directly to consumers: You make something, you sell it to someone else. You can go the old fashioned “watches hidden under a trenchcoat” way, or you can apply for local and regional art and craft shows & conventions and open your own online store. I recommend getting your own URL and building that up from the start. You can also have links from your site to print on demand sites like Spoonflower if you want to sell your work on fabric, etc.

Selling products wholesale to stores: You can sign up and spend lots of money to get a booth at a wholesale trade show, or you can research stores and send out email updates when you have new products. I recommend creating a catalog if you go this route and sending releases seasonally. You can also join a wholesale website like Faire, where store owners can search for products. If you’re going to art shows and conventions, you’ll also get approached by shop owners.

Window Displays: I’ve created a couple of seasonal window displays for my favorite local fabric shop and they’ve used that space as a gallery, selling the giant monsters I’ve placed inside. This work I did years ago set the stage for me wanting to build better sets and learn to write picture books.

Teaching & Mentoring: You’ve got skills. Why not share them? In college, I taught after school art to first and fifth graders in Baltimore. Since graduating, I’ve taught graphic design at the college level, toy making at my favorite fabric shop, and been a part of mentorship programs with two local colleges. I’ve also written up pdf patterns of some of my toys and sold digital downloads. There are also a zillion ways to teach online classes too.

School Visits: Published a book? Want to do a workshop with kids? Check with your local schools to see if they have a budget for visits from a professional artist.

Grants: I’ve applied and received a few grants over the years. Some are tied to a specific project and require proof of completion or receipts for reimbursement, but others are more open and get awarded to a limited number of artists who apply. Look up your local cultural council and get on a newsletter list for grant opportunities. The website Colossal also publishes a grant newsletter every month. Many cities offer Artist in Residence grants that allow you to serve your local community or give you the opportunity to travel.

Commissions: Putting your work out there means more people see it. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to create work for private collectors, make toys for Facebook employees, create a Winnie The Pooh piece of art for the lobby of BURR! Productions and create a puppet for a feature film! Here’s my Lockheed the dragon puppet I built for X-Men The New Mutants.

Installations: In 2010, we were hired by Etsy.com to design some rooms in their corporate offices. I know others who have been hired to paint murals or create temporary installations at museums and galleries and inside shops and homes.

Open a Retail Store: My friends and I have run a retail pop-up every holiday season for the last six years. It’s great. We get to have a store and it’s temporary! But, I know other artist friends who have opened up shops full time. They get to sell their own work, but also get to curate a beautiful store and fill it with the work of others. How neat is that? Display and merchandising is a whole other form of art.

Writing and Illustrating Books: This is the next step in my career. Adding books to the list of things I do will help bring income in and diversify my skills and products even more. I’m also looking forward to collaborating with a publishing team to bring the final product to market and selling books through my existing channels, essentially becoming a retailer as well.

You can make a living just doing one of these things, and doing it well, but I find that diversifying income really helps when one is a small business owner or freelancer. Having some consistent income (even if it’s small) from a part-time job is also a good way to get started. When I switched from graphic design to faux taxidermy, I still freelanced for clients for the first two years. Now that I’m getting into picture book illustration, the faux taxidermy continues to pay all of my bills until books start to fill in a percentage of my income.

Looking for more tips? My illoguild friends have a lot more to say on this topic:
http://illoguild.substack.com

Thanks for reading! Do you have tips to share on how you find inspiration? Or any thoughts on the above suggestions? Drop them in the comments!