What Does a Teenage Artist Do?

An artist is someone who creates art, and a professional artist gets paid to make art. If you like the idea of making money by selling artwork, then you’ve come to the right place. It’s not going to be easy, but the good news is it’s possible for kids and teens to make money as an artist.

There are so many different types of artists out there, so all you have to do is find something you’re good at and you can get started. Most people think of painting when they think of professional artists, but you can also sell drawings, cartoons or comics, sculptures, carvings, mosaics, or anything else that you can create. If you can make it, you can sell it.

How Much Does a Teenage Artist Get Paid?

It’s hard to know exactly how much you will make as an artist because you have to consider; your cost of supplies, how long it takes to create a piece, and how much the piece is worth. For example, you may spend two hours creating a small sculpture, but if you can only sell it for $2, you end up with less than $1/hour when you also include supplies. On the other hand, a medium-sized painting may take 10 hours but if you sell it for $100, then it’s $10/hour.

Selling artwork for money is a great way to profit from something that you enjoy, but it can also be a career if you’re willing to put in the work that it takes. If you think you want to pursue art as a career, then you should go ahead and get started as soon as possible. While some artists don’t make much money with what they create, others can make a living from it.

How Can I Get Started as an Artist?

1. Get your parents’ permission before you continue. You will be using different websites which could lead to you interacting with people online that you don’t know, so it’s important that your parents are aware of what you are doing.
2. Decide what you want to create. You want to find something that you can learn to do or are already good at and that will also be appealing enough to someone else that they’ll want to buy it. Drawing, painting, whatever it is that you’d like, make it a point to work in that area.
3. Buy supplies. This will vary greatly depending on what you’re going to be creating. In the beginning, you’ll want to use what you can afford, which means cheaper supplies. As you grow as an artist, you’ll also want to grow in your art supplies and find more professional and high-quality supplies to use. Amazon is a great place to find good deals on a wide variety of art supplies.
4. Practice, practice, practice! We can’t stress enough how important it is to practice your craft before you begin selling. Early paintings/drawing/sculptures can be given away as gifts to friends and family members, or you may want to keep them for yourself. To save money on supplies, canvases can even be painted over if needed.
5. Start selling to family and friends. Begin by posting your artwork on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Let your family and friends know what you’re doing so they can support you. Make sure to tell them it’s for sale in the update that you post.
6. Once you’re done reaching out to your personal connections, begin posting your art online. There are a number of websites where you can post your artwork so others can see it. Deviant Art is a great example of this. You can also set up an account with Fine Art America to start selling your artwork. There, you can sell the original as well as prints. The advantage of selling prints is that there’s no limit to how many you sell, but you don’t have to create a new painting every time.
7. Go to art and craft fairs. Find art and craft fairs in your area that you can go to. Many of these will cost money to rent a table or area, but some are free. When you’re first starting, you will want to attend the free ones to see how well you do before you begin spending money to make sure your art sells well. On the other hand, every fair has a different crowd attending, so you may find that you do extremely well at one fair and not as well at another.
8. Market your art. You should be including your information with every piece of artwork you sell so that every piece you sell becomes a marketing tool. Make sure everyone that buys something knows how they can contact you if they’re interested in more art in the future or if someone else becomes interested in one of your pieces. The bigger your audience, the more opportunities you’ll have to sell your artwork. Art channels are becoming popular on YouTube and create a great place for you to reach a wider audience. You can film yourself painting or completing your art and put music to it or even teach others the techniques that you’ve learned along the way.
9. Keep practicing. Even if you’re making money as an artist, you should never stop trying to improve your art, so make sure you’re practicing every day to keep getting better. You may also consider branching out and trying new types of media to work with to expand your abilities.

As you can see, there are a lot of things that you can do to become a teen artist. You don’t even have to follow through on all the steps if you want to keep it as a small side hobby with mainly family and friends or just want to attend a couple art fairs every year. But, if you want to do really well, then there’s really no limit to what you can do!

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Helpful Resources

• Amazon.com:  This is where you can shop for items related to being a teenage artist.
• DeviantArt.com:  This is a website you can go to in order to try to sell your artwork online.
• FineArtAmerica.com:  This is another website you can use to sell your artwork online.