Proven Ideas to Make Money As An Artist in 2024

A burning question that every artist has is “how to make money as an artist?” 

It is no secret that artists often find it very difficult to support their passion because monetizing art is not an easy feat. Some don’t have the understanding to streamline their work whereas others lack the patience to put efforts into it.  Nonetheless, it doesn’t change the fact that it becomes quite difficult to pursue your career as an artist if it can’t pay your bills. To overcome this problem, we have put together some proven ways that can help artists monetize their art.

1. Understand Your Market and Audience

Before diving into the different ways to make money as an artist, it's crucial to understand who your audience is and what they are willing to pay for. Identifying your niche—whether it's fine art, illustration, digital art, or street art—will help you tailor your offerings and marketing strategies. Research trends in the art market, understand the demographics of your potential buyers, and study the work of successful artists in your genre so that you know what your audience exactly wants. For example, if you make drawings for children, you 

1. Build Your Brand

The first thing that you need to take care of when trying to establish a business is to build your brand. Now you may be thinking that you just want to sell your art and not run a business. However, to be able to fully optimize your resources and reach the right clients, it is always a better idea to look at your passion as a business, than just a hobby. 

A well defined brand helps you establish clear goals and lay out careful plans to achieve them, which may otherwise not happen. You can set your values, marketing plans and a target market to niche down your efforts. Building a website and setting up pages on social media, displaying your work can be a good start. 

1. Find Teaching Opportunities

Another underrated method of earning as an artist is by teaching a new generation of artists. You can either choose to start your own learning programs or collaborate with other local institutes, studios or cultural centres where you can work as an art teacher. This will not only give you a stable source of income, but will also help you build a community of future artists and create a network in the industry.

If you do not want to work from scratch, joining a local center will be a better choice. However, if you have the resources, patience and time to work forms scratch, then building your own program can be more rewarding in the long run. It not only becomes a part of your branding, but also allows you more flexibility and freedom.

1.  Collaborate with Galleries

While this may be the most obvious, and an old school method of selling art, this is still one of the most reliable sources. With time, the art galleries are not limited to just offline markets and physical spaces, but they are also capturing the online market. Many galleries, including TERAVARNA have emerged in recent years who have been supporting artists beyond geographical limits.

These galleries represent  you through different digital means including social medias and multiple websites. They help you sell art not only through their own Marketplaces, but also through different other platforms where you can list your work for sale. However, most galleries charge commissions on sale, so you need to set your artwork price accordingly. 

1. Participate in Art Fairs & Exhibitions

Art fairs and exhibitions are one of the hottest ways to show your art to the masses and thus turn it into successful sales. Depending on your budget and needs, you can look for such fairs in different parts of the world. To name some of the most popular at fairs; Art Basel, Art Miami, the LA Art Show are quite popular in the USA. There are also some popular international names such as The European Art Fair, Art Biennale, ARCO Madrid, Masterpiece, Documenta, FIAC etc. You need to remember that many of these art shows only allow participation through galleries or otherwise and some require paid entries or jurying. So if you are going to participate, plan your budget and time accordingly because you will be required to apply months in advance, ship your artwork or maybe travel to the locations.

1.  Participate in Online Competitions

One of the biggest perks of taking part in online competitions is the digital exposure that comes along with it. If you take TERAVARNA’s example, all of our calls to artists come with massive online promotions, We heavily promote our winners on social media, email campaigns, newsletters, and several other means. Not only that, our winners also get cash prizes of up to $3500 for each art competition. 

If you are interested, we have different theme-based competitions such as abstract, figurative, portrait etc.