5 Things To Know Before Starting An Art Business

Summary

Mimi from Mimimoo Illustration shares her valuable insights after three years of being a self-employed artist and content creator. The video outlines five key lessons for those starting an art business, emphasizing that you shouldn't wait for the perfect moment to start, and the importance of being passionate about daily tasks. She highlights the need for reasonable expectations, taking the long view on growth, and understanding that the journey is challenging yet rewarding. Additionally, she mentions how platforms like Skillshare can assist in learning essential skills, even offering a free trial for new users. Ellie emphasizes that perseverance, realistic goals, and finding joy in the journey are pivotal to building a sustainable art business.

Highlights

• Mimi stresses starting even if you're not perfect - learning happens as you go. 🎯
• Emphasizes the importance of daily excitement in art tasks to maintain sustainability. 🎨
• Importance of setting reasonable expectations for steady growth. 📈
• Keeping long-term perspectives to combat temporary setbacks. 🔄
• Embrace challenges as part of the journey to success! 💪

Key Takeaways

• Don't wait for the perfect moment to start - learning comes from doing! 🚀
• Be passionate about your daily art tasks, not just the end goal. 🎨
• Set realistic expectations and don't expect overnight success. ⏳
• Growth isn't linear, keep the big picture in mind. 🌱
• Challenges are part of the journey, embrace them to succeed! 💪

Overview

Mimi from Mimimoo Illustration dives into her journey of becoming a self-employed artist, offering valuable lessons for those looking to start their own art business. She passionately urges budding artists not to wait for perfection before starting, as the best learning often happens through doing and experiencing.

One of the keys to a sustainable art business, according to Mimi, is having a genuine passion for the everyday tasks involved, not just the end result. The video also highlights the crucial need for setting realistic expectations, understanding that success is a long-term game, and appreciating every small step forward, even when growth seems stagnant.

The video also promotes continuous learning and perseverance, suggesting platforms like Skillshare for enhancing skills with a range of creative courses. Mimi upbeatly conveys that while the journey to building a successful art venture is challenging, it is equally rewarding, urging viewers to embrace the difficulties as opportunities for growth.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Introduction and Lesson 1 In the introductory section, the speaker, Mimi, introduces herself as a self-employed artist and content creator with three years of experience. She aims to share five insights crucial for starting an art business. Mimi stresses that one should not wait for the perfect moment to start, as learning happens along the journey. This chapter sets the stage for the subsequent lessons and encapsulates the idea that one learns critical lessons while navigating through their business journey.
• 01:30 - 03:30: Lesson 2: Daily Excitement The chapter emphasizes the value of learning through action. It proposes that while some initial research and preparation can be helpful, the most effective way to acquire skills is by actively engaging in the activity itself. The text encourages aspiring entrepreneurs, especially in the art sector, to start their businesses even if they feel they lack complete knowledge. The chapter highlights that essential entrepreneurial skills can be learned through practical experience rather than solely relying on planning and learning from others.
• 03:30 - 05:00: Skillshare Sponsor Message The chapter discusses the common feeling among artists of wanting to achieve perfection before presenting their work to the world, emphasizing that waiting for the perfect moment can lead to indefinite delays. It highlights that art is subjective, and self-doubt and insecurities are natural. The notion of one day suddenly deciding that one’s art is perfect and requires no further improvement is considered unlikely. The speaker shares a personal anecdote about spending a significant portion of their 20s grappling with these thoughts.
• 05:00 - 06:30: Lesson 3: Reasonable Expectations The speaker reflects on the misconception of skills developing passively over time. They believed they would eventually become an illustrator without proactive effort. It wasn't until they consciously decided to act as an illustrator by drawing daily that their skills began to improve. They emphasize that a lack of excitement for daily tasks makes them unsustainable, and merely desiring the outcome isn't enough.
• 06:30 - 08:00: Lesson 4: Big Picture Perspective The chapter discusses the importance of adopting a 'big picture' perspective while acknowledging the everyday grind necessary to achieve long-term goals. It emphasizes that motivation derived solely from the desired outcome is often insufficient to sustain daily efforts required to reach it, using the example of an aspiring full-time artist needing to work consistently on their skills. The need for re-evaluating motivations and developing a deeper significance beyond mere outcomes is highlighted to maintain persistence and dedication over time.
• 08:00 - 09:30: Lesson 5: Embrace Difficulty In Lesson 5: Embrace Difficulty, the focus is on establishing a sustainable career or business. It emphasizes pursuing a path that excites you daily, beyond just having an appealing job title. The chapter suggests considering a small art business that aligns with your genuine interests. For instance, if engaging with people excites you, art classes or coaching might be suitable. If storytelling is your passion, picture book illustrating could be a fit. Alternatively, if you thrive in conversations, pursuing opportunities in that domain might be the right choice.
• 09:30 - 10:00: Conclusion The podcast concludes with a recommendation for Skillshare, an online learning platform that offers various classes for creatives. The host highlights a class by Tiffany Emery titled 'Etsy Launch: How to Open an Etsy Shop Like a Professional Seller,' which may be beneficial for those looking to improve their digital art skills or start an illustration career. Skillshare is presented as a useful resource for learning new skills essential for a creative business or career.

5 Things To Know Before Starting An Art Business Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hello I'm Mimi I've spent the last three years developing my art skills and becoming a self-employed artist and content creator so today I want to share with you five things I think are really helpful to know before starting an art business this video is sponsored by skillshare but more on that later number one you'll never know everything before you start so learn along the way it's tempting to wait until the right time to get started but sometimes the
• 00:30 - 01:00 best way to learn things is to just get going and learn what you need along the way that doesn't mean that you can't do some research and preparation first but if you've been dreaming of having an art business and the only reason you haven't gotten started is because you think you don't know what you're doing then get going and you'll start learning those skills that you need you can only learn so much from other people's experiences and pre-planning the main skills you need to be self-employed or run your own business can be learned as you go
• 01:00 - 01:30 it's natural to want to be good at something before we show it to the world but if you're waiting for the perfect time when your art is amazing then you'll be waiting forever because there is no perfect time art is subjective and there's always room for us artists to have insecurities and doubts about our art so the chances of us waking up one day and deciding that today is the day that our art is perfect and can't be improved anymore is pretty unlikely I spent most of my 20s thinking that one
• 01:30 - 02:00 day I would have the skills to be an illustrator but never really took any action on that as if I thought that it would just happen or that tomorrow would be a better time it wasn't until I just decided to start acting like I was an illustrator and draw a little something every day that I started actually developing the skills that I needed number two if you're not excited to do the daily tasks then it won't be sustainable it's quite easy to want the outcome of
• 02:00 - 02:30 something but much harder to want to do the repetitive steps every day or every week that I needed to get there if you want to be a full-time artist but don't want to spend time working on your art skills near enough every day then it's going to be really hard for you to reach that outcome and maybe you just need some rethinking the motivation for the outcome alone is usually not enough to push us to show up every day and work towards that outcome and even if you can push through for a little while it won't be very
• 02:30 - 03:00 sustainable a sustainable career or business is one that you're excited to do every day not just one that you like the idea of as a job title there are lots of ways you can have a small art business so be sure to choose something that you're actually excited for if you're excited to engage with people then consider art classes or coaching if you're excited to tell stories consider picture book illustrating or if you're excited by conversations then maybe an
• 03:00 - 03:30 art podcast is the right fit for you if you're looking for some guidance with learning new skills for your creative business or career then I want to quickly tell you about today's sponsor which is skillshare they're an online learning platform with lots of amazing classes for creatives like us that can be a huge help whether you're looking to improve your digital art skills or learn how to build an illustration career I just watched this class by Tiffany Emery called Etsy launch how to open an Etsy shop like a professional seller and
• 03:30 - 04:00 found it so valuable for getting started on Etsy but it also had loads of helpful information for established Etsy sellers like myself she's a successful shop owner and takes us through how the algorithm works and how to start your own successful shop on the platform and I'll be taking the things that I learned about tags and SEO to my own shop to help optimize it there are lots of classes like this one from experienced creatives sharing their knowledge and the first 1000 people to use the link in my description will get an entire one month free trial of
• 04:00 - 04:30 skillshare so you can watch this class and so many others use that one month of free access investing time in learning skills for your art business and to help you get the maximum benefit I've personally curated a list of classes that I've watched and think are really helpful if you're wanting to create more art I thought that these classes are really great to help you with that through different mediums or challenges and if you're wanting to build your art income then I thought that these classes had some really great foundations
• 04:30 - 05:00 thanks so much to skillshare for sponsoring this video let's get back to the tips number three make sure that your expectations and deadlines are reasonable it takes a long time to build something from scratch whether that's your art skills and audience on social media or a collection of art prints so be realistic about how long it will take you for you to start seeing results most people don't go viral overnight so if you have slow and steady growth how
• 05:00 - 05:30 long will it take you to achieve your goals if you expect yourself to reach your goals at a really ambitious speed then you're putting yourself at risk of being disappointed when it just naturally takes longer and when we're disappointed with ourselves or our situation we normally want to give up which would be a real shame a big part of satisfaction and fulfillment in my experience is having reasonable expectations because when our expectations are met then we usually
• 05:30 - 06:00 feel happy and when they aren't met we feel disappointed we can't always control the outcome but we can control our expectations I'm not necessarily saying that you should completely lower your expectations of yourself but definitely be realistic and kind about your expectations being satisfied with the results you're getting is a really great way to stay motivated and have a sustainable art practice or business number four it takes a long time so look
• 06:00 - 06:30 at the big picture for a fresh perspective there will be times when things are going well and progress is being made and there will inevitably be times when it feels like we're going backwards or things just aren't working growth isn't linear for anybody and if you listen to any success stories of famous entrepreneurs artists or authors they've all had wobbles and struggles along the way when you're in a phase where it feels like things aren't growing make sure you
• 06:30 - 07:00 look at the big picture don't just look at where you're at right now or even just your growth over the past two weeks look all the way back to the beginning and see how far you've come sometimes we just need some fresh perspective to see that what looks like a downward Trend in new followers or our art skills is actually just a natural leveling off from all the growth that's been happening and it's maybe just a small blip relative to how far we've come it's going to be really hard not to feel
• 07:00 - 07:30 emotionally involved with the analytics of your growth as a business because those analytics represent your hard work so maintaining a long-term Outlook can really help put those downward Trends into perspective I've had lots of times when My Views are trending down or my patrons are lower than before or I earn less than the previous month but like I said growth isn't linear you're still further along than when you started and sometimes when it looks like things are trending down it's actually because it's coming off
• 07:30 - 08:00 the back of some extra growth get a big picture perspective when things feel slow to help yourself stay positive and motivated because it's a long journey and number five it's not going to be easy and that's okay it is difficult to build a small art business and I think it's healthy to start your journey with that understanding but it's not going to hold you back because difficult doesn't mean impossible if you want to build an art business or a Content business or just be
• 08:00 - 08:30 self-employed and you have a fire in you to achieve that then that is absolutely Worth Fighting For there will be plenty of challenges to overcome that you can overcome anything you can find free resources online to help you learn the skills you need you can find communities of other people walking a similar path and you can be whatever you want to be lots of things that are worth having in life are difficult and that's kind of what makes them so valuable
• 08:30 - 09:00 thanks so much for letting me share these five things to know when you're starting an art business I love sharing videos with you so if you enjoyed it then give it a like And subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you in the next one bye