How to Sell Your Art

The starving artist is an age-old cliché that has followed the likes of all creatives since seemingly forever. Brilliant minds producing brilliant works, but nobody around to buy them. Or is there? With the dawn of the internet and particularly online shopping, the starving artist has fast become a distant memory. Your target market is right where they’ve always been, and now you have the means to reach them. Your gorgeous artworks don’t have to waste away in an attic or basement with lost dreams of adorning a wall other than your mother’s. Not only can you get your paintings sold, but you could quite possibly become the next great Master that the country has been waiting for. Putting you in the ranks of South African old Masters like Walter Battliss and JH Pierneef. This is it—selling art is now easy, convenient, and just a few clicks away.

Way back when, artists like Otto Klar, Maggie Laubser, and Nils Anderson had to do things the hard way. Working non-stop on their craft, working non-stop on getting their craft out where it could be seen, working non-stop to catch the eye and interest and wallet of someone, working non-stop… Thankfully we don’t live in way back when anymore. This is now, and this is how you can sell your art in a way that saves you time and energy. So you can spend what you saved on making more art!

What, how, who…

• Create a website for yourself to showcase your portfolio of artworks, and include a riveting artist bio. This allows interested parties to see who you are and what you do all in one place.
• Join social media. Hold off on the food pics, and feature some of your work instead. Competitions to ramp up engagement and visitors to your website will do wonders to get your name out to the people who matter—people who are buying art.
• Also, remember to engage with your fellow artists out there in return. You will be amazed at how much those relationships can carry you forward.
• Get featured on another artist’s blog or social media page. Getting a mention from someone already in the trenches will work wonders for your visibility.

Remember, this isn’t a game of getting cash for art. It’s a skill that can be learned, and if you take the time to get to know the ins and outs, you will be selling art and making a name for yourself in no time.