The First Dilemma: Art for Sale

Thanks to my best friend I got introduced to one opportunity that even could give me some financial income for the artwork I make. That would be Corel designing, which I have knowledge for, and I am quite a wide-ranged artist so I could do anything.

In the beginning I thought this is great, I am immediately able to gain money form the art I make.

However, when I started working on my assignment I realized: I have lost my skills from not using them, therefore it takes a while to get them back. I have to come up with a portfolio of 20 different designs for the client in a few weeks time, and in the beginning I thought it's totally fine.

After starting to work on the assignment, I also saw that it is easy to generate a lot of ideas on what the artworks could be, but sketching them to make a look that represents the idea takes a while (because I haven't practiced it for 4 years!). How do you measure time to make a good artwork? Is my "good" the same as "good" for the client?

Apart from the time issue, there is another thing to solve - the client relationship. The artwork in this case is not only mine, it is also client's. My experience in client-facing roles before tells, that I should keep the client involved. On the other hand, involving client to creative process is very difficult, because if you send an idea that is too rough, the client will think you're incompetent. If you send the idea that is too complete, client can find it irrelevant for his needs.

I am glad my client is a person I have know for quite a while. That means we are open to feedback for each other and we agree that at the beginning it may be hard.

My strategy for now is sketching as many artworks as possible, and sending them through to my client. The selection made by the client is the market-relevant one, and I will make the final pieces from the sketches selected. I agree that there might be some disagreements between us of which pieces are better or worse, but for the first time in situation like this I think I have to put the client first, 'cause that will be a good practice for me, until my skills get back in the shape I had a few years ago.

Introduction

By this blog I am opening a new story.

I am an artist. Until 16 years old I told everyone I will study arts, and I drew and I went to art school next to my high school. I was pretty good in painting and drawing and color matching is my natural talent. In school on my leisure time, I learned to work with Corel and Photoshop, I was not asked, but I was curious.
I had a few artworks on artscene.lt, and they were pretty good.

I have studied Economics and Finance for most of the wrong reasons, and worked in business structures for a few years. I believe that it was the right thing to do at that point of my life, cause I got to gain management experience, travel, meet a lot of amazing people and and learn quite a bit of life. I think I would not be this great person I am because of all this experience.

However, I felt that without art a big part of real me was missing. Therefore, I decided that from year 2009 I will work more to become an artist. It would be great to make a living out of it, but for this year my goal is to make at least a first art portfolio and have it exhibited somewhere. I am not quitting my day job.

And this blog will be a journal of my progress. In this blog you will find my plans, reflections, inspiration bits and other experiences along the way to my goal. I am writing it for myself in the first place, however, I am sure there are more people like me, searching for the same thing. I hope you will find my experiences interesting, and your comments/feedback are more than welcome.

I am also looking for people who have gone through same paths, or are artists, who could give me tips/feedback on activities. I believe there are quite a bit of valuable exchanges to happen in the future.