Any ideas on how to help a portrait artist make money?

avatar33

avatar33

e-Hustler
Dec 5, 2009
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Calgary, AB
Yo bros,

so my girlfriend's sister is a ridiculously talented portrait artist (and she's only 17!), but like all artists she's broke and can't live off her art. I'm trying to help her make some money by doing portraits online. I was thinking about fiverr but it takes her a couple hours to do a portrait so $5 would really be an unfair price, and they don't allow you to add "extras" till you reach level 2 or something. I know the best thing would be to rank her for keywords like "portrait artist" or "portrait art commissions" but I just don't have the time to do it right now... told her I'll do it later this year though...

She tried posting ads on craigslist, kijiji and even local newspapers but didn't get any call. I found this site called FiftyTown, which is kinda like fiverr but for $50 a gig, but it doesn't seem to have that much traffic.

You guys got any ideas? Maybe reddit? (Not sure how easy it is to get front page with a new acct) Here are 2 samples of her art:

Elizabeth Taylor
PzF3U25.png


Janet Jackson
p6uHT0o.jpg
 


Depending on the weather have her rent a booth at a festival or farmers market. Honestly, that is really the only way I can see marketing such a service.
 
Didn't Mark Cuban invest in a company that draws cat pictures? Obviously it's working for that guy! She should setup a website offering to do portraits of people. Teach her about SEO and how to market it.

Maybe target mothers and fathers of newborns. She probably only needs a few clients in the beginning before the whole word-of-mouth effect starts happening. A mother will tell all her friends about it.

I see a Facebook page working for something like this. You can target people with infants on Facebook Ads, but I suspect this is something you want organic/referral traffic for. Still, spending some money in the beginning to get the seed users is always beneficial.

And she should charge like $250.
 
It's so hard to understand art pricing... we were at an art gallery last week and there was some ridiculous abstract paintings from unknown local artists going for $5-7k

I see 2 different avenues for her:

1) Doing portrait commissions for people (their kids, pets, etc...) and she could charge 100-250 per portrait depending on the size and amount of subjects.

2) Drawing famous people and selling each piece for 500-1000 off ebay or at local art galleries
 
avatar33 said:
Elizabeth Taylor
PzF3U25.png
Click to expand...

2/10, fingers too manly would not bang!

In all seriousness though, set up a site. You have people willing to spend retarded amounts of money for pictures that spell shit out from photographs of things that look like letters. Try and rank for some holiday related keywords and clean up on Mother's Day, Valentines Day etc.
 
Boom, I got it.

Think for a minute how many referrals she could get from wedding planners and wedding photographers. She should march into all the wedding planning offices within 100 mi. radius, ask for the owner, and tell them about what she can do. I'm sure some wedding planners would love to hook her up and refer clients to her (old women love young women with ambition). All the wedding planner would have to do is wait for the right moment to ask if the bride and groom would like portraits (I'm sure this would come up naturally when planning a wedding) and they can refer her the work.
 
I took 2 seconds to reverse image search those portraits, they both (appear to) originate from Mary Christoff – About Mary who claims she is 21, not 17.

Also, theres a few people on deviant art with the same images claiming they are theirs.

There's also various variations of the same images, all very similar, I'd say they've just gone over an original portrait with a few brushes in photoshop.

Your friend, have you actually seen her create?
 
Garrett said:
Boom, I got it.

Think for a minute how many referrals she could get from wedding planners and wedding photographers. She should march into all the wedding planning offices within 100 mi. radius, ask for the owner, and tell them about what she can do. I'm sure some wedding planners would love to hook her up and refer clients to her (old women love young women with ambition). All the wedding planner would have to do is wait for the right moment to ask if the bride and groom would like portraits (I'm sure this would come up naturally when planning a wedding) and they can refer her the work.
Click to expand...

I could see this happen in a few years, because it does require a minimum of hustling skills that she doesn't have. Right now she lacks confidence and is extremely socially awkward. That's why I'm trying to find a way to help her make money online, where she wouldn't have to deal with anyone in person. Once she gets a few orders in I'm sure it'll build up her confidence and then she can start going to events and stuff...
 
AdamC said:
I took 2 seconds to reverse image search those portraits, they both (appear to) originate from Mary Christoff – About Mary who claims she is 21, not 17.

Also, theres a few people on deviant art with the same images claiming they are theirs.

There's also various variations of the same images, all very similar, I'd say they've just gone over an original portrait with a few brushes in photoshop.

Your friend, have you actually seen her create?
Click to expand...

That's the website I made for her a while back... did pretty much zero SEO on it. In fact I even used it to send link juice to a couple friends' sites lol. She wanted to put 21 instead of 17 to get more credibility (thinking people wouldn't want to pay 200-300 to a teenager)

Yes I've seen her create because she lived with us for a couple weeks. Trust me that art is hers bro. She's naturally gifted, never went to art school, inherited the skill from her dad who also was a portrait artist. Pretty crazy.
 
She should see about getting those copies removed from deviant art maybe? could also be a good place to sell if she doesn't already?


My initial thought when reading your post was that she should offer some celebs a free portrait, if they agree to promote her if they like the portrait?
 
AdamC said:
My initial thought when reading your post was that she should offer some celebs a free portrait, if they agree to promote her if they like the portrait?
Click to expand...

You know it's funny that said that, because she actually drew a picture of Prince (one of her favorite singers), framed it and tried to give it to him at a concert he gave here a while ago, but one of his security guys came to her and said that Prince was not allowed to accept gifts from fans and that she was not allowed to get that close to him. I don't think she wants to try that again lol
 
If only there was a social kind of site where people could share images and has an enviable record of traffic. Maybe a site with great authority that on occasion could be described as trending, even viral maybe.
 
Send her where the money is. Target upper middle class white women. She could start volunteering where these women congregate. Pick some famous people and do the portrait and send it to them. Pick the ones that are active on the various social sites.
 
Start a niche drawing service in her local town. Run around telling everyone "Hey, I Want Ti Draw A Cat For You". I'm sure it'll work out.

Honestly though, it's crazy hard to make money like that. I know several very talented female artists, none of them have ever managed to make much of anything.

She might be able to pick up a bit selling shit on Etsy, targeted release pieces to trends and such.
 
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