💰 12 months to become a pro artist + my 5 essentials
💰 12 months to become a pro artist + my 5 essentials
#9 Bites of my artist life, episode 1, my detailed plan to quit my job and become a pro artist
Dear little demon,
Welcome to the edition #9 of the Art Missive! We are now 1 874😈 in this newsletter: thank you sm for reading ❤.
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In this Art Missive
1. INTRO : Bites of Léa’s life
2. 12 months to become a full-time artist
3. 5 things I can’t live without as a social media artist
4. 3 fun facts about me
INTRO : a day in my life
With this Newsletter, all I want is sharing with you things I had to learn the hard way, and on my own.
But then, I realized that you may not know so much about me while some of my personal experiences could be beneficial for some of you.
That is why I thought about making a “Bites of my Life” Missive from time to time.
This format will allow us to catch up, share some lessons I learned as an artist and give you early access to my projects.
Let’s have a try !
And let me know how you like this format (simply answer to this email).
12 months to become a full-time artist
In this first “Bites of Léa’s Life” Missive, I had to explain to you one thing that impacts my daily life a lot :
I decided to give myself 12 months to become a full-time artist.
And with this announcement, you are probably asking several questions :
1️⃣ What do I mean by “full-time artist” : In my case, it means that by January 2024, I will be able to make a living out of my art bisuness. All my bills and charges will be paid by my art business without relying on other business or other people.
2️⃣ So… What’s paying your bills right now ? 2 years ago, when I was still a Law student, I created my own business. It has nothing to do with art as I work in sustainability and the environment. I graduated 6 months ago, and until today, running this enterprise is what pays my bills.
3️⃣ Why 12 months ? You could potentially become a full-time artist in way less than a year. Or… in way more than a year. 12 months is completely personal. I studied my situation, took into account the fact that I still need to run this sustainable business before transitioning, and took my mental health and my well-being into account… And I concluded that 12 months was perfect to stay motivated and move as fast as possible but still enough time to build my career consciously.
4️⃣ And what after these 12 months ? I’ll leave my current business and focus on 2 things : 1) making art 2) help you guys do the same (or even better!)
5️⃣ How are you going to spend these 12 months ?
My project will be evolving around 3 main steps :
Step 1, foundations : becoming very good at what I’m doing. In other words, learning how to get a professional level in art.
Step 2, experimentations : starting to test different ways to make a living with my art. 2023 will be the year of testing some ways an artist can generate income streams!
Step 3, strategy : finding my value as an artist. At the end of this year, I’ll take some time to reflect on my improvments as an artist and as a business owner to identify what strategy I should expend to reach my goal in 2024.
6️⃣ With all of this being said ! A day in my life, currently looks like that :
👉 morning : working on my current business
👉 afternoon : working for you guys (Instagram content, writing these Missives etc.)
👉 evening : working on my “12 months to become a full time artist” project, starting with the course I need to follow to become get a pro art level.
👉 week-ends : focusing on drawing
My 5 essentials
As I am giving you some bites of my daily life, I wanted to share with you some little things that makes life as a social media artist way easier :
👉 Essential 1 : natural light. Ok, you might be like “are you kidding me Léa?’ but really… Always prioritizing drawing during the day in a luminous space helped me 1) improve my art 2) improve my experience of practicing and 3) DRASTICALLY improve the image quality of my Reels and Instagram posts.
👉 Essential 2 : bristol paper. As a graphite pencil artist, I spent years trying to find the best paper to draw. After dozens of different sketchbooks and paper blocks… I found it ! The bristol paper. It is smooth (very Instagram-friendly) but also really resistant. You can draw on both sides of the sheet, you can erase a lot without damaging the paper right away, you can use many types of media like graphite, charcoal, colored pencils, even alcohol markers!
👉 Essential 3 : an organized Pinterest. I drastically improved my art once I started to draw from references. The thing is, finding the right references for a specific artwork takes AGES! So I started to get a really organized Pinterest that I continuously fill with new references to accelerate my workflow.
👉 Essential 4 : Canva. It is a free platform that help you create designs! And I use it to make my moodboards like this one :
👉 Essential 5 : a tripod. I started art Reels holding my phone while drawing… and this was a disaster (don’t judge me!!). Using a tripod allows me to focus on my artwork instead of worrying about filming the artwork that I can’t even make properly because I’m trying to record it at the same time…
🎁 BONUS ! Essential 6 : Snapseed. This is the ONLY app I use to edit my photos. It is super simple to use and you have all the tools you need to take the photos of your artworks to a completely different level. The best part of it? It’s free!
3 facts about me
Finishing with this first “Bites of Léa’s Life” Missive with 3 facts about me. Maybe you’ll relate to these ? 😈
👉 FACT 1 : I am a conflicted introverted person. The moments I spend alone are always the ones that make me feel recharged and blooming. But do I listen to myself ? Of course not! I tend to constantly search for spending time with friends and relatives which ends up in great exhaustion. It’s like… I disagree with being introverted.
👉 FACT 2 : I am a true fan of anime and manga since I’m 5. Actually, I think this is the activity I did the most in my life (after sleeping). And lately, I noticed that I always fall for white-haired characters (but not on purpose!) : Kirua, Gin, Kakashi, Ayaka…
👉 FACT 3 : I grew up in an environment where art could not be a real job. And that’s ok. Because I was raised by a family who knew nothing about entrepreneurship and being an artist! They tried to protect me by sending me away from this path. Even if this prevented me from dedicating myself to this dream job earlier, it drove me to be able to identify rational green flags in order to make the decision to pursue this career. Now, I am very confident about my chances of success, thanks to them being so scared!