Why people won't pay for your art

Pricing and getting paid decently for your work is one of the hardest things to deal with as a professional artist. Ideally, we'd all just create and have people give us enough money to live happily ever after, but the reality for most of us is that we have to constantly sell ourselves.

We have to submit to galleries, show portfolios, scan craigslist and other job posting sites for freelance work. Some of us get agents. It's not the easiest profession in the world.

A huge hurdle that lots of us face is that if you don't work in a creative field, you often don't know what art/illustration/design is worth. I'll be honest, in the past, Monkey + Seal have taken a lot of low paying jobs since sometimes you have to do what you have to do to pay the bills. However, if you can at all help it, turn down these jobs!

Often, we get approached at conventions and shows and asked to do book covers. Unfortunately, it's not by large publishers (although we're hoping to change that soon) but by everyday people who have an idea they want to see made into a children's book, or who have written a novel and want a cover for it to self-publish.

According to the Graphic Arts Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines (which all creatives should own, btw), for a small press (runs of 3000-7000 units) book cover, you should be looking at anywhere between 1,200-2,500. Even assuming it's smaller, offers of $200 are a bit insulting, to be perfectly honest. We're super happy that you like our work, but for some of our illustrations we have spent upwards of 50 hours on. Illustration takes research, thumbnailing, colors and value studies, and piles of sketches before the final execution.

Besides the 50 hours, what clients are paying for are the years invested in honing our craft. Even for our paintings, if you see us whip something up while we live paint, even though we might finish something in an hour, that doesn't take into account the thousands of hours we've spent sketching, researching, studying other artists, playing with color, learning how to use our paints, experimenting with various mediums. So there is a lot of time invested in what you don't see. After all, Michael Jordan didn't just play basketball for those 48 minutes in every NBA game. Every day that you weren't watching him dominate the court, he'd be practicing in a gym, first there, last to leave. He got paid the big bucks because all of the behind the scenes work that the average viewer doesn't see.

Another large hurdle is that our culture doesn't value art like it does other trades. For example, for some reason, people think artists "just paint and draw" unlike, say, auto mechanics or doctors. This, however, is plainly false. The best analogy I've ever heard is like this: you don't go into an autoshop and say "Can you please fix my car, and then maybe if I like the way that it drives and it makes me some money, I'll pay you." You'd probably get thrown out. However, all the time, we hear "Can you please do this book cover illustration for me, and then maybe if I like it and it sells a lot of copies, I'll pay you." Not cool, people, not cool.

The more of us that take this spec work (which is highly looked down upon), the more and more people hiring us will come to expect that as a norm. Not cool.

If you think of hiring a creative:
-Our work takes time! Please be respectful of this - we usually can't do an illustration in an hour!
-If we can do an illustration in an hour, you'll probably want revisions, and those take more time.
-If you think we charge too much, please try and do it yourself. What we do is a craft - it takes lots and lots of practice.
-Please don't try and sell us on "exposure," unless you're representing 200,000 viewers/readers, or have a name like Nike or Pepsi. Even then, you should have been around long enough and have enough funds to pay us anyway.

So if you are a creative:
-Stick up for your work! Don't be afraid to ask for what your time is worth.
-Don't take spec work! You're working for free!
-If you have to take a job, we know that sometimes if its between a low paying gig and paying rent, you need to take the gig, but resist if at all possible!

Free Your Brain of Clutter

Do you have unfinished projects? ideas? or unkept promises? Anytime we take on a project or a promise to deliver, we use up our temporary present memory to store "to-do lists" in our minds. These to-do lists continually remind us that there are things left to be done, and will not go away until we feel closure with a project. When we want to start a new project, suddenly we remember that we needed to edit that document, finish off that embroidery for grandma's birthday due a month ago, or frame that painting, etc. Not just art projects, but personal ones too, such as that pile of laundry, or unworn clothes you've been hoarding in the closet, or the drawing desk full of clutter. How can we invite new ideas in when we are full of clutter?

So dust off that unfinished novel drafts, baby scarf, or sketches you wanted to turn into murals. Commit to following through and finishing them. You'll feel pounds lighter and ready to take on new projects and plans for world domination.

Sneak Peek - Postcards

While live painting as this week's featured artists over at the Blue Macaw via Market SF, we have developed a whole new line of postcard-sized art! Seal came up with the theme of "Steampunk animals," and we really took that concept and ran with it!

These images are parts of two of the new postcards that we'll be featuring at the SF Zine Fest on September 4+5th! Woo, it's coming up soon, so mark your calendars for a whole new line of postcards for sale at the Zine Fest!
We are hard at work trying to work on a bunch of new and exciting projects as we have also confirmed a booth at the Alternative Press Expo this coming October 16+17th, so we want to really step up our game and have some great stuff for you to check out. We appreciate your support and patronage, and we hope to keep producing art and products that you'll enjoy.

What is Behind Your Art?

Have you ever saw something "really cool" but when you looked again, it was "essentially empty" ? Like an action movie full of explosions, state-of-the art effects, and "cool shit," but with a painfully terrible plot, lines, and acting? Like channel surfing, fast cuts, pulsing eye-catching flickers of spectacle, but you can't remember what it was that you watched a minute ago?

Is your art like this?

Sometimes, people create for mere spectacle. They just want to grab your eye without really committing to stating something. While there is no wrong way to do "art," What is your goal? If "eye-catching" is your goal, then congratulations, you've probably already reached it. If it is something else . . . if you seek questions more than to answer them . . . then congratulations, you've got a whole lifetime to create.

Seal forgot where she got this quote but it has always stuck by her: "What is your goal? Is it to paint better? or to see better?"

Create something worthwile

This guy feels like he hasn't created anything worthwhile

Monkey here:

I have to create. Whether it's making stickers I'll never post up or painting huge acrylics or even just blogging, I have to stay in motion and keep on producing something. The trick is I have to keep making sure that what I'm creating is really creating and not just false ego-building. Bejeweled Blitz (BJB from here out) and other Facebook games are the largest opiates of the masses. I admit, I'm not immune, as I constantly strive for making it to at least the top 3 on my BJB leaderboard. Really though, what does that accomplish?

It makes me feel awesome, when I really haven't done anything to be awesome. Not to trample on the dreams of anyone who makes a living off video games (playing, coding, creating, or otherwise), but honestly I feel like it's just a fake emotional boost that keeps you coming back every week for more (since the leaderboards are wiped clean every Tuesday morning).

Make sure that you're spending your time doing stuff that matters to you. It doesn't have to matter to me, as if you want to be #1 on BJB every week that's your passion. But as I try to wean myself off the addictive teat of facebook video games, I want to make sure that my time and energy are better placed networking, writing decent blog posts, and making art.

As much as we all say we're addicted to BJB, or Farmville, or Mafia Wars, or Call of Duty, or whatever, I don't think a lot of us realize how addicted we really are. By accomplishing something in the game, we are getting really neurotransmitters flowing that make us feel good, and this is reinforcing the action that leads us to that feeling - playing more of these games.

How do you kick the habit? If you try to slowly get off the habit, I recommend kitchen timers so you limit yourself to how much to play. But seriously, going cold turkey seems like the way to go for me. But you have to make sure that you really ditch as many ways of going back as you can.

When I kicked WoW, it literally was me canceling my account and that was that. Do I still miss flying around on my windrider and unleashing flurries of arrows on unsuspecting squishies? Oh most definitely. But if you're like me and can give up entire days to gaming, you have to choose between being great at gaming, and being great at something offline.

I'm not trying to be a downer for any gamers, and for many of you casual gamers out there who can walk away easily, more power to you. But as someone in a field that is so subjective who has to get my art out in front of as many people as possible in order to survive, I honestly don't have the time for that.

Thus, after you read this, I will have deleted BJB from my iphone and removed it from my FB profile, so I can't keep going back. I honestly really, really, really want to change the world, and nobody ever did that while tethered to video games (although feel free to prove me wrong on this one). My goal isn't to be the best WoW PvPer, or the person with the highest BJB score in the world. My goal is to become an internationally-acclaimed artist.

Like I said before, I have to create, and now, I'm choosing to create something that's going to place me one step toward my goal, rather than keeping me nice and docile where I am.

Write that idea down!

If you haven't already, it's useful to keep a notebook of ideas by your bed side and carry it with you everywhere. You never know when a good idea will strike. Most of the time, your mind is most pliable and inventive during "meditative actions" like taking a shower, jogging, or right as you fall asleep. Whatever mind wall or guard that you have up during your active day, is eased and ready to be creative when you quieten your breath. Sometimes it helps to pose a question at night, and by morning write down what comes to mind. Don't think too hard about it. It can be as difficult as "how can I solve my financial problem?" or "what color should I paint that dog?" What you write throughout the day are small clues as to what to explore next. Before our mind fills with life's white noise, before we forget - write it down! sketch it, doodle it, capture it! Then we can always decide to pursue an idea, abandon it, or let it stew for another day. Seal has about 10 of these kinds of books filled up, in the case that she's running on empty, she can refer to her ideation book for inspiration, for answers, or the start of a new question.

Buy our shirts!!

Hi everyone! So we've decided to spread the love and offer our fabulous shirt "You're Not Alone Anymore" to all our lovely bloggy readers. You can pre-order this lovely shirt for $5 off the regular price! Part of the proceeds will also go to a charity (La Casa de las Madres) that provides resources for survivors of domestic violence, so you can rest assured that the shirt purchase is doing good for the world. Go here now! No seriously, now! We'll wait.

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Oh, back? Sweet, thanks for ordering! Anyhoo, many apologies for getting this post up so late, by now most of you are probably pretty liquored up and enjoying your Friday nights, but alas, Monkey was getting his teeth drilled, filled, and all that good stuff, so we've had our hands a bit full.

Anyway, we really appreciate everyone who has already bought a shirt - the t-shirt fund is our way of fundraising for Monkey's dental work. Thanks again!

PS - We want to do more shirts, so we'd love to hear suggestions of stuff you want to see. And yes, Monkey is already working on a zombie design. Hooray!