MY FIRST YEAR AS A FULL-TIME ARTIST - LOST MY JOB due to lockdown & how I make a living, 3 ways

so i'm just having tea in my studio this morning it's my first morning in this week because we had a bank holiday yesterday so james and i stayed at home but i'm just having tea with you so let's have a bit of tea it's not coffee this morning it is tea herbal tea i think it's got licorice in it as well which is my favorite so i'm coming up to my second birthday in lockdown and also another milestone because i realized the other day that i have been a full-time freelance artist for one year um and the anniversary has just passed for that so i thought for this week's video i could share my process of how that happened for me and i'm hoping there might be some ideas inspirations or insights um for you if you also want to take your creative profession to um being full-time career and being able to earn your living whilst doing it so that's what i'm hoping for for this week's video and i'm going to share my process and my experiences of the past year and i want to be really honest as well about my experiences because it has been a bumpy ride it hasn't all been downhill and easy and easy breezy it has been a lot of challenges and a lot of insecurities and a lot of fear as well so yeah i want to share that whole process with you so i've got to start filming this week's video even though i'm really really grumpy this morning so i don't know how this video is going to turn out uh yeah i've never quite been this grumpy when i've made a video so yeah it could be uh interesting so i'll try not to stray off topic and i've actually made myself a little lisp this morning to help me stay on track and then hopefully i won't do the wendy waffle thing so i'm going to share the three stages if you like of of how this happened and this came about for me in this adventure of becoming a full-time artist the first part of that i will talk to you a little bit about really briefly what i was doing before the lockdown and then a little bit about what happened when the lockdown hit um the first lockdown anyway because i think here we're in the third one and then also a little bit about my three sources of income and how i made that work for me so that's kind of it in a nutshell if you like so i'll timestamp everything down below in the description box as well so that you can jump about um into the bits you're interested in and then skip the bits you're not interested in if you know what i mean so before the lockdown hit i was working towards becoming a full-time artist and i had part-time jobs as well as teaching my own art class here in this building so this building is really wonderful because not only does it have private offices communal studios it also has rooms that you can rent out so if you are doing a yoga class for example you can rent the room out and run your class in it and that's what i did with a with an art class and i was running the art class i did two classes a week one evening class and one in the day and i did that for over a year and then just before the lockdown hit i actually closed because i had a feeling that a lockdown was about to happen so i think the week before lockdown i actually closed my class so that obviously cut that source of income off and at that time my part-time job which i really really loved was working in a local shop in a clothes shop and that shop had to close as well so that shut off that source of income as well so i was basically left with no sources of income when the lockdown hit and it was a really scary place to be um not gonna lie i was really discombobulated about it because i'd worked really really hard to be able to earn enough money to pay my bills and also buy art supplies and little bits and bobs so yeah it was a real blow to me it really was but at that point just before lockdown i had been working towards minimizing my time at my part-time job and extending my work as as an artist so i was probably about 40 a part-time job and 60 working for myself at that point if that gives you a rough idea and i had built that up over the past two years of um landing after our travels so that was the point i was at when the lockdown hit and then obviously i went to zero income so i could of allowed myself to get really down at that point and and to be honest part of me was really down about it but for some reason the um the warrior wendy came out if you like and i decided really quickly to take what i was doing in the art class and do an online version of that just to give it a go and try it out and see if it was going to work for me i think i'd made one or two youtube videos so i hadn't videoed anything for years i didn't have any equipment i didn't know how to edit or anything like that i had no idea what i was doing so i just decided to jump head first into a um the deep end really with that this is take two of the mini arc kick video because when i lowered you down to the desk it didn't work properly didn't work very well so i'm take two i could do with a clapper board i'll make one okay and i will try and put you onto my desk a little bit more successfully this time i'm just going to go through really quickly the kit i initially brought home last week which wasn't for any uh self-isolation possibilities i'm not going to use the self-isolation or the word quarantine because i don't like those phrases so for me i'm going to call it hibernating because i like to hibernate anyway so that kind of feels more normal for me and hopefully i can still get in the studio for a little while longer yet and who knows what's going to happen because everything changing changes so quickly at the moment but in the meantime let me go through my initial mini art kit and then i'll probably do another video in a minute where i'll go through my bigger box with more stuff and i quite remember what i put in there or whether i've got the stuff i need so hopefully i have okay so i remember packing up my art supplies into one of my big boxes in the studio and taking that home and then turning the camera on and yeah using my phone just to film turning my camera on and just um yeah making my very first patreon video um and just jumping ahead a little bit because i've just obviously mentioned the patreon the reason i picked patreon was because it gave me a platform where everything was there so i could upload videos i could make posts i could build a community of creative souls within that platform quite easily without me needing to know anything technical or anything like that and it also gave me the ability to create different tiers so different values had different rewards so i could make some of the tiers really accessible because obviously i wasn't the only person that had lost my income so i understood that so my initial plan for the patreon was to do an online class and it has since evolved into something less formal if you like but at that point bearing in mind what i had been doing and that i just wanted to take that online at that point that's what i did so i emailed everybody that had ever come to the art class and some weeks i had a full class some weeks it was empty and some weeks it was middle but i just emailed everybody and said i was starting this patreon page to take the class online and i basically made the weekly class the same price as one week so you were basically getting four weeks classes for the same price as one class um and obviously the reason i did that was because i wanted to make it really good value really appealing to people to join in and to begin to build this this community and maintain myself a little bit of income as well at the same time hello and welcome to this week's video for our patreon and obviously starting a new project here exciting and i am just going to show you a few things that i've gathered before we start just to give you some ideas of what kind of things you can choose for making the altered book that we're going to be doing next well if you feel like it obviously if you just want to watch and you want to integrate some of the ideas into art you're already making that's absolutely fine and a lovely way of working and if you want to do your very own altered book then you're going to need obviously to start with an altered book or two i've actually got three here which i'm going to be dipping into so that's what i did i did a weekly patreon video where i videoed myself making art and talking about my process and all the things i'd been doing in art class and through that process slowly but surely i learned how to film better i learned about sound i learnt about editing i learned about putting together something a little bit more interesting and i also found my own style and rhythm with the video making and i think it's a bit like painting isn't it where you paint and paint and paint trying to find your style and you don't know what your style is and you've just got to keep going until it starts to emerge and it was the same for me with video making and i had this style personal to me that started to emerge and i was really enjoying the process of videoing the creative side of that as well as the editing process which i really wasn't expecting at all i thought i would absolutely not like the editing and that side of things but it was the opposite i absolutely loved it and i found it as creative as making my artwork so that was a lovely surprise it also helped keep my own momentum up with my own creativity and it helped keep me motivated during these really strange discombobulating times that that was the first lockdown and if it hadn't been for my early patrons who i'm ever grateful for i don't think i would really have got to becoming a full-time artist and i don't think i would have got the confidence to really put myself out there so thank you to those people for that for that early days support um yeah truly kept me going and i know that some of you are still in the patreon still there they've been with me a whole year now so thank you so so much for that and the encouragement and support i've received during that time it's been a real circle of love and inspiration for me and uh yeah i can't stress that enough so that leads me on to my second source of income which was my etsy shop and i'd had my etsy shop for quite a few years and i hadn't really bothered that much with it i hadn't kept up my momentum with adding new items and doing the seo needed and things like that which isn't my strong point at all i did my best with it and i did make a few sales um and you know but it was really slow and it certainly wasn't going to sustain me and help me pay my bills so what i did at this point as well was to market my etsy shop a little bit more so just putting out on social media if i had some new things going in and i started making a lot more of the canvas squares and i started getting commissions for making the little canvas squares as well so the little um i think there's one up there little canvas squares yeah i started to build up a little bit more success and more sales in my shop to help bring in a bit of income as well and i was really enjoying that you know walking to the post office with parcels and yeah feeling really really good about you know selling some of my things and i didn't have lots of package materials and things like that i hadn't got to that point i was just recycling boxes and packaging that i had i wasn't even sure how to ship my prints safely and things like that so i was really learning in a steep way because obviously if you have an order for something you want it to to arrive in in top condition so there was all the packaging side of it and then needing to restock my shop so this was a requirement as well for me to build a little bit more income as well because i had layout costs for new stock to keep the shop um full of beautiful things so that was the early days where i was trying to build up the patreon community a little bit and also run the shop and this moved me on to my third source of income because as i explained a minute ago about doing the patreon and creating videos and editing videos and enjoying that process i decided to start a youtube channel and i decided to do this three years ago and i think i mentioned in last week's video i got shy and i changed my mind but i changed my mind the other way um in i think the end of june last year i put my first proper youtube video together and put it up on my channel and at first nothing happened at all really i had a few people watching and a few comments and a few subscribers and that slowly but surely started to grow and as that started to grow that then encouraged me to share more and so what i decided to do with my youtube because i'd kind of already evolved my video style if you like and also had got a little bit more used to talking to the camera and things like that i really decided to follow my heart and be authentic and know not share every personal detail of my of my life or anything like that because i am a really private person as well but to share enough that i was shining my light showing my soul if you like so that's what i decided to do [Music] you are never alone oh you're not lonely again [Music] oh [Music] and yes at that point i started to build momentum with the youtube channel and there was a couple of my videos that were picking up on views and things like that and that started to help my channel to grow and the other thing i i started to share out there is is the things i was doing so for example the relationship between mental health well-being and being creative um that whole thing and people seem to really enjoy that conversation so that was attracting new people to my channel as well as um the art journaling stuff as well that i had been doing for years so i basically just did what i was doing but put it online put it on in a public platform um not behind the patreon wall but actually out there um yeah so obviously there's ups and downs and uh yeah the beginning of that process it was really difficult and the momentum you know took a little while to build um with subscribers and things like that so i just kept making videos and i just kept doing my best and really putting my heart and soul into what i was doing i was working long hours i was working really really hard doing what i loved and putting that energy into it and slowly but surely it did start to build momentum and i felt like i was on the right path at that point i felt like i was doing what i was meant to be doing and then around november december time last year i started to be able to um earn enough money to pay all my bills again which was absolutely wonderful and even gave me the freedom to be able to invest in some better filming equipment and better sound equipment even some art supplies because i'd been using budget art supplies for years and so to invest into some proper quality professional art supplies has been absolutely mind-blowing as well so yeah that that's been amazing i think i'll just say at this point as well if you are at that point where you are either part in your part-time work or even if you're in your full-time work and you want to be doing your own thing 100 of the time whatever that may be um just have faith and hope in yourself and and really do follow your heart and follow your dreams even if it's just baby steps to making a little plan of a course that you want to write or something that you want to make or share or open a shop just take a little tiny step in that direction and dip your toe in if you like to how that feels i think we only know the right things to do next and the decisions to make and things like that when we're actually experiencing it and experiencing how we feel doing it um so if we feel uplifted we should definitely follow our joy as much as we can with things like financial and and responsibilities of paying bills and things like that because obviously being able to sustain ourselves is an important part of you know well-being so i think to finish off this video it's just um maybe a little recap on where i'm at now and um it hasn't all been a downhill easy peasy ride there's definitely been ups and downs for me and if you've watched any of my other vlogs i'm sure you will recognize some of the videos where i look a bit down or i look a bit overwhelmed and indeed i talk about that side of things as well it's not just all shiny and sparkly um the world of youtube is not like that at all but yeah i like to share the whole picture and i think by doing that it can sometimes feel quite vulnerable um and i do sometimes feel a little bit shy um putting things out there sometimes and i'm i'm just like everyone else i i often feel lost and overwhelmed unmotivated all those things but all we can do is do our best and so that's what i do and i put as much energy as i can into my self-care routines and so that i can keep my light shining as brightly and as polished as possible and then that hopefully shines through in in the content i put out so yeah that's what i'm aiming for [Music] anyway [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so i talk about self-care and mental health and well-being quite a lot on my channel and i do prioritize my own self-care above most other things not everything but most things i do prioritize that aspect of life and i find that i'm a much better person and i'm much more useful to the other people in my life if my batteries are fully charged as much as possible anyway and boy has that been tricky during the lockdown times but um yeah i'm still struggling with finding a work-life balance i'm learning to respect my energy levels much more and i am learning to recognize when i need to work and also when i need to rest that inhale exhale relationship if you like so hopefully i've not waffled too much and this video has been interesting to some of you and that's my journey so far and it's been an up and down ride and it's not just been one year of me getting to this point there was a lot of years building up to the point of setting up the art class for example um it took a long time to get to that point so there's a lot more to the story before this year but i just thought i'd concentrate on on what's happened this year partly because it's been a really strange year for everybody yeah and it's been a really interesting bumpy exciting scary vulnerable ride just been thrown into the deep end because of the lockdowns and so what i thought was going to be a gradual process of me dropping more of my part-time work and building up more momentum with my art side of things i was just cut off from all my sources of income and thrown in completely into the lion's den if you like to see if i would survive and thrive and thank goodness that it's worked so well for me so if there's anyone out there that wants to go full time doing your own thing whether it's something creative and being an artist or something else there's many many ways of doing it and it doesn't necessarily have to be putting yourself out on youtube and things like that and starting a patreon although those things have worked really well for me so whatever it is that you want to do to be doing what you love for on a full-time basis i would give my one piece of advice and that would be follow your heart follow your own path and and don't look around too much at what other people are doing just go within and then react from the inside out if you like because that's what i did and i hadn't really done that before in the way that i did it when the lockdown hit and that's when i started seeing my path if you like and started seeing some results from following that so that would be my one piece of big advice and for me what does that look like it looks like going out in nature sitting under a tree on the ground and pondering and thinking and soul searching and yeah that that's the one thing that's that's made the difference in this year so all i can say is thank you so much for watching and commenting and liking and subscribing and checking out my shop and being on my patreon page as well all of that has helped support me and i can't thank you enough it's been a wonderful yet scary journey um yeah so if you have any questions about anything that we've been talking about in this week's video just leave them down below and i'll see if i can come back to you and yeah or leave me a comment to say where where you're at in your in your career um and whether you're at that place where you're able to do what you love even some of the time and as always thank you so much for watching and keeping me company and supporting me in all my online places i really appreciate you and i send loads of love and big soft hugs try to keep your lights bright and i will see you in the next one bye for now bye for now bye [Music] we got a brand new day good love is on the way and if you take my hand i'll walk with you to georgia have you ever been in love dove in from high above and if the answer's no well then i'd like [Music] cause i don't know what i've been told the weather outside is not that cold and if you take my hair i'll walk with you to georgia and i don't know what those men see but i see you right next to me and if you take my hand i'll walk with you to georgia

Channel: The Unexpected Gypsy

Views: 33,930

Rating: 4.9739466 out of 5

Keywords: mixed media art, art for self care, art journaling, mixed media art journaling, sketchbook journals, artist studio, self care, artist vlogs, altered book, grey hair, grey hair transition, starting a patreon as an artist, how i started my youtube channel 2021, how i started my youtube channel, how I grew my channel, part time job to full time artist, how I went full time as an artist, lost my job, work life balance, full time artist income, starting a patreon page

Id: Wo6-lG-AIZg

Length: 26min 33sec (1593 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021