No, drawing perfectly is not enough. Creativity can help you learn new things, but you need help to stay organized and be responsible. Like Van Gogh, every freelance artist brings life into the world from their heart.
Art by itself is a journey of freedom where all ties are broken, and all structures fall apart. This demonic representation of oneself, which often needs chaos, fights order at every turn. Even though life can motivate a freelance artists, they can only make it by being disciplined.
As a result, the skills you’ll need to learn are opposites. These days, a freelance artist is both a planner and someone who builds new worlds. As well as a boss, they have a salesman and a seller. Now that you’re five people instead of one, you need to balance your artistic side and your business sense. This is all you need to change into the person you want to be.
5 Key Qualities of a Successful Freelance Artist
Freelance Artist ‘Must-Have Technical Skills
Professional skills are needed for painting, drawing, film making, and other visual arts. Prodigies or virtuosos are the few people who are born with it. The rest of us will have to put in much effort to study and hone our skills, creative abilities, and potential.
Those born to create and want to work in the art and design fields need the following basic skills. Scholars teach them in art schools to get people interested in the visual arts. These aren’t natural talents or skills; they’re steps that should be honed.
- Drawing
Every class in the visual arts starts with a drawing lesson. Before useful and productive skills, the first thing is the ability to draw straight from life, memory, and fantasy.
- Understanding of Proportions
Before breaking the mold, you need to know what it is. As a result, the Golden Ratio is the second most important thing for visual artists to learn about proportions in nature and everyday life.
- Compositional abilities
Shapes, their lines, and their balance are all based on proportions. Composition skills require creating or breaking a precise amount of visual parts.
- Color Concepts
When color theory and psychology are joined, they create a range that is hard to use in one lifetime. They can be used in many ways, such as by studying tonal values, which helps them breathe healthily and naturally.
- Understanding of resources
You might need help finding the perfect place to improve your skills, but luckily, there are many great ones to choose from. You can choose from 50 different schools to learn how to make video games; all are seen as real options.
Freelance Artist’ Must-Have Thinking Skills
Artists see possibilities where others see problems. Some pieces and compositions go beyond the mind, and some works of art are made up of nothing but feelings. But they’re all based on an idea, and ideas are just the result of the artist’s mind.
Skillfulness makes a big difference in both brain processes and art. We all think and dream, but only the gifted people are special in their thinking and goals. To be a great artist, you’ll need to learn to think logically, creatively, critically, and in different ways.
- Critical, divergent, and analytic thinking
Each of these three categories of thinking skills enables us to look at facts, put them together, or break them down to make choices, address problems, and produce new ideas in their special ways. The most important quality in an artist, creative or unconventional thinking, is what breaks the mold of what has already been established, whether it’s a notion, an idea, a rule, or a theory.
- Metacognition
With focus and control, ideas can come true. That’s why great artists need to work on their meta cognition, which means they need to examine their thoughts and organize them in a way that makes sense.
For Freelance Artists, Business Sense and Management Skills
We’ve only talked about restraint a few times, but this sentence will change. Self-control, efficiency, and being naturally motivated are important in any job, creative or not. If you want to make a living doing the visual arts, your dedication must be more than a hobby.
- Self-Management
You’ll also need to be able to handle your own time well since you’ll be working as an individual. Although art resists order, you still need to find a way to organize your days, set priorities, and stay in charge of your life, your creative chaos, and yourself.
- Managing Projects
For the most part, you’ll be a one-person band, but sometimes you need to work with other people on projects. In either case, you’ll need to learn the basics of project management. This will help you control your time, organize your work, and produce the best results possible.
- Common Sense
You need to think like a business person to find work as a freelancer and get paid for your work. You’ll need to know where to look, how to market and sell yourself, find your ideal customers, and make money from your work. You’ll also need some computer skills since everything is digital these days.
Freelance Artist Interpersonal Skills
There will be times when you work with people who are not also artists. Transforming complex language into daily language will be the hardest skill to learn. A big part of their success will depend on how you explain your ideas to people who need to be more creative.
- Collaboration and communication
You’ll need to know how to properly describe and explain your artistic ideas to partners and clients in person, over the phone, or through email or online meetings. You’ll greatly work with others, so improve your group work and listening skills.
- Ability to Network
If you feel stuck at the start of something, it’s time to network. It would help if you went where your clients are to make money as a freelance artist. There’s also the matter of getting their attention and making them curious. Start by adding people to your network on Facebook and LinkedIn. Then, move on to other sites.
For Freelance Artists, Creativity and Passion
Passion isn’t a skill, but it’s necessary for anything important. You can overcome any obstacle with passion and creativity, a given in the arts. Your commitment and drive will get stronger, which will help you be more creative and original.
It’s hard enough to be a great graphic artist without dealing with extra problems as a worker. Make sure to mold your creative energy with the right management and business skills and strong technical and thinking skills.
