No, flawless drawing is insufficient. While creativity can help you learn what you don’t know, it won’t help you stay organized or responsible. As Van Gogh thought, every freelance artist generates life from their spirit.
Art, on its own, is a voyage of liberation in which all ties are divided, and every structure collapses. Such a demiurgic manifestation of oneself, which often necessitates chaos, challenges order at every turn. Despite being inspired by life, A freelance artist can only survive through discipline.
As a result, the abilities you’ll need to learn are essentially paradoxical. A modern freelance artist is a builder of new worlds and an architect. They have a manager, a marketer, and a salesperson. You’ll need to strike a balance between your artistic essence and your business intellect before being five people instead of one drives you nuts. Here’s everything you’ll need to become who you want to be.
5 Key Qualities of a Successful Freelance Artist
Freelance Artist ‘Must-Have Technical Skills
Painting, sculpting, cinematography, and other visual arts all necessitate a particular set of technical skills. The few people who are born with it are known as prodigies or virtuosos. The remainder of us will have to work hard to study, hone our talents, creative abilities, and potential.
The following technical abilities are required for anyone born to create but want to work in the art and design sector. They are taught as an introduction to the visual arts in art schools by scholars. These aren’t natural powers or gifts but rather procedures that should be perfected.
- Drawing
Every visual arts course starts with a drawing lesson. The capacity to draw directly from life, memory, and imagination always comes first, followed by practical and constructive skills.
- Understanding of Proportions
To break the mold, you must first become acquainted with it. As a result, as a principle of proportions seen in life and nature, the Golden Ratio is the visual artist’s second most important lesson.
- Compositional abilities
Shapes, their direction, and balance follow proportions. Knowing how to create or break the exact ratio of visual elements is key to composition skills.
- Color Concepts
The theory and psychology of color, when combined, create a palette that is nearly impossible to exhaust in a single lifetime. There are various ways to use them, including the study of tonal values, which allows them to breathe in a balanced and realistic manner.
- Understanding of resources
It’s not easy to find the ideal place to hone your skills, but luckily, there are many outstanding institutions to choose from. For example, there are 50 different video game design schools to choose from, all of which are regarded as viable possibilities.
Just make sure you do your homework.
Freelance Artist’ Must-Have Thinking Skills
Artists perceive potential where others see obstacles. Some pieces and compositions appear to transcend the mind and works of art that appear to be formed entirely of feelings. Still, they’re all based on an idea, and ideas are nothing more than the result of the artist’s cerebral processes.
In both mental processes and art, skillfulness has a significant impact. Though we are all thinkers and dreamers, only the most talented are exceptional in our thinking and dreams. You’ll need to learn in all directions if you want to be a successful artist — analytically, divergently, critically, and creatively.
- Critical, divergent, and analytic thinking
These three types of thinking skills each help us examine facts, bring them together, or break them down to make decisions, solve issues, and produce new ideas in their unique ways. Creative or out-of-the-box thinking, arguably the most important quality in an artist, is what breaks the mold of what has already been established, be it a notion, an idea, a rule, or a hypothesis.
- Metacognition
Ideas are unrealizable without discipline and control. That is why excellent artists must work on their metacognition and analyze their thoughts and organize them in a meaningful way.
For Freelance Artists, Business Sense and Management Skills
So far, we’ve only discussed discipline a couple of times, but that will change in this paragraph. In any job, whether creative or not, intrinsic motivation, self-control, and productivity are crucial. Your commitment to the visual arts will have to be much more than a pastime if you want to make a profession out of it.
- Self-Management
And, because you’ll be operating as a freelancer, you’ll need self-management abilities to be successful. As previously stated, art defies order, but you must find a way to plan your days ahead of time, prioritize your activities, and maintain complete control over yourself, your life, and your creative chaos.
- Managing Projects
Though you’ll probably be a one-person band, for the most part, there will be times when you’ll need to work with people on projects. In either scenario, you’ll need to master the fundamentals of project management, which will help you organize your work, manage your time, and produce the most satisfactory outcomes possible.
- Common Sense
Freelancing necessitates a business-savvy mindset, from seeking employment to getting paid for labor. You’ll need to know where to look, how to promote and sell yourself, and how to reach out to your target audience and make money from your efforts. Because everything is digital these days, you’ll also need some technical skills.
Freelance Artist Interpersonal Skills
Not everyone you’ll work with or collaborate with will be a fellow artist. The most challenging skill you’ll need to learn is translating abstract language into everyday phrases. How you explain your ideas to reality, often unimaginative people, will determine a large portion of their success.
- Collaboration and communication
You’ll need to know how to properly define and explain your artistic notions to clients and partners through face-to-face conversations, emails, and online conferences. You’ll be working in groups a lot, so work on your listening and questioning abilities as well.
- Ability to Network
If you’re trapped at the beginning of anything, it’s time to network. You’ll need to go where your clients are if you want to make a living as a freelance artist. Furthermore, you must pique their curiosity and draw their attention to yourself. Begin by connecting with people on Facebook and LinkedIn, and then grow your network from there.
For Freelance Artists, Creativity and Passion
Though passion isn’t technically a skill, it is vital for doing anything worthwhile. Passion, combined with inventiveness, which goes without saying in the arts, allows you to conquer any hurdle. It strengthens your commitment and determination, enabling you to be more creative and inventive.
As if becoming a successful graphic artist wasn’t tricky enough, freelancers in this industry face a few additional obstacles. Maintain your creative energy with solid technical and thinking skills, but make sure to mold it with appropriate management and business skills as well.
