Making money online with paintings and crafts

Were you always good at painting in school? Do you enjoy making caricatures of famous faces or even friends? Does your idea of a leisurely evening include working on tiny clay models? If the answer to any of these questions is yes you can use your art pieces to make some money. Most people are cupboard artist who rarely ever consider selling their work. I personally believe that most people are dissuaded by the thought that nobody will but their work. Also not all of us can afford to display our work in art galleries. But the internet is a considerably wide reaching medium, meaning that even more people will be able to view your work through the internet rather than at an art gallery exhibition. 

 The first thing to do would be to collect all the pieces that you have made over the years. So, whether its paintings or sculptures, make a list of them and preferably categorize the items. For instance, paintings can be categorized into still lives, portraits, nature, abstract etc. The same can also be done with sculptures. The next step would be to click good pictures of your work. So if you are serious about this business opportunity you may want to invest in a good digital camera and the best photo editing software that you can find. After all you want the pictures to look attractive enough to make the buyer feel like buying the product. Once the pictures are ready you will need a good product description. An informative and attractive description is often the difference between a sold and unsold art piece. If you can’t write one yourself you can get an author from the various free lancing sites to do so. 

 The next step is to list put your work for sale on the various sites, eBay is one option. The other is a site called etsy.com. This is a site specifically meant for art work. Both the sites allow sellers to list their products for free. There are other home décor sites which also allow amateur artists to list their items. All you will need to do is look for these sites online. Alternatively you can also set up your own landing page or website offering information about your work. A popular way to advertise is by writing articles. Now if you are wondering what you can write about that would talk about your work here are a few ideas. You can write about the joy of painting or how you can use paintings to decorate your home or about the different painting techniques. These articles can be submitted to various article directories and can include links to your website or to the page on the other sites that exhibit your work. Alternatively you can also make a video of all your work include a popular romantic song with it and post it on you tube. You can include artist contact information at the end of the video. 

 Once your products are displayed and advertised you will also need to decide how you intend to accept payment for your product and how you intend to ship them to the customers. Some websites will help sellers in this aspect while others expect you to take care of it yourself. If you are handling the shipping you will need to decide who pays for it. If you want to charge the customer it is essential that you clarify this at the time of sale. It will be worth your while to accumulate some information on how much it would cost to send items within a particular weight range to the various parts of the country. 

As the sale and purchase take part online the payments are also made through the Internet. 
Today many people prefer payments with credit cards or directly to bank account however online payment currencies are also popular. So, people often pay with PayPal, MoneyBokkers, Perfect Money and other e-currencies.


 Paintings and sculptures can easily be damaged so it is important that the packaging is done well to ensure safe delivery. If you have only one piece of the kind available you may want to insure or at least be ready to refund the money in case it is damaged because the customer may not want to opt for another product. 

 If you are willing to put in some hard work and dedication and follow your heart there is no limit to the options available. You can use any one of your skills to generate an income so don’t keep your work locked up in the attic. Let it see the light of the day and let the world know of your talent.