Professional artists - keeping motivation?

When I was working I loved my job but didn't always feel like going in but I did regardless. Well I'm not a professional artist so not sure if I'm qualified to answer your question but, for what it's worth, I simply paint and once I have started I become totally absorbed. Yes I do regularly get inspired to paint but I'm not always fired up - however I do put time aside on a regular basis (for example Tuesdays are sacrosanct and other painting times are slotted in during the week whenever I can and, importantly, they are marked on the calendar). I guess it's a lot to do with discipline and painting regularly has now become a habit like brushing my teeth. In summary it's a case of self discipline especially if you want to take your hobby to the next level.

My advice Anthony is if you have any motivational issues at this stage, don't give up the day job. Selling art, unless you are one of the Hockney's of the world have to pander to Joe public and his needs, and believe me your work will suffer if you do that. I have first-hand knowledge of seeing one of my college friends fall into this trap, to go from inspirational painting to painting what the galleries expect and of course can sell, you can easily stagnate although you may still make a very healthy living if you are good enough, and in this competitive market you will need to be damn good to survive. Continue with what you are doing now, keep your design job intact and test out the market, it's not easy to get accepted by galleries, they are something of a closed shop and have their own little niche of artists, I've been rejected many times so I do know how difficult it is. Selling online is a dead loss in the main, the competition is huge and similar to galleries, you will pay hefty commissions around the 40%+ mark. Good luck if you do go ahead.

Agree with all the above, especially Alan - I suppose I've been a semi-professional; I did sell work, and now and then I still do, but on the whole I rely on the pension. So motivation to paint doesn't derive in my case from needing to make a living, and I completely identify with Alan's comments on that front. A very few people make a very good living. Most of us don't, and have to supplement our income from painting by teaching, and that gets in the way of painting motivation too. The thought of having to produce a given number of paintings per month now, when I'm pushing 66, would suck all the joy out of it. If you hit a profitable niche and find a gallery, you'll be expected to remain within it and to keep producing the same sort of stuff - and frankly you can see this with a few professionals who show their work on Facebook (which seems to be a popular thing to do): there's one in particular I'm thinking of; he produces perfectly pleasant paintings, but once you've seen one you've seen the lot because he keeps doing the same thing; and he's not alone; there are a couple of oil painters too who are regularly on FB pushing highly coloured works (which to me are just plain ghastly, but there's a market for them), and I wonder if they never tire of churning this stuff out, one overly dramatic splurge of primary colours after another. There ARE a few other painters who seem to be able to paint what they want and to make a living out of it without compromising themselves: one was the late Ken Bushe, the Scottish oil painter whom many of us will always miss; another is Andrew Tozer; Malcolm Ludvigsen, ex of this parish, sells without selling himself out, Haidi-Jo Um ... Hell, I've just forgotten her surname! But she shows here and has contributed to the Forum. Perhaps she has an idea or two which might be helpful to you. But the best advice I think is don't cast yourself off from a guaranteed income until you're making enough to do so, and remember that if you're a freelance at anything, your income is only as safe as your current project: you can be left entirely flat if that comes to an end, as things unpredictably do, and if that happens no amount of motivation is going to help. And finally - if by nature you're on the lazy side; if you really don't have this sort of commitment - don't try forcing it, because it won't last. There we are: it was the duty of we elderly types who have been there and done that to give you this probably discouraging advice, but you should bear it in mind even while proving us all wrong. (Haidee-Jo Summers, I think .... fine painter, my inability to remember her name is my own wobbly memory, not because she's not memorable, which she certainly is.) http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk

I have that issue too - I have a theory (have you? Why how ....how thrilling....): I think that sometimes when one's got the basics down on the paper or board, the statement has actually been made: all the rest is tidying it up and making it presentable; if you take a break when you've established that basic statement, and come back to it the next day, there's a slight feeling of 'well, I've done this already, haven't I?'. I was a freelance journalist, among many other things: the writing of the article was the important thing - you got that down, out of your system... but it had to be edited, refined, cut down to meet the maximum word limit (usually 1,000). And the editing was always the chore part of the task: had to be done, no editor would accept a piece that was over long, repetitious, too discursive - but it could get boring. And yet you hadn't to let it get boring, because if it did you'd miss something. Finishing off a painting seems very similar to me, and of course there are dangers in it - you can over-polish, over-finish, and in the process kill it; you can do just the same with an article, if you stop to modify things, add caveats, provide explanation for every blessed point you were trying to make, you'll end up with a fine piece of polished, glittering stodge. That's what can make me reluctant to pick up the brush again on day two, and why I try to leave myself with just the finishing touches to do the next day - because then I can just carry on from where I left off, and with a fresh eye (still in the singular at the moment) just tickle it up. But it is of course a process that can take days or even weeks, more especially when working with opaque media - taking weeks on a watercolour would be akin to taking a shovel to a soufflé. http://isleofwightlandscapes.net http://wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk

AnthKnight (9/20/2016)

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I consider myself a hobby painter, even though I've sold a few over the years, but eventually my aim is to go part-time or freelance with my day job (graphic design/illustration) and paint on at least a semi-pro basis. I have a question for any full time/professional artists here - how do you cope with lack of motivation? I seem to go for weeks sometimes without being able to consistently paint, and if the aim is to make at least half a living out of it, I realise that this has to change. Any advice?

Have a look at this website by the American painter Carol Marine: http://carolmarine.blogspot.co.uk/ She's also got a very good book called Daily Painting. She found that as a professional artist she was spending days painting big canvases which didn't sell very well. She changed her approach and started painting much smaller canvases, usually about 6 x 6 inches and selling them direct to the public via her website. No gallery fees required and the small canvases are fairly cheap to post to clients. I bought the book because I liked the simplicity of her still life compositions, rather than because I wanted to sell my own paintings.

I do like her pieces too, thanks for alerting me to her.

I paint full time and it's only natural that one looses motivation at times , normally twice a year I have to leave the brushes down for a couple of weeks as I'm drained and feel empty , then I recharge like a little ole battery and I'm off again . When I'm fully motivated the feeling is marvellous and I always have the next painting in mind as I finish the one I'm working on , I only finished a large oil and the next one is already on the easel and I will keep going until I stop again , I have at the moment 45 or so unframed paintings so in always way ahead . Try and keep a couple of paintings ahead of yourself for when you're not in the mood , good luck either way .