Artist Sara B. Worner Gives Tips On Going Pro

Sara:  Absolutely. The more the better.

Business Innovators:  Yes, when you’re dealing with social media and being online, excellent way to market yourself. Now, there’s some people who would probably want to get started or are just getting started, getting their works, just transferring an idea from their brain onto a blank piece of canvas. What kind of training, classes, skills or expertise would somebody need to get started? What would be helpful for them to get started?

Sara:  Honestly, all I think you would need is the passion to do it. If you really want to do it, I think anybody can be an artist. I see a lot of paintings out there that are worth thousands of dollars that look like my ten-year-old daughter did it. Really, I think anyone could be a successful artist if you look at the abstract perception of it. If it’s really what you’re passionate about, I say go for it anyway, just do what you love. Life’s too short to not love what you do, that’s for sure. You got to be happy.

Business Innovators:  With that said what kind of rituals, activities, exercises can a person do to unlock their creative genius within them to get idea to canvas?

Sara:  One of the things I do is I keep Post-it notes in my purse. I keep a notebook by my bed. If anything comes to me, I write it down right away. If I think of something, or I see a nice sunset I take a picture of it. I’m always thinking of ideas in my head, so I always have something that I want to work on. I don’t always know what it’s going to look like when it comes out, but at least it’s something. Then, I see something that inspires me and I go with it, and I just see how it turns out. So far it’s worked pretty well.

Business Innovators:  Absolutely. I know of people who use mind mapping. I use it myself. I’ll take a blank piece of paper, and I’ll get out some colored pencils, I use different colors to write in the different branches. I don’t know if you’ve ever done it or not, but it helps unlock the different parts of your brain, gets that creative juices flowing.

Business Innovators:  Can you give an example of how you can still pursue your passion and still keep up with other responsibilities?

Sara:  You don’t have to go full-out right away and make it your full-time job. I suggest maybe starting a Facebook page in the beginning and just see what kind of people come on there and see it. Just post the little things that you do and see how well the public reacts to it, and that way you don’t have to spend any money on networking or advertising, or anything like that. It gets out to a lot of people right away, and you can see if it’s worth pursuing the career or not. I guess if it does well, why not? Just go for it, and if it doesn’t, then you can still keep your full-time job.

Business Innovators:  Absolutely. Just send up a test balloon.

Sara:  Absolutely. There is no reason you shouldn’t try.

Business Innovators:  Take the temperature of the marketplace. Getting started, there are a lot of things you can do if you’re bootstrapping it.

Sara:  Another way I sell my art, too, is Craigslist. I’ve also started using Craigslist, and I just put a few of those out there to see if I can sell them too. That has brought me quite a bit of business as well, free advertising.

Business Innovators:  Oh yes, absolutely. Sara, imagine if you will you’re in the studio and you’re staring at a blank canvas, what process do you use to get past the artist version of writer block to get that image that is locked up in your subconscious mind and be able make it manifest on the canvas?

Sara:  Normally I do have an idea of what I want to do. My idea notebook has gotten very large over the past year or so, and I never run out of ideas, really. Sometimes I’ll get halfway done with a painting, and it’ll sit on my easel for two weeks, and I won’t know where I want to go with. I just let it sit there, and I stare at it until I can figure out what I want to do. Something eventually comes to me. If it takes a day, that’s great. If it takes a month or two, that’s okay, but something always comes to me as long as I keep it sitting in the room and I’m always looking at it every day, I figure out what I want to do by the end of it. Then, if I don’t like it after a while if I finish it, I repaint the canvas. That’s the nice thing about canvas. If you make a mistake there really are no mistakes because you can just take paint and go right over it again.

Business Innovators:  That is fantastic. It sounds like you’ve got your system,process and modus operandi. Executed like a well-tempered clavier.

Sara:  I stay busy, that’s for sure.

Business Innovators:   What are two or three common questions that perspective customers ask you? Two or three common questions they ask you before they would make a purchase?

Sara:  First of all the price, that’s always number one on people’s minds. They want to know how much they’re going to be spending on the artwork, the colors also. I’m also asked to match a lot of colors because a lot of people they buy furniture, or they buy a comforter set for their bedroom, and then they can’t find artwork that matches that. They’ll look everywhere, and nothing exactly matches it. That’s when a lot of customers will come to someone like me because they can just take pictures of the furniture or comforter, or whatever they have got, and send it to me, and I just match the colors.
Sometimes they know that they want. They tell me, “Yeah, I’d like a tree scene, or a landscape, or something with these colors,” and I can put it together. Other times they don’t know what they want at all. They just know what colors they want, so I just come up with different things. I send pictures when it’s done to make sure they like it before they pay, and everything. You’re going to be looking at it a lot. You’re going to want to make sure that you love it before you buy it.
Let’s see. The third thing I would have to say is a lot of people order things for weddings, or friends for birthdays, Christmas, things like that. I’m often asked if I can do things by a certain date. If I’m really busy, and I can squeeze it in if it’s time-sensitive, too. Normally I can do that. I’m pretty flexible to accommodate people.

Patrick Hurinenko

Patrick Hurinenko is a contributing writer for Business Innovators Magazine, Small Business Trendsetters, CNN iReport and a freelance publisher.