I have never made a commission before, but im trying to commission a gift for someone I know. Found an artist I liked on Instagram, but they are now asking for tge full payment before starting. I am a bit paranoid and idk how I feel about making a venmo payment when the product doesn't even kind of exist yet lol. What should I do? I don't want to come across rude, it's entirely possible that this is super normal

I started my social media in june 2026 and my sole focus is organic followers and likes, i dont have family/friends around it.

I heard that instagram, youtube really watches over consistency of the content creator, so one shouldn't be expecting a surge in likes, views etc..

I have made around 15 animations so far and my views on YouTube are 9.2k and 176 likes

On instagram altogether they are over 15k views i guess and 500 likes and every animation is over a 1000 views (even when i was at 0 followers).

I am still creating more animations but given the hard work on them as they are based on mental health challenges from my personal experience. I don't have any reasonable followers yet. I am always skeptical if my content is worthy enough for someone to stay and follow me, i get 1 follower in 1 month.

I am still trying to look for a purpose with my art but I guess I have confused it with views, likes, money and commissions.

I dont really understand what way to focus on

For those of us in the US, there's no way to opt out. Are you considering deleting your account or old posts? Moving to another network?

My fear is that the buyers never really move so trying to consider other options. Like just not posting full art, only teasers, and promoting my email newsletter to see full updates.

I use Cloudflare so I think I can mostly block them from training on my website.

FYI I do have Bluesky and Mastodon but the general buyer public never really moved there. I was in tech so I do get a few bites from that crowd.

I’ve created a 2027 wildlife photography wall calendar for my business, Liamoxoart, and I’m looking for recommendations for print on demand suppliers that fulfil in the UK. See my calendar URL in the comments.

I've already made the product page visible on my website to give it time to be indexed by search engines while I finalise the supplier.

I ordered a sample from Prodigi and the print quality is absolutely fantastic. However their dated calendars don’t include any labels for holidays or occasions such as Christmas Day, Easter or bank holidays. The numbered dates are all there but none of those occasions are marked. Support has confirmed this is their standard design.

I’ve attached photos in the comments of the June, October and December pages to show what I mean. For example, none of these occasions are labelled in the 2027 calendar:

June: Father’s Day - 20^th
October: Halloween - 31^st
December: Christmas Eve - 24^th, Christmas Day - 25^th, Boxing Day - 26^th, and New Year’s Eve - 31^st

The numbered dates are there, but there’s no wording identifying these occasions. Personally I feel that makes it less practical and I’m concerned customers buying from me would expect those details to be included.

Am I expecting too much or would you also expect a dated calendar to include holiday markers? If anyone has used a UK print on demand supplier that offers these alongside good photographic print quality I’d really appreciate your recommendations. Ideally I need to be able to order individually rather than buy stock in bulk. I’ve attached a few photos to show what I mean about the missing holiday and occasion labels. TIA

I’m making a calendar and I recently raised money to print and ship them out.

A lot of people are excited to buy the physical copy but a loud minority are saying I should either make it print on demand or sell digital copies so that they can print it themselves.

I don’t want to because I really enjoy creating the experience of pretty packaging, thank you notes, freebies, etc…

Also, i just don’t like the idea of giving digital files of my artwork in the era of art theft and AI.

Thoughts?

artists who take commissions and have blacklists, what do you do with them?

do you keep them private just for record or do you keep them somewhere public? what do you do if someone who is on your blacklist approaches you attempting to commission you or purchase something from you?

Hi! I am setting up my online store and wondering about what resolution I should upload as the print preview of the artworks. I don't want to publish hi-res version of the art files (to avoid theft) but want to show the artwork on my store. Is the best way to go around this to upload a 800px version of the file or to watermark?

Hi, I’ve been making digital designs for last 3 years. I wanna finally start selling stock (prints, magnets etc) online but everything I hear online says stay clear!

Are there any recommendations for something similar? Im from England so considering Folksy?

Somewhere thats not flooded with Ai slop! I know it’s hard to find at this point, I’ve heard its the hardest time ever to start a business in the market right now but a couple sells here and there would be amazing.

Literally any suggestions would be appreciate, I wanna try commissions too but seems like a harder thing to start right now xx

Hi!

Someone recently bought one of my (23F, amateur) paintings from 2 years ago. 3x4ft. Since it was technically my first real sale (my first one was asked for by my mom to be created for a friend), I was unsure whether to lowball myself. I come from the Philippines so prices may seem lower than it should be in other countries.

That one I sold for about $550 to a colleague of my aunt's. It was computed based on size alone. square inches x 20 Pesos.

Another one of her colleagues found out and they said she wanted one for herself. My aunt keeps telling me how much richer that colleague is (she apparently owns a hospital). I'm not sure if I'm being unfair mainly because I found out about her background but I was thinking of a price increase for a commissioned painting of the same size.

I thought, since it was gonna be a specifically commissioned one AND it will be a new painting, does it deserve an increase?

Also, when I made that recently sold painting, I was practically "nothing" compared to what I've achieved recently. Back then, I have never received any distinctions and have only been a part of an exhibit once. Just this year, I was awarded a national semi-finalist in a prestigious competition and had my entry exhibited in one of the country's premier museums.

Now I'm thinking of raising my multiplier to 23 Pesos (would become $620, which is already a huge increase of 5,000 pesos in total for the same size imo).

Is this reasonable or am I being unfair because I know the client is going to pay well?

Genuinely, I have only acrylic and oil paint. For now, i can only afford to buy a 24x18 canvas size. Which i want tk paint a landscape scenery.

If I decide to put it on sale, how much would or should I charged it? What would be my reasonable prize?

Thank you to those who answer. ☺️

I have posted a couple speedpaints on yt shorts none of them more than 3 minutes long that have gotten a range of 100-1k views. I want to try different content, but idk what to do. I don't really want to do art opinions or drama, and I feel like I'm not good enough to do tutorials. I would rather not use my own voice in any videos. So, with these restrictions, what content can I make that will perform well. I thought fan-art speedpaints would do well since the characters I already have fandoms around them, but the fan-art speedpaint barely has 50 views. I'm willing to use a computer voice (Like Siri or the one in Google translate) but not an AI one if that makes sense

Any ideas?

Salaries in creative fields vary wildly, and a lot of people get lowballed because companies love to hide how much they pay and people don't know what to ask for... I wanted to help change that, so I pulled public Department of Labor salary data and organized it into a spreadsheet. Hope it helps some of you know your worth going into your next offer!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to ask if washi tapes are still a viable add to an artist alley assortment? I carry stickers and plan to move into greeting cards and full sticker sheets soon as well. Since I'm leaning a little more stationary-like, I was considering washi tape too! How well do these do for you & what supplier do you go through to get them??

i’m new to commisions and art selling in general and have some questions

•How do you even get a following on social media?

•what social media’s are best for artist?

•where should i advertise my art?

any tips are heavily appreciated wether it’s any of these topics or just tips for starter artist like myself!

hello, i've been selling cards for $6 each and sometimes people think they are prints. i also sell matted 8x10 prints for $40 and canvas prints for $80. my stuff is highly giftable, so people are mostly getting stuff for friends and family.

i am thinking of adding matted 5x7 prints for $20 each and not offering cards..or maybe keeping both, but will that be too confusing for customers?

if you've done cards and smaller prints, what has worked for you?

I am a small artist (mainly a hobbyist but I have sold works before) and I have used Vograce about 4 times now. In my experience, they’re normally pretty fast and get proofs and ship out items just about as soon as they can. I’ve overall had a great experience and that’s why I keep coming back.

I ordered 4 button pins and one acrylic pin in the same order (personal order) and I have yet to get the proofs. For reference I ordered it on the 21st. I know their website says that they don’t give proofs to orders under 5 items (it was 3 different designs), but I’ve always done small orders and have gotten a proof every time without asking for one.
Currently, my order is labeled as ‘manual design in progress’ making me think I will get a proof.

I ordered 2 acrylic charms today, after this last order, and got my proof literally within the hour. I’m a bit worried something happened to my order, so should I go ahead and email them or should I just wait it out?

Hello! I was wondering if anyone had recommendations on how to proceed shipping a large framed canvas piece of art (74″ × 50″ × 4″). I'm really hoping I can ship it from Washington State to NYC but I've never shipped framed art before and would love to hear what others have done. Thank you!

Can someone help point me in the right direction for building a website for the first time? I don't need a ton of customizations, just a straight forward site to sell originals & prints. Preferably free if that's even a viable option. Would love to hear your experiences/opinions! TIA.

Hey everyone! I have my first market fair coming up and I’ve painted some guitar picks and made them into necklaces but have 0 idea how to display them. I have these wire racks that look awesome with the prints but can’t get the picks to stand out!! Any tips would be amazing thank you :)

I can’t add a photo so will try in the comments :)

Hello everyone, I hope this is the right place to ask for this. I’ve been doing art for a bit now and in order to help pay the bills, I thought about doing some commission work. The thing is, that I am very unsure if my art would be in any way considered at a level of quality where this would make sense. I’ve seen way more talented and amazing people struggle to fill their commission slots and I have little insight into how the whole concept and market around it works. I am afraid that I wouldn’t be able to deliver on what was promised or that I somehow mess up in the interaction with the customer. So I ask you, when is it appropriate to consider opening up commissions and do you have any advice or do you know any good resources for getting started with it, doing the pricing etc.? Thanks in advance!

Hi all! I am new to the block printing world. I started a few months ago and have done two markets so far. My first I sold t-shirts($25 CAD) and framed prints($5-12) and made $280 and then my second market I just sold t-shirts and made $95, both not including cost of materials and vendor fee and whatnot. I have someone interested in doing a commission for their small business. They want their logo on the corner chest of the clothing and their business name on the sleeves. I’m unsure if they’re selling them or not. They want to start out with 10 shirts as a trial and going to 50 eventually. They are sourcing their own thrifted shirts/crewnecks etc so I’m looking for what you think is a fair amount to charge on the two stamps, one being an intricate logo and the other being simpler letters, and what you would charge per t-shirt for the cost of stamping the clothing myself and heat setting/washing the clothing afterwards. I’m going to buy smaller more detailed carving tools(hoping for some recommendations for that too please) and more blocks/ink. But really the carving tools are an investment into my business. I want to be very fair as I’m truly just a beginner and still learning and I’m beyond thankful for the opportunity and would love to be able to make someone’s merch for them!! And they’re a small business wanting to source local and I admire that. But this will also be the biggest project I’ve ever worked on and want it to be worthwhile money wise too. Thank you so much!! ALSO I’d like to clarify they already have their logo created, I am going to copy that and carve that to the best of my ability.

Hi yall!! Im looking to get into selling at local art markets and im wondering where the best place to print prints, post cards, and stickers would be. I have been recommended sticker app and cat print, but they both seem a bit pricey. Im looking to start with a small batch of product then expand where i see fit. Ive looked into local print shops too, but i thought id ask here if there were good online print shops too. Thanks!

Hi all! I work at one of those paint-your-own-pottery places. Along with the typical resumes we receive, we've been getting some interest from high school students about internship opportunities.

We're a small business, so of course free labor sounds good. My only concern is that we can only give them menial tasks! I could personally share my (limited) knowledge, but my coworkers are not as well-versed in ceramics as I am. And even then, I am only proficient and not an expert by any means.

I have never done an internship, but I do know people who have had negative experiences with companies that take advantage of their free labor. I wouldn't want to do that to someone.

So I want to ask, what makes a studio internship worth it to you? Is it just something to put on your resume before going to college? Our operation here is extremely simple; think Color Me Mine. We won't be able to provide a true studio experience for an intern. I wouldn't want to bring someone on just to dust shelves and process our old clay, but if that is the expectation for an internship, maybe we should consider it?

I’m a pretty small artist (only a couple k followers!) so I haven’t had to really deal with this before now. Requesting the input of more experienced mostly-online artists, what do you do to combat reposting and what has been the most successful for you?

Do you add do not repost to all your art posts? A watermark?
Is it better to just ignore it?

I can’t help but feel worried especially w so many platforms feeding all photos into their ai models.

Thank you to all who take the time to respond!!!