Total Art Soul - for artists

...and I want to make my tattoo/fine art business work!! I've been officially in business for a year now, though I've been tattooing for 5 years, and painting/drawing my whole life. I've dropped down to part time at my job recently and was doing fine doing part tattoos, part work. But, it was fast food, and let's face it, we all despise those jobs when we have other things in life that make us happy!! My tattooing/painting isn't a job for me, its just something I do that makes me happy that just happens to pay the bills when necessary! I may look for another part time job eventually, but would like to give life as an artist a go!

Has anyone else quit their day jobs to pursue their dreams? Any tips along the way? Any advice would be appreciated!!

Well done

Speaking from personal experience, just not having to think in terms of 'I have to stop this in x hours because I'm going to work after that' clears your mind and allows you to concentrate so much better, if you can keep it up, it's definitely the way to go.

Enjoy your liberty, just go with the flow for a bit, observe the way you're working to see if you need to adjust anything - for example I'm hopeless before late morning so I do all my net stuff now and draw later, I achieve so much more in a couple of hours when I'm up to speed than if I spend all morning slogging away at it.

Hoping you have every success, you sound like you know where you want to be,

Karen and Rich

I haven't had a job for...um...5 years I think. I would love to go back working at the dog groomers but sadly can't any more It can be tough sometimes to get everything done in the day when you work for yourself. Its best to set a time to work just like having a day job or you will never get anything done.
good luck, just remember that it can be hard sometimes. If I didn't have the support of friends and family, I think I would find it a lot harder being an artist actually.

Good luck to you!

I definitely need to find an income from home.

Well, I quite my day job when I was just 19! I lasted all of 6 weeks in permanent employment. Ha! I decided I could do much better so I left at lunchtime and by teatime, I had bookings for legal secretarial work for 6 months. Within weeks I had to find other ladies to help me do the work and so I ran my agency for 12 years. I managed to do this around having my children which was great since I could spend weeks with them at home.

I then started studying in the evenings to become an interior designer. Before I could finish my diploma, I had so much consultancy work, that I decided to quite the secretarial work altogether and concentrate on this. I also did this for almost 12 years.

This got too stressful and too busy so I decided 9 years ago to move countries and become a full time artist. This way I did not need a mortgage and my earnings could therefore be much lower. I'm still here and still doing it!

It's a great story Cath... wish I had some of your enthusiasm!