The Steps to Set Up In Art Licensing

Artist: Gabby Malpas      Artwork: The Sea       License This artwork

It’s been a decade since I started in coaching, helping artists license their art, and over that time I have seen a significant transition. No longer can they paint in hope someone will buy their art for their products. An artist has to gear to the needs of the manufacturer for the art to be accepted. It’s a subtle, but significant, change.

Of course, paint the subjects you love, and maybe manufacturers will take that inspiration and the unique style, or instead they will use their in-house designer to complete the job. However, they will look to license art from different sources so they can produce many collections and products. Again, the artist is creating for the products.

Many artists tell me they want to get into art licensing, and misbelieve it is easy. Like someone who said to me she wanted to be a children’s book illustrator, but only illustrate the books she had written. It boils down to this: is art licensing a career or a hobby?

Here’s the steps required to be successful in art licensing.

Do your  research

Remember, yOU, licensing  artist are commercial artists. Manufacturers use art to sell products. That means researching what sells on a particular type of product. For example, for a jigsaw puzzle, I send a collection of 4-6 designs, and all would need to have contrast backing and very little or no white space.

Pay attention to detail

Listen to the licensee (Manufactures) and your agent, and see what work is more popular than others. Pay attention to what the client likes: painting styles, techniques and themes. Once they license you and your art is selling their products, they’ll get to know your style. So learn what they’re looking for and present artwork that you know works for them.

Build a portfolio

Create a decent sized body of work, so that if and when a manufacturer calls and asks for a subject matter they require for a presentation to their clients, we can, as your agent, send them examples without having to do new work on spec. It’s frustrating to create a piece of work especially for a client’s presentation, and then they don’t use it!. Sound familiar?.

You get more chance to get license  faster, if you have a extensive body of work, for example, if a manufacturer looking for 50 designs and you have a portfolio of hundreds that mean they can select 50 designs out of that hundreds, however, if you only have 50 or less that is not enough for them to select from as out of those 50 images not all will be suitable for them. We have an artist who has extensive library of images and she got a license deal less than a week and because she have available images for licensing right away, her greeting card collection was launched less than 4 months. In general when you signed up a collections some would take 6- 12 months to launch the products.

Be patient & have a plan

Someone once told me she was going to quit her job for art licensing as she had money for a year to live on. A year simply isn’t long enough. Even if you get a contract, it can take six to 12 months for the product to appear and another quarter before you start seeing royalties.  Do not give up you full time job, what you need to do it get a licensing  coach to help you set up and gradually help you transition as your art licensing business start to generate incomes  you can review and to see whether you can  start the transition from full job time to part time or full time artist. 

Our programs

This is why we run launch pad and accelerator programs so an artist can see the solid foundation required to get into art licensing. The more you understand the process, the more successful you will be.

At ArtSHINE we offer a connection between artists and manufacturers. It’s a natural progression to represent all artists on the program. We involve them in the process: work out a plan and how we will present their work to potential clients.

Art licensing is thoroughly rewarding, but it takes hard work and you need to educate yourself continually. A  you can make great residual incomes and licensing has other benefits: you get to work from home, you can be around your family more, you get the thrill of seeing your art on products when you walk into a store, you get to meet fantastic people. But best of all: you get to spend all day creating amazing art.