All the practicalities—admin tasks, logistics, and organization—can certainly drain some of the joy from the creative process. We all dream of a fantasy world where we’re surrounded only by our colors and brushes, free from worries about money, taxes, and paperwork. But here’s the truth: ignoring these realities can prevent us from truly living off our art.

So instead, let’s embrace these tasks with love and open chakras, seeing them as part of the journey that allows us to sustain our creative lives. After all, mastering the business side of art is just another way to empower our creativity.

When I first started, it was a struggle for me too. But over time, I gradually figured out how to organise myself better. Step by step, I’ve learned a few tricks along the way. Below, you’ll find some tips that might help you on your journey.

1. Create your own website

This is the most important tool to start showing your portfolio. There are tons of them out there, but I find Squarespace, Shopify, and Wix the easiest to use for visual people and non-techie types. Each of these three platforms have pre-made templates you can choose from and easy-to-use interfaces to display your work. Choose a clean design so that your art can be viewed on a clean, neutral background. Don't think that you'll get away with just a social media profile. You don't own those pages. Your website is yours, and you can personalise it as much as you like. Moreover, you don't own the traffic you get on your social media profiles, but you do own the ones that will leave their email on your own website. These are the emails that will help you build your art business.

2. Send Newsletters

With these emails, you can build your own database for sending newsletters—a personal and direct way to connect with your audience. This allows you to engage with those who are passionate about your artistic journey, your work, and your latest updates. Mailchimp is an excellent platform to get started; it offers a free plan that allows you to send newsletters to up to 500 contacts. It’s a user-friendly tool that can help you manage and grow your audience effectively. Other great alternatives are ConvertKit and MailerLite with a free plan of 1000 subscribers.

3. Get social with the right mindset

Once your website is ready, it’s time to show it off to the world. Social media (unfortunately!) is the main way to promote your work. Be careful though. The big mistake is to put too much effort on social media and not much on your own website and on how you can actually sell your work. Bear in mind that it's quite hard today to stand out from the crowd on social media compared to years ago when all the social buzz started. So, if I can suggest you something is this: create your social media profiles, BUT 1) use them to drive traffic to your website, 2) don't spend to much time on it.

The upside of social media is that it offers a simple and effective way to engage with your audience and keep them updated on new products, projects, exhibitions, fairs, and works in progress. It’s incredibly rewarding to receive feedback from clients and see your art in different settings through photos they share and tags they create.

4. Email account for your admin

Create an email account that you use only for all your admin stuff. For example you may want to connect this to: paypal, etsy, other online shops for selling your art, online shops to get your supplies, admin softwares, your bank account, your website platform such as wix, squarespace or wordpress, your own e-commerce, google ads, google adsense, youtube, socials and other affiliates programs.

5. Email account for your contacts

Create an email account that you use for your mailing list, newsletter, direct contacts, basically where you have a contact with people rather than money.

For all these emails I do suggest gmail.com as you can easily and quickly switch from one account to another inside the same interface of your browser.

6. Bank account

Create a bank account that you use only for your art. You don’t need to open a formal "business account" with your bank, especially if you’re just starting your “artventure.” A personal bank account can be more than sufficient at this stage. Having a dedicated bank account is incredibly useful, as it allows you to easily track your expenses and income related to your art. This way, you can maintain a clear overview of your finances without having to sift through a long list of transactions mixed with your personal expenditures.

When selecting a bank account, it’s wise to avoid those with monthly fees. If, like me, you lead a nomadic lifestyle, consider choosing a bank that offers multi-currency accounts or solutions to help you avoid unnecessary exchange rate fees. This is especially important when your clients pay you in different currencies or when you’re abroad and need to make purchases without incurring extra charges.

One option to consider is Revolut. You can use my referral link. It allows you to create accounts in various currencies for free within their app, and offers competitive exchange rates. However, be mindful that fee-free exchanges are limited to £1,000 per month on the free plan, with a small fee applying beyond that.

7. A money tracking software

If the mobile app of your bank account doesn't allow you to organise your income and expenses in categories (Revolut does), then I suggest to set up a software account connected to your art bank account that allows you to track your money organised into categories, send invoices, get a chart of your money situation. I find www.waveapps.com the best for me. And.. it’s free!

8. Card reader

For direct sales (open studio, markets, self organised exhibitions) you may want to consider a card reader device, something like https://sumup.co.uk/. Fantastic tool for our world where nobody is carrying cash anymore. Very low fee when you get a payment.

9. Record keeping and Spreadsheet

Create a spreadsheet for your admin. You don’t need to be a magician of numbers and formulas for this. You will simply organise the spreadsheet into categories, based on the income and expenditures that you have:

1. income (online sales, adverts, direct sales, workshops, consultancies)

2. expenses (studio rent, art supplies, shipping and packaging, utility bills, subscriptions, books, equipments,... )

Keep your receipts and fill this file in at least monthly and you have done 200% of your admin job!

I use google drive almost for all of my documents as I can easily access from any device and anywhere in the world.

10. Find Online Marketplaces

Once you are well set with the things above, you'll look around to search for different ways to sell your work. Online marketplaces are ideal for promoting your products to a wider market interested in art. Even though you have your own website with an online shop, you still will need to use sites like Artfinder, Saatchi, Houzz, and Gifts Less Ordinary because they give you another outlet to display, sell and promote your work.

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I hope this post saves you the time it took me to find answers to all my questions. Should I start directly as an art business? Do I need to keep all my receipts? Should I open a separate bank account? Is it too much to handle right now? Should I use a different email account for admin tasks? Which email account should I link to my social media? And the list goes on... In comparison, Shakespeare’s Hamlet was a novice with his doubts! Ahaha!

I’d love to hear about your solutions if you’ve chosen a different path or if you have even more questions than I did! ;)