My son loves art. To make his favorite hobby marketable, I have him learning to create digital art

My son does not love creating art digitally, so to encourage him, I say "All I want for my birthday/Christmas/Mother's Day is a picture that you drew digitally on your computer.  I believe that someday he may be able to do a job he loves as long as we can make it marketable. This picture here was for my birthday:

That's really cool!  I like the pops of orange and red.  It ties it together nicely

That is pretty and I like the colors, too.

Why is digital art more marketable than real art?

How old is your son?

I am just an old-fashioned kind of gal ...

It's funny because usually it goes the other way: kids have to be prodded to get away from the screens and work with real materials. If your son likes to make art with physical objects why not let him?

It looks like he has a good grasp on the medium already! I do digital art myself, so I'm curious. What program does he use? Does he have a stylus or drawing tablet? In my experience, it can be frustrating to work with just a mouse or a finger, or with a program you're not comfortable with.

That said, if he truly doesn't like the medium, trying to force it on him might backfire. Marketability is all well and good, but what's the point if he no longer enjoys the hobby? Besides, traditional art (aka art made with physical mediums) can be just as valuable. One of my artist friends regularly takes commissions for her work with colored pencil and watercolors.

From what I've seen, the most important thing when it comes to selling art is the skill of the artist. Skill comes from practice and experience, and fun is the best motivator! Speaking for myself, I'm entirely self-taught (with help from books and the internet), and all of my artistic growth is the product of simply doing something I enjoy.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging him to get out of his comfort zone, of course. I just don't think money should be your primary concern- especially if he's still young. Nurture his creativity and love of art! It looks like he has excellent potential :)

Art is art.  The medium is just the bit in between the artist and result.

Selling depends on what circles you belong to.  My circles tend to favour physical art, but I can see a benefit of having skills in both the physical and digital world.  

And I'm looking forward to seeing more art if you are comfortable sharing.

My own journey,  I'm no where near ready to think about selling.   It doesn't stop me thinking on it, but I try not to let these thoughts get in the way of developing the foundations I need for improving my skills.

Nice choice of color!
I always thought comic strip art could be fun for kids, manually or digitally produced...story oriented might cover a lot of learning opportunities?

When I was an art major in college all I was interested in was abstract and  avant-garde stuff...in the long run realistic practice with a pencil would have given me a much better foundation for any direction I wanted to go...but where's the fun in that at 18yrs old  

I hope at what ever age your son is finding enjoyment in his creative outlets.

Anne Miller wrote:

Why is digital art more marketable than real art?  

We have friends who are artists. While they can make a good deal of money off one painting, the sales are less frequent, making it hard to budget, plan, etc. Plus they are forced to travel from art show to art show. If employed by a publishing company or movie production company or marketing company, my son would be able to put regular food on the table. Most of those companies are turning to the digital platform for creating art.  My son's hobby is drawing, so he'd be great at an illustrator job, but not so much at a marketing company. I'm trying to get him to branch out from drawing to try new things in that field.

Anne Miller wrote:How old is your son?

13

Jay Baker wrote:It looks like he has a good grasp on the medium already! I do digital art myself, so I'm curious. What program does he use? Does he have a stylus or drawing tablet? In my experience, it can be frustrating to work with just a mouse or a finger, or with a program you're not comfortable with.

He has two avenues he can go with:
1. HP Chromebook x360 - he has an app on the Chromebook where he can use his finger to draw. The picture he gave me when drawn with his finger. I'll have to check on the name of the app - it came pre-installed on the Chromebook as the default drawing app.
2. I got him a Refurbished Wacom One 2019 gen-1 for Christmas that uses a nice stylus. He hasn't yet taken to using the Wacom. He's only actually tried it one time.  I will let him work with it when he feels comfortable doing so. Today is not yet that day.

The boy can visualize in 3D. I could see him being a great sculptor.  He hasn't yet signed onto that idea either. I always let him work on the art he wants to work on, with a little encouragement, like telling him what I want for my birthday. That way he won't start to hate it. When he gets around little kids, he likes to share his art supplies so that he has someone to draw with. He has  a bit of teacher in him.  It will be interesting to see where life takes him.  

r ranson wrote:

Selling depends on what circles you belong to.  My circles tend to favour physical art, but I can see a benefit of having skills in both the physical and digital world.  

And I'm looking forward to seeing more art if you are comfortable sharing.

I will certainly ask my son if I can share more of his art.  I only shared just the one because he gave me that one as a gift. Therefore, I believe I have rights to share it. (At least that is what I will tell my son if he gets upset...lol. He won't be upset though - he is very good-natured.)

I told my son what you all said about his art, and he sent me a sequel drawing... Enjoy! (Thank you for the nice comments. It sure gave my son some confidence!)

LOL - we've created a monster...

OR rather - my son has created a monster...

These are great!

Elanor Gardner wrote:My son does not love creating art digitally, so to encourage him, I say "All I want for my birthday/Christmas/Mother's Day is a picture that you drew digitally on your computer.  I believe that someday he may be able to do a job he loves as long as we can make it marketable. This picture here was for my birthday:

It looks like he's been reading Wings of Fire! He did a great job depicting a Seawing--I recognized it immediately, before I ever saw the caption.

I found out about the series when my daughter's friend wanted a Rainwing named Glory for her birthday. I learned a ton about the characters so I could needle felt her one!



My kids' friends are all into Wings of Fire--they spent the summer reading the series and pretending to be various dragons. They even made up their own breeds of dragon from the series!

I don't make my living from my art, but I love honing my artistic skills. I especially love being able to make cards and gifts for people. I might not be making money from it, but I am saving money by making something heart-felt. Making gifts is also a great way to hone one's skills. I started needle felting fairies and dragons for friends and family, and now I sell them every so often. I also might get the opportunity to teach a needle-felting class next year.

Art opens many avenues for income. My brother has a digital arts degree, and is the tech/media guy for a private school--it's not what he was envisioning when he went for his degree, but his skills and training are still being put to use. My cousin has an art degree, and ended up as a relatively famous tattoo artist in his area, and he also does graphics for board games. I'm pretty sure he didn't get an art degree with the intention of being a tattoo artist! I think it's important to hold our goals a little loosely, and realize that there's lots of ways our skills can be useful, even if they don't become our primary source of income.

A lot of the skills in digital art can also be applied to other art, such as webpage design and physical art. A good artistic sense is super useful in making an eye catching and cohesive webpage. Color theory, design, and composition apply to all sorts of media.   Even if digital art ends up becoming more and more dominated out by A.I. art, the skills learned in making it are not useless.

I guess all this is to say, is that your son is doing great by following his passion and his interests, and that those skills can be useful in all SORTS of fields and activities!