02-20-2016, 12:40 PM
Dude, you totally can do both. I was working with my uncle doing timber frame construction for a few years when I was getting started as a freelancer. If anything, that shop experience got me my current job as an artist assistant making public and corporate sculptures and installations ranging in the $200-$300,000 price tag range. It was because I was familiar with power tools and a shop setting that the guy hired me. He said that all the other applicants were fresh out of art school and never touched a tool in their life. If he was making oil paintings, maybe he could have chosen somebody else, but my blue collar experience got me where I am today and I wouldn't have it any other way. If you are serious about freelancing full time, you need to manage your time and money earned per hour very well. If you make $50 an hour doing hvac work, or are able to sell a painting for $100 and it takes you 2 hours to make, that's essentially $50/h against a potential $50/ h in the future. SO then look at any given task in your life, lets say you have an art show coming up, and it's going to take you 2 hours to put up flyers around the city for it. In that 2 hours, you could potentially make another painting or install hvac, making you far more money than the net loss of putting up flyers. SO if you pay somebody $5 to put up flyers, you are saving a potential $95 by budgeting your time and outsourcing non integral portions of your life. I started doing this via fiverr for all aspects of my art business, saving me money and giving me more time to actually paint. I wrote up a small guide about how fiver integrates with my day to day here http://obilex.com/guides-and-reviews/hir...ine-fiverr I think theres a 20% off code somewhere in there although I'm not entirely sure if it still works. Regardless, keep on plugging away and don't give up on art as a full time career, it doesn't happen over night!