 Well today I'm talking about how to find your niche as a fine artist. So some of you are really not going to like what I'm probably going to say in this video and that's okay, right? I strongly believe that it's essential as a professional artist to have a crystal clear niche, especially if you want to get more recognised, make consistent sales and build a profitable art business. So if you want to discover how to lose that jack-of-all-trades and master your one thing, then make sure to watch all of this video right to the very end. Hello and welcome or welcome back to my channel, my name is Sophie and I love to help artists just like you to set up market and grow a highly successful business doing what you love. And if learning more tips and tricks on how to grow that successful art business is what you're looking for and you're in the right place, don't forget to subscribe to my channel by hitting the button below. So before I share my three-step process to finding your own artist's niche, let's look at five reasons why from an art business perspective it's really important to have one. Number one, it's going to be much easier for you to establish your own visual brand whether you're on Instagram, here on YouTube, whether you're over on Pinterest, TikTok, you know even on your website and in your emails. By actually having a niche, it just takes out the confusion, right? People begin to see from a visual perspective who you are and what you offer. Number two, it's really simple to actually get in front of that target audience. You know, I often talk about throwing darts in the dark and hoping something's going to stick from a marketing perspective. Well, once you've actually decided on a niche and you've found the appropriate market, it's really easy to talk to them about what you offer. And if you've chosen your target market correctly and if you want to know how to do that, how to find your target market, check out this video and I'll pop a link to it below as well. Then you'll know how to communicate and what to say in order to appeal to that market. And then of course, in turn, it's going to increase your engagement, increase your views and followers over on the social channels as well. Number three, it can establish you as an expert in your field. When you do one thing and you do one thing really, really well because you've been practicing and honing your craft, right? It enables you to do things like maybe write a book about it, create a course about how you're doing it. People will come and maybe ask you to be on a podcast. They want to interview you because you do that one thing really, really well. So it's going to open up many other opportunities and generally, it's going to make life a lot easier for you. Number four, you can create more focused content. So again, no more overwhelm. Let's think about that Instagram feed, which can be let's face it a little bit chaotic with all the different things you're doing and places you're going and things you're looking at. What if you had a niche and all you did was post focused content that your audience is going to love? It's going to make your life simple. It's going to move you away from overwhelm and that kind of what on earth do I post? Now, remember, I've got a couple of videos out about planning your marketing content and specifically coming up with content for your social media calendar. So make sure to check out as a link to those below this video as well. Number five, it gives you the opportunity to collaborate with other artists. So instead of trying to do all the things and we know that that jack of all trades phrase that I mentioned at the beginning is really true, right? As creatives, we just want to do it all. We want to use every bit of material. We want to paint everything, create everything, use everything, do everything. That's because it's in our nature as creatives. But I'm going to share a bit later on in the video how you can actually deal with that and how you can find the one thing that imagine now. If you collaborated with other artists, you have your one thing. They have theirs. And this makes an opportunity for you to do something together. So it opens up a world full of possibilities from an art business perspective. So that hasn't got you convinced on why you need your own artists. Nisha, then I don't know what we'll do. Let's go ahead and look at my three step process. How you're going to choose yours quickly and easily. Step number one, you've got to get to know what it is you really love to do. What does that mean? That it means permission to experiment, right? Get everything out in your studio space and try it all. What do you love? What do you like? What can you kind of leave and are not too bothered about? Really, really stay consciously focused on what you're doing when you're doing it. You know, there's playing, there's unconscious playing. And now I need you to do more conscious playing as you're experimenting. I want you to notice if it feels in flow, if it feels easy, it comes easy. The end result is something you're happy with, whether it just feels a little bit difficult, a little bit icky, not kind of exactly what you're looking for. So try out all the different media, get everything out of the studio space. All right, get out all the different types of paints, pencils, pens, inks, papers, surfaces, all the things. All right, you've got to find what it is that you're going to always default back to doing the thing that you're going to hone as your craft. You're going to practice over and over again, and you're going to move yourself towards that expert status, if that's what you're looking for. Try out different subject matter, you know, instead of being the person who does, well, I do some portraits and I do some animal pictures and I can also do landscapes and I can do the realistic or abstract and I can do seascapes and I can paint your giles. You know, I also like painting buildings. Like, which of these things do you love the most and what of the others can just go over there and I'll explain with the over there pile in a bit. So what are you drawn to most? What inspires you? What are the things that you really, really love? So this is about working out what it is you really, really love. So when you've done that, we're ready to move on to step number two. And step number two is about finding your own style. And these days, it's really, really distracting. If you spend any time on social media at all, you're scrolling through. You're looking at other artists on Instagram, other artists probably here on YouTube, other artists over on Pinterest or TikTok or wherever you hang out. And the challenge with that is it can be really overwhelming from a sensory perspective. So you see all these other people's work and you think, oh, I'd quite like to do that. I'd like it to be like, I'd like it to be like that. But the fact is that's their work. What you've got to do is find out what you do as a creative. All right. How do you express yourself? What colors do you choose? What textures do you choose? What materials do you choose? Where do you find your inspiration? What's your process? What's your mark on paper if working on paper is your thing? Or how do you specifically express yourself? So you need to work out what's uniquely you. And again, just grab a notebook and write all of these findings down. Because by the end, you'll realise, oh, you know, I do have a way of doing things. I have kind of my own process that I like to do. I like to make marks in a certain way. I have colours that I typically use. I have shapes that I typically use. And actually, if I'm really made to choose, I have a subject matter that I really like. And I could probably take that one particular media that I prefer to work in as well. So we are so nearly there. Step number three, you simply have to choose. And, you know, this is sometimes the bit where I feel people going, oh, I'm going to click off the video. I don't want to hear what's coming up next. So this is the hardest part, especially if you have a little bit of everything going on right now. And you're telling yourself the story that you love it all. And as a creative, that's OK to love it all. But if you want to build a business, you're not going to use all of the things that you love to go forward as a business. All right. This is what a sketchbook is for. A sketchbook is where you experiment, you play with different media, you play with different ideas. You keep you can have hundreds of sketchbooks, little ones, big ones, things that go up on the wall, inspiration, different marks, different movement, different things. But when it comes to building a business and building yourself as a professional, recognized artist, you need to choose one thing that is one subject matter, one media and your style. And then you just want to get really good at it. You want to get ideally better than everybody else who's doing the same thing as you or who's would be deemed a competitor from a business plan perspective. You know, practice makes not necessarily perfect, but it gets you nearer there. Right. The more you do, the better you get. But if you're trying to do a little bit of watercolour and a little bit of acrylic and a little bit of oil and a little bit of pastel, what you'll ever do is get a little bit, little bit better, maybe in 10 different things. But we all know the reality is here. Is it not actually doing any of those things very well at all? But once you choose one thing and you put all the energy that you put in those 10 things to that one thing, then you're going to get much better, much faster. So this is the moment to choose and celebrate. Know that you don't have to put down the other things. They just get repurposed into a sketchbook and you should spend time in your creative space anyway, doing warming up. But then when you get down to the work that's going to be the product or the service for what you're doing, just do the one thing. All right. Do the one thing and move forward. Now, when you've done the one thing for a few years, you are allowed to morph and change. You know, think about Picasso, for example, the blue period, the pink period, the different things he was going through when he was building and growing his own art. You know, sometimes what we want to do is we do something for a long period of time. And then actually we find a way of improving it or we've learned something different. We want to express what we express in a different way. But that doesn't mean to say that we're picking up the 10 things again. It just means that we've learned something new. We've discovered something new. And so our art has evolved and evolving as an artist is very different to doing 10 different things. I hope that that makes some sort of sense. And you're excited to make the choice right now. So quite honestly, I'm really excited for you because this is the moment you can give yourself permission to do that thing that you probably sneakily have in the back of your mind. You're like, well, if I had to make a choice, it would be that. Make the choice now, give yourself permission to do it and move forward. You know, change that bio on your social medias, change that line, the byline on your website, get clear, take down stuff that doesn't actually visually represent what you're doing right now. Strip out the old and make it clear and clean and niched. Claim your artist's niche and wave a big flag about it. And of course, don't forget to let me know as well. Once you've done that and you've claimed your niche and you've made that change, send me a direct message on Instagram and say, Sophie, I've done it. Please take a look at my profile because I'd love to see what it is you choose as your niche and what you're going to take forwards and eventually evolve through 2023, 2024 and so on into the future. So you could also let me know in the comments below this video, what your niche is, what's your one thing? And there's no and in that sentence. Here's my one thing. I do this. I focus on this. All right. I'm really excited. Now, big part of building the niche is also about getting clear on your target audience, because when you have a niche, you also have a matching target audience that you've chosen. All right. So you choose the audience that works really well with what you're doing in your niche. Because if you've chosen to do, I don't know, animal portraits, it might be that you need to adjust the audience that you've previously had, right? Now you need an audience that love animals and are looking for animal portraits. You might need to adjust that audience. So what I thought might be useful if you haven't seen it already. And I've already mentioned it earlier in this video is to leave a link on the screen right now for you to continue your work with your target audience. Watch that video and make any changes that you need to make now with your audience so that you have your niche and your audience ready to go. Now, if you'd like more help on your marketing, I'm also going to put a link below to more resources that you can use to build your marketing and strengthen your marketing practice as well. Thank you so much for watching today's video. And I look forward to seeing you on another one.