Why artists need other sources of income (and how to build them)

Selling original paintings is at the heart of a painter's work. But relying on that alone means building a career on quicksand.

An original sold is an exceptional moment, not a regular income. It doesn't let you plan a studio rent, materials, or simply a calm month. This isn't a business manual: it's an honest look at a question many artists avoid — money, and how not to depend on a single source of it.

The problem with selling originals

A painting takes weeks, sometimes months. The sale can take even longer, or never come. And when it does, it solves one problem without creating any stability.

The market for originals exists, but it's narrow: it assumes buyers ready to spend hundreds or thousands, often after years of relationship. So many artists spend their time waiting — for a show, a buyer, a commission. That waiting has a cost, and not only a financial one.

What other income changes

Another source of income isn't a betrayal of the practice. It's a way of protecting its continuity. When part of your income is predictable, even a modest part, you can take risks in the work, turn down a commission that doesn't fit, paint more slowly.

Freedom rarely comes from having more money. It comes from having enough, and less erratically.

I go into the numbers in this video (in French):

Prints: a sound logic

For a painter, prints are one of the most coherent paths. Not as merchandise, but as works in their own right: fine art paper, limited edition, numbered and signed by hand.

A print reaches a far wider audience than a canvas. It lets an image live in ten or twenty different homes, with people who couldn't afford the original. The work circulates, it finds walls.

The limited edition is a real constraint I impose on myself: my current prints are issued in runs of 10 or 20 per size. A print numbered 3/20 has nothing to do with a poster reprinted endlessly.

Bengaluru43.2 × 63.2 cm · €140Comme tu disais2 sizes · from €70Inventaire d'une présence2 sizes · from €70

Other paths worth exploring

Prints are one option among others. Depending on the practice, there are workshops and teaching, commissions chosen carefully with people whose request you understand, or collaborations with brands and publishers when the project fits your world. There are also projects that connect artists to each other, like JATT, the media platform I started in 2022.

The point isn't to stack up activities until there's no time left to paint. It's to build, step by step, something that stands up.

What I do, personally

I started selling prints a few years ago. Not to replace originals, which remain the heart of the work, but to create another point of contact with the people who follow it.

Every print sold lets me keep painting, very concretely: it pays for tubes and canvases, it funds a trip, it makes a month less tight. And sometimes someone who started with a print comes back later for a painting.

On becoming a full-time painter: how I became a full-time artist (video, in French).

See available prints → · Original paintings →

Matthieu Livrieri is a painter based in Brussels. He works mainly in oil on canvas and prints his limited edition fine art prints at the studio.