#michael mando from better caul saul

[not-poignant]

If you don't mind me asking why did you stop working as a professional artist? Your work is amazing! I could totally see your animal artwork being in kids picture books or even on wrapping paper

Hi anon!

I'm so so glad you enjoy the art! That makes me happy. Feel free to check out my DeviantArt because there's a lot more there than elsewhere. :D (Eventually I'll probably be using ArtStation or something like that too dsalkfjsa).

I stopped working as a professional artist because of money. I make more money as a writer than I ever could as an artist, despite giving art my all. Not to mention that art gave me repetitive strain injuries in my wrists (that I still have to this day) as well as eye-strain and a few other physical ailments that I still have to be careful of.

While writing is hard on the body, it could never be as hard or challenging as my particular art style was. And after a while it just got hard to justify working that hard, in that much pain, for like 0.50c an hour. And while I don't make that much more these days, I definitely make more for less suffering!

But yeah it was purely a financial/economical decision. I still actually do make art! But I no longer do commissions, and I pretty much only do it when I feel like it. But some of the things I've done this year alone include:

I think professional traditional art is also in some ways less disability friendly than writing. Or at least the kind of writing I do. I'm a traditional artist, and the easiest ways to make money as a traditional artist are to go the gallery circuit, which requires visiting galleries, pitching to them, and being seen at gallery shows (all things I could not do), or to go the mass production circuit via selling prints and so on. But I also can't go to print shops. And I can't drive. And I can't get to the post office (Glen posts all my art for me). As a result, I have to use a lot of POD services (and I do have a Redbubble storefront!), and anyway, it just didn't work out.

I still sort of think of ways to monetise the art on occasion. Which is usually trying to go beyond the lifespan of just selling an original piece of art. I tried prints, that didn't didn't work out. I tried colouring pages, that didn't work out. Children's picture books are the least profitable form of writing and art-making out there, unfortunately (people don't know this, but it's the most competitive writing market out of all of them, with the least longevity, because kids grow out of picture books, so while a few authors make a mint, most authors and artists make a pittance). I released an oracle deck and that made me about $900 this year which... is both good and not great or sustainable.

So yeah, that's why. Because while I'm not making a liveable income still, it's more liveable for less labour. My decision to quit art was purely down to income, which is why I know if things get dire with writing, I will do the same with writing, because I have given away a creative career that I loved before.

That being said, I have the particular satisfaction of knowing that my artwork is owned / has been commissioned by a cameraman / cinematographer that worked with David Attenborough across many of his series, and filmed birds of paradise on location more than once (he purchased almost all of my birds of paradise illustrations). By a head zookeeper at London Zoo who got so many pieces we became friends and are mutuals across social media, and I got to meet her in 2019 and she took us 'behind the scenes' to spend a lot of personal time with penguins and we chatted for ages.

Because I've done so much creative natural history illustration I've made connections and friends with biologists and zoologists all over the world, and it's been a humbling privilege to have been able to draw the favourite animals of some people, especially when those animals rarely get artwork in general. And I still love animals, so I do still draw them.

But it likely won't ever be my main job again sdalfkdjs