Being an artist isn't as easy as it looks on Instagram. Sometimes the brush drips, sometimes the mood disappears, sometimes the money isn't there. But when someone stops in front of your work and says "wow" — all of that melts away. This is an honest, funny look at what the life of a working artist is actually like.
Fortune Teller Print by Barrie J Davies
The Artist's Morning: No Alarm Can Stop a Half-Finished Sketch
An artist's morning is a little different from everyone else's. The alarm goes off but waking up depends entirely on mood. Breakfast is thought about but the brush gets picked up first. The main mission is to find inspiration — whether that's on the roof terrace or in a cold leftover coffee. Mornings often start with a strange dream involving flying colours or some surreal nonsense that just might turn into the next painting. For an artist, every morning is the hope of a new idea. Maybe today is the day that masterpiece finally arrives.
The Studio: Mess or Creative Bomb?
Walk into an artist's studio and you'll understand that entropy is very real. Everywhere there are canvases, papers, markers, glue, and the occasional diary with something embarrassing written in it. Paint stains on the walls. Acrylic tubes on the bed. A brush in a coffee mug that nobody is entirely sure about. But to the artist, this isn't chaos — it's organised madness where everything has its place. Only they know which shade of blue that brush has been in.
The Artist's Mood: Cloudy with a Chance of Paint
An artist's mood is like a weather forecast nobody can predict. On a good day they'll make something that combines the moon and a pizza and somehow it works. On a bad day they'll draw black lines that mean everything to them and nothing to anyone else. If someone else's art goes viral, the brush doesn't get touched all day. But then a funny idea arrives out of nowhere and suddenly the whole sketch makes everyone laugh. The mood is the art. It's raw, it's honest, and people always ask: "What were you thinking?"
Cloud Painting by Barrie J Davies
Art Supply Budget: The Wallet is Crying but the Brushes Are Non-Negotiable
The art supply budget is one of the great comedies of an artist's life. Money might not be there, but a new colour definitely is. You go to buy red. You come back with teal, mustard and burnt sienna. The discount ghost haunts every art shop and wins every time. Canvases arrive alongside the groceries and nobody in the house can explain why there are glue sticks where the milk should be. Buying art supplies is therapy. Every new colour promises a better mood. Even when the wallet is crying, there's only one thought: the next piece will be a masterpiece.
Social Media: The Artist's New Gallery — and New Headache
Today's artist runs their gallery on social media. Every post needs a hashtag, a filter, and a caption that somehow says everything without saying too much. When the likes roll in, fireworks go off internally. When someone comments "that's deep," it's genuinely moving. But when a post flops, the sketch gets reanalysed like a CSI crime scene. Social media has given artists a global stage — it's just also given them a lot of new things to worry about.
Don't Grow Up Painting by Barrie J Davies
Friends Who Think You're a Free Drawing Machine
Friends are a constant source of both inspiration and mild despair for an artist. "Can you do my profile picture?" "Just give me that sketch for free." And the classic: "I could make that too." They don't know the hours, the failed attempts, the emotional investment that went into that piece. For friends, an artist is always available on demand. And yet — it's from those same friends that the best ideas come. It's a love-hate relationship that never gets boring.
Art Shows: Red Carpet Moment — Without the Designer Clothes
When work goes on the wall at a show, confidence goes through the roof. The week leading up to it is a different story. Framing at the last minute. A spelling mistake on the label. A painting that might be upside down. Pure stress. But then someone walks up and says "wonderful work" and every single bit of it disappears. An art show is the artist's red carpet moment — just with more panic, less Champagne, and a quiet but powerful hope that this might be the one that changes everything.
Cash Rules Everything Around Me painting by Barrie J Davies
The Family Question: "So When Are You Getting a Real Job?"
Convincing family that this is a career is one of the hardest battles an artist fights. While sketching, someone will always appear and ask what you've been doing for so long. At every family dinner, there's an uncle who wants to know about "the plan." The artist smiles and says they're doing colour therapy. It's funny because it's true — and also because the alternative explanation would take three hours and still not land.
The Blank Page: Funniest and Scariest Moment in the Job
Nothing is more simultaneously funny and terrifying than a blank page with no ideas. The mind wanders to dishes, laundry, Netflix — anything except drawing. Inspiration gets searched for on the roof, the balcony, in conversation with houseplants. Nothing. Then the toothpaste falls and lands in a shape that looks like an alien rabbit, and suddenly there's a whole new piece. That's the superpower. The blank page always loses eventually.
Why It's All Worth It Anyway
Being an artist means seeing life differently. Finding something worth painting in the mundane. Filling the difficult bits with creativity. The money isn't always there. The appreciation doesn't always come. But an artist wakes up every day with new ideas and new reasons to make things. When the work makes someone laugh, or stop, or feel something — that's the whole point. That's what all of it is for.
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