Why Should You Do Art Raffles?

Art raffles are a type of offer that artists voluntarily give where someone get a commission or a work involving their character with no charge. For many career artists, there seems to be no benefit to giving these offers. After all, you are not making money off of it. You’re giving people work at no cost to you.

However, there are some benefits to keep in mind especially if you are a hobbyist or early in your career and those commissions are not coming in quite yet. Not only does it give you the chance to practice the customer service aspect of commission work, but it can also help in other surprising ways.

Pieces For Your Portfolio

When you make a piece that somebody is happy with, you have yourself something you can use for marketing and to add on to your portfolio. In most cases, you are the owner of the copyright to the illustration, allowing you to show off that you are the artist who made it.

Every artist needs a portfolio, as it is something that potential clients look at in order to see if they like your work and verify that you are legitimate. Clients won’t know you are someone they can trust with their money until they have evidence that they can, and the portfolio is the very first step most clients will take in accomplishing that. But the portfolio is not the only thing they can use to vet you.

Opportunity to Get Reviews And/Or Feedback

Reviews and feedback will showcase what previous clients thought of you as a person and the art they have received. When clients get free art, they are often grateful for your generous gift and may even leave an enthusiastic positive review. While they won’t always do this, the ones who do leave a review will make the vetting process easier for future clients who may want to know if you deliver, and what the positives and the negatives of working with you are.

But even when it’s purely positive, reviews still show you have a history and give a paper trail of what you have done. These testimonies can help turn a lead into a sale, so it would be wise to get reviews even before paying demand comes in.

Testing Demand

If nobody wants your art for free, then nobody wants to pay for it. Perhaps you need more practice, maybe you just don’t have the reach yet. Either way, hosting an art raffle is a way to see if anybody wants your art at all. Entries show that you are closer than ever to becoming a commission artist, that there is some demand for it. Whether or not there is enough demand to pay you yet is another story.

But seeing that there are people who do want your art can also boost confidence and show you are on the right track. That whatever it is you’re doing, your journey is not as stagnant as it may appear to be.

Give Lower-Income Fans a Chance to Have Custom Art

There is one aspect of life that is going on right now that is rough: economic turmoil. It may not be officially declared yet, but many people are feeling the pains of a recession and can’t spend money on luxury services such as custom art, and the current trend of generative AI giving them something similar ranging from a reduced cost to free is not making it any easier for artists.

By hosting these raffles, many artists are making their services more accessible to the people who want their art but don’t have the resources to pay for it. It is a kind act that allows more people to have unique pieces to enjoy when they may not necessarily have the means to.

Art may be a luxury, but it is also a vital part of human existence. Nobody should have art denied to them because they have to choose between food or a roof over their head. While no artist is under some moral obligation to make their services accessible to these people, there is something respectable to the artists who do art raffles for this reason. 

Conclusion

While offering free art to a random set of people is not the only way to accomplish any of these reasons, they may be things artists consider whenever they decide to offer an art raffle. They are not the only reasons, either. For instance, many artists do it as a special way to celebrate follower milestones or something positive in their lives. It gives them a feeling of giving back to the community that is responsible for their success.

Art raffles are one of the many signs of there being kindness in the art community. Artists are not obligated to give people free access to their works in any form, but they do so. They offer art raffles because they know that people love art, and it is something that they simply want to do.