How to find novel part-time work for artists.

June 30, 2005 6:27 AM

I need ideas for a "job" for my wife to help pay the bills while she is building her business. Her degree is in illustration, but while creative work would be nice, it is not required. We are already working the temp agencies and other obvious avenues. I was wondering if other artistic MeFites had novel or unique ideas.

Fortunately my pay covers our living expenses, so the wife does not need to make any better than $23-$25 a year. She does not need health insurance because I can put her on mine. What she does needs is her weekends free, and if possible flexible scheduling.

posted by BeerGrin to Work & Money (7 answers total)

Teach for Kaplan - good money, pretty fun and easy.
posted by k8t at 6:39 AM on June 30, 2005

Make websites. One thing I found is that if you find a small enough business with a purpose (I chose a local food coop at which I am a member) you can sell the idea of a newsletter and/or website. Maintaining one is much more simple than drumming up business to do many. It doesn't pay great (extra 10K a year or so), but it's a second job and I believe in the cause.
posted by pissfactory at 8:21 AM on June 30, 2005

not that lucrative, but could be fun and interesting -- contact local anthropology/archaeology departments or archaeology firms and discuss illustrating artifacts and other archaeological data. Most archaeologists are not very artistic but have to come up with drawings of arrowheads, etc. She may need to read a book or two (eg Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology) and produce a sample drawing or two. Longshot but could be good casual piecework
posted by Rumple at 9:04 AM on June 30, 2005

Do technical illustration on a contract basis for a documentation services company, like these guys.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 9:05 AM on June 30, 2005

Make and sell greeting cards, via a local bookstore or gift shop. Handmade cards could go for a lot more that your pre-printed Hallmarks. Might be small change, but she'd have a lot of creative control.
posted by slimslowslider at 10:48 AM on June 30, 2005

Contact a clip-art service and sell little drawings to them. It can be steady work.
If there is a local college, I'm sure the art department could use someone to handle a night class or something. I did this for a couple years. Good money. Fun working with young people. Keeps you sharp.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:52 PM on June 30, 2005

Design business cards. Copy-editing or writing--I used to do a lot of educational curriculum and test-preparation writing, and people with graphics skills are definitely useful here.

I would respectfully disagree with the suggestion to do Kaplan or other SAT-type tutoring. This is something I tried for a while as well. In theory, I thought, I could control my own schedule while pursuing something else entirely (in my case, film), but in reality I found that more often than not my schedule was dictated by flaky high-school students who, by nature of their own lives, tied up all my nights and weekends. Educational writing for those very same companies, however, was hugely flexible and could simply be e-mailed in.
posted by catesbie at 1:31 PM on July 1, 2005