Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Herstedt.
Hi Victoria, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m a live portrait artist and I do drawings for guests at events and weddings!
I was already working on occasion as a freelance illustrator, but I met someone on BumbleBFF who was looking for a live guest artist for her wedding. She liked my work already and asked if I’d be interested in doing that, so I practiced, we did a little trial, and now I do it as a part time job!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
SEO is a struggle for me, I’m still having issues getting my website pages crawled and indexed; most of my inquiries come from social media and referral so far. But I’ve had fairly rapid success all things considered; I started last May with my first ever wedding, began drawing at farmer’s markets in July, and got my next wedding from a farmer’s market client; then I started seriously networking in January of this year and I’ve got five weddings booked, a baby shower, and several events and markets at which I also intend to sell prints/originals.
I think people resonate with my live portrait work because I really intend to capture their likeness and you can tell I have a strong drawing background- and I try to make them cute and flattering!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I do the live portraits as I’ve mentioned, but I also do watercolor illustration. People really tend to love my watercolor scenery pieces and I’m always striving to improve! It’s such a fun medium and its inherent transparency really allows you to capture light beautifully.
I do realistic and semi-realistic/stylized watercolor portraits of people and pets as well! I come from a background of having drawn a lot of stylized character work, so I like imbuing that into my live art. I’m really proud of my ability to capture people’s unique likeness, and I’m proud of my handling of watercolor, as it is a rather tricky medium. I’m always learning though.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Making work that you’re proud of and that you feel is intentional, it’s what you want to make, it’s what speaks to you. Obviously in a business sense, I’d say turning a profit would define success. But if your business is creative, it can’t be the only metric. Ideally I’d like to turn the revenue streams of art into full time work eventually, but I’m okay if it doesn’t happen and I have to rely on other jobs. Art is joyful for me, and I am just happy to have it always be a part of my life.
Pricing:
- 250/hour for live portrait work
- 25-300+ for commissioned illustration, both watercolor and pencil/ink
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.victoriaherstedtart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/torihtea/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577561991887
