Today marks the one-month milestone of my journey as a freelance artist on Upwork. Here is a recap of my experience so far:
What is Upwork?
Upwork is an online freelancing platform that connects freelancers and clients through a proposal based system. Clients can upload projects for freelancers to submit proposals on, or buy projects directly from freelancers (like fivver). I stumbled across Upwork through a random user on Interpals recommending it to me, and talk about serendipity, because that recommendation has been a profitable one thus far.
The First Week: A Tumultuous Start
My first week on Upwork was uneventful. I spent hours sending proposals to every job I saw (rookie mistake) not realizing there was a system called connects. I was wasting this precious resource on jobs that would never get back to me. I think I applied to 40 jobs in the first day before I realized I had run out of connects, and made the begrudging purchase of $22 to refresh my profile. By the end of the week I had spent $22 and had no jobs…which is what led me to my first Upwork scam where a client did not pay me $90 for a character commission. I was so desperate for work I foolishly accepted the offer without checking if my client had a verified payment method. Unsurprisingly, they absconded without paying. However I am thankful for this experience as it only cost me 2 hours of my life and gave me invaluable wisdom for my future client experiences. I now always submit work under Upwork’s hourly and fixed-price protection schemes.
The First Job
My first job on Upwork came in the form of an NFT commission. Despite the controversy surrounding this subject, I chose this job because one: It was the first to interview me, two: I am a broke college student with debt, and three: it seemed like an interesting project. This is something I am actually still working on now, and has proven to be a great learning experience. Looking back, I would say the first job is the biggest hurdle for every freelance artist. After I was able to add this to my profile, the rest of the opportunities followed.
Take Off (sort of)
I would love to write that after I got my first job on Upwork proposals were being sent to my inbox in the hundreds, but sadly that is not the case. The reality is most of my jobs on Upwork can be accredited to perseverance. I spent hours writing and submitting proposals to clients that never responded, watching my connects dwindle by the second…but my persistence was not unrewarded. I was able to get consistent work for the month of February averaging 2—4 jobs a week varying in price. My busiest, and most profitable week led me to juggle 4 freelance jobs on top of my midterms, competitions and career fair, and I’m proud to say I successfully completed all of them.
The Work
So far I have done 14 projects on Upwork, all pertaining to my skills as an illustrator. My favorites of these jobs include creating graphics for an after-school music lesson business, creating a very interesting graphic of a peacock holding a crying mustard, and teaching art to a 7 year-old on zoom. I also created graphics for YouTube videos, podcast avatars, NFT assets, website character designs, and more. I will include a gallery of these works at the bottom of this post.
The Lessons
Before starting freelance I knew I was a talented and competent illustrator, but going into the work environment reinforced that. I was surprised by the amount of times I ended up finishing a project faster than expected, while also developing a greater sense of discipline. As a full-time senior illustration student, there has been more than one occasion where I have sat in my desk chair for over ten hours just wishing I would do something else other than schoolwork. Now since I was adding freelance work on top of that, it seemed like there were times I never left my desk or took my eyes off my computer screen. However, I have found that there is nothing more satisfying than submitting my work, getting paid for it, and receiving positive feedback from clients.
Here is some of the feedback I received:
"Great work! Understood the project and was able to get it done in time for my rushed deadline. Very communicative and highly skilled artist. The final piece came out exactly as I had hoped. Will definitely work hire again!"
"Amazing communication was the most important factor to getting the job done and she did exactly that!! She also provided exactly what I was looking for. I honestly don’t think there’s anything she could’ve done better. 100% would hire her again!"
"Elianna was absolutely amazing. She was very pro-active, communicated effectively, and the quality of her work was amazing. Will definitely be working with her again. We hired her to illustrate some graphics for our flyer and she exceeded our expectations. She was amazing."
In Summary
My first month of Upwork ended with me completing 14 jobs, with over $1k in earnings. I hope this is just the beginning, and maybe I’ll make an update post in 6 months to compare to this one. For now I will continue to obsessively submit proposals until another opportunity comes my way.
Happy Freelancing!