Today I awoke with an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. About 7 months ago a friend of mine came over to my house. He started looking at some of the art I had hanging on my wall. He said to me, "You should start a YouTube channel as a way to share your art." I thought about it for a minute, but ended up dismissing the idea. I had never edited a video or created content before. Several days had passed and I just couldn't shake the idea. "Why not" I thought to myself. I mean the worst that could happen is in a few months I get discouraged because nobody is watching. I wouldn't be out anything, and who knows maybe it could be fun or maybe people do watch and it evolves into what I do for a living. So I took the little bit of money I had and got online. I found a fairly nice computer at a reasonable price. I added it to my cart along with a copy of Adobe premiere elements 15. Surfing around a bit more I found myself a camera that would shoot in 1080p. After I got it all paid for I got onto my favorite art supply site jerrysartarama.com and started stocking up with everything I needed. It felt good, not because of the ideas of the beginning of a YouTube career but because I knew I'd be painting again. It had been awhile sense I held the brush, ok it had been too long. Painting has always been an escape for me. I find peace in it and it makes me happy, but it's an extremely expensive hobby. One that I've not always had the funds to support despite my urges. It wasn't long before all my supplies started to show up on my doorstep. I got it all set up, spent hours just deciding where it all should go. How to set up the lights, where the camera should sit, what should I paint. At last I began my first painting for my channel. I choose to go with one of my favorite Bob Ross paintings "Golden rays of sunshine." 
Its a simple piece where he used gesso to create a black and white forest and then covered this with color. I rather enjoy it more as a black and white piece though, and think it's better named "Spooky Trees". I posted the footage up on YouTube and started to promote it on some of the arts and crafts Facebook groups I was in. Even to this day I go back and watch those videos. The words "What was I thinking" and "No wonder nobody responded" cross my mind. It was so bad, you couldn't hear my voice and my head kept getting in the way. I kept at it though each video was a learning experience. I got better and better at it. Making small adjustment here or there, and getting help from some of my fellow creators as to where my next step was. However after months of working on it and reaching a point where it became harder and harder for people to pick out my faults I was still not getting a response. I had accumulated 45 subscribers and over 1000 views, but still I'd post a video and 3 or 4 days later it would only have maybe 7 views, 2 likes, and 1 comment. What was I doing wrong? The videos are engaging, I'm asking questions to encourage comments, I'm reminding them to hit the like button as even I forget to do that sometimes. I thought maybe I just need to do more promoting. I created an Instagram and started making posts and following my fellow artists, while that was running smoothly and I was getting a lot of support there it didn't seem like it was helping my channel very much. So I created a Reddit account after hearing that there is over 100 years worth of video watched through Reddit every month. As I dove into the platform I began to realize my mistake. See one of the main rules to Reddit is No Self Promoting. It's all file shares, it wasn't that my videos where not welcome there it was that I couldn't be the one to post them... Hmm. Despite my plea to my friends to help me out it just wasn't getting me anywhere. After the months of working and the hours upon hours of promoting my videos I had made a whole $0.14. I kept searching and searching for more ways to put myself out there which lead me to steemit. In the week and a half I've been here I've reached an account value of $50 with plenty of posts waiting cash out. I've become so blessed with my experience here and have come to the decision to abandon all other outlets to give steemit my full attention. I'm proud to be a steemian, and I'm fully committed to provide you with great content that I know you all will enjoy.
Thanks for reading!!! If you enjoyed it don't forget to smash that upvote button, resteem so others can enjoy. Let me know down in the comments so I can go check out some of your content!
One winding journey, I wonder where you'll be in another seven months time. Still posting regularly to here I hope. And if you'd like to check out my blog I've shared a few paintings and drawings.
I'm sure I will be ;) thanks for the comment. Out with my mom right now, but when I get home I'll go check out your page.
nice work. dreams do come true.
That they do. It's all taught me to stay motivated and you can achieve anything you want.
Congrats on finding your path. I know the struggle of YouTube and it is rough when you put in a whole day creating content to only get 4 views.
That it is. I think the biggest problem was that YouTube is already so big and so many people are posting there it's just too hard to stand out.
yeah. I started posting on vidme but they limit your upload potential until you become verified and you need at least 50 subs to do that. I could probably do that faster if I had not discovered steemit also :P
super you start painting again, Beautiful works. same here i start making music again and i also paint. steemit is also very very great for artist,I earn i little bit money without selling my paintings hahaha. i wish you good luck. life is good
Thanks!!! I was actually thinking once I get enough followers and engagement that my posts are making good money I could randomly select people and send them the painting I used for the post.
Heey! Have fun here and welcome ;-)
Thanks!
Wells done
Thank you