As with any learnable discipline, it is never too old. If you are in your forties and you have this inclination to quit what you are doing and venture into becoming a fine artist, then be rest assured that you are not too old to do so. This is mainly because being an artist is not really a job but a lifelong passion and there really is no concluding timeframe. In other words, if you want to be an artist, you have to be prepared to do this for the rest of your life because you don’t really ‘retire’.
For starters, you must first know if being an artist is what you want to do. This is because once you embarked into this path, you might be doing it for the rest of your life until you can no longer paint or sculpt. Being an artist is a life-changing process where it will change everything you have been doing in the last few decades of your life. This is where you will find that venturing into the art will change your perception and way of life altogether.
Perhaps the most important thing is to first examine your ability financially
For most artists, this is the one element which stops them from becoming an artist full time because they are not able to survive mainly by selling art. Hence, they take up full time jobs which are not too overly demanding so that they can spend time working on their art. So, this is one thing you must consider and work on how you can manoeuvre your finances.
Once you have done that, then you can start working on your new-found direction. If you already have the skills and techniques, then you can start straightaway but if you are not, then it is never too late to ask for help. This can be done through apprenticeship or you can attend a course to learn the tools of the trade. Finding your niche and your specialty is no easy feat, so ensure that you find the medium that you are most comfortable with and work your way up.
This will help you to determine if you want to be a painter, a sculptor or an installation artist
The upper hand you have here is that you are able to design your path, unlike graduate artists who often are not sure which path they want to take. Even if you fall under this category, there is no reason to panic because you still can go by ‘trial and error’ to discover which direction is best for you.
Once you have found your expertise, then you can start working on your art. Remember to keep the work that you have done when learning the techniques because you never know when the collectors like to see your earlier works. As you grow older, you are more experienced in talking to galleries and hence, this will give you the advantage of selling your art through them in the future.