Art is the most common NFT use case, so it is not surprising that crypto-art in the NFT format has exploded in popularity lately. For artists, coining NFTs in the form of digital art is the most novel way of fairly monetizing their work.
A painting can be an NFT. NFTs are tokens exchanged using cryptocurrency that represent real property. So the ownership of a token corresponds to the ownership of an asset. NFTs can both come in the form of paintings and represent ownership of paintings. However, the advantage of a painting NFT is purely aesthetic.
NFTs create scarcity around digital art, allowing creators to monetize their pieces like mainstream artists. In the simplest terms, NFTs turn a digital object, artwork, or another collectible into a one-of-a-kind asset that digital object makers and buyers alike can purchase and sell, just as they would with any other help.
Because digital works of art, like photos, animations, digital drawings, and so forth, can be copied unlimited times with no loss of quality, the invention was made of an NFT, which is a certificate of ownership for the digital work that says, this piece of artwork belongs to me. I alone have the right to sell it to anyone else in the future (although not to make copies of it and sell it as my own, since copyright remains with the artist — as does the rights of the creator — as well as to others.
How a Painting Could Become an NFT
You could undoubtedly convert the digital photos and images of your physical artworks to NFTs and put them up for sale. As the artist, you are offering your created image files — the NFTs — for sale on the Art Platform. Another way of selling your NFT is via an auction, where buyers browse and bid for your digital artwork.
Some NFT artwork comes with royalties for the artist, meaning every time an artwork is sold, the artist may get 8%-10% of any future sales. For example, an artist might sell NFTs of the digital images of paintings or sculptures to a single buyer and then sell physical works to a different buyer, giving the artist another way to make money from that work.
In general, offering an increased price on an NFT while shipping physical artwork to a buyer is daily aid in selling the physical work and providing an added gift for the buyer in conjunction with their purchase of an NFT.
Unlike in traditional US art markets, artists can take advantage of their work’s rising value by including a fee requirement within smart contracts accompanying NFTs (for example, the SuperRares NFT market requires that the creators take a 10% fee as long as the art continues to be traded in secondary markets).
On most NFT markets, artists may schedule a royalty provision when issued, so secondary artwork sales generate passive revenue. Importantly, NFTs can incorporate intelligent contracts, which can outline rights for both buyers and sellers, and–unlike most U.S. art sales–can stipulate that a creator or the NFT first-seller earns a percentage of any secondary sales whenever a piece is resold.
How Physical NFTs Are Generally Traded
Physical NFTs sold at auctions can be resold as any other NFT or redeemed by shipping a physical work. An essential difference between a traditional artwork and one attested to and sold using NFTs is that the work has to be a digitally created piece (such as a digital collage by the artist Beeple, which was recently sold for $69 million) or a digital representation of physical work (such as a painting or sculpture).
As a traditional artist, one may wonder how one could become a part of this revolution of NFTs when one’s works are, at their core, physical. And it could be that the opposite is also true; the artist producing NFTs might also wish to further sell those works either as physical work or as a gift to reward the NFT versions owners.
The advent of NFTs is on course to create an art revolution, changing how artists can market their art. NFTs are making waves both in the art world and the NFT Universe, and they are sure to make a lasting impact in both.
The Rising Popularity of NFTs
NFT is gaining the spotlight at this point, with creators of NFT art, like artists, gamers, and significant commercial brands worldwide, definitely raking in big bucks. Increasingly, high-profile artists from the mainstream art world are entering the NFT universe, including Jenny Holzer, Damien Hirst, Urs Fischer, and Tom Sachs.
Several artists are working in unusual, controversial, and frequently groundbreaking artistic styles within digital art, and the extraordinary drawings can draw interest from collectors and investors of NFT art.
These notable names are joining such mid-career creators as Shantell Martin and digital artists. They are bridging the worlds of the physical and virtual arts, like Lucas Aguirre, in creating a strong, rapidly changing market for NFT art. In particular, digital art sales surge in 2021, as several prominent artists and brands explored new ways of selling their works via blockchain technology.
The growth in the trading of NFTs means art collecting has been able to shift online, opening it up to several artists globally that might not previously have had a way of selling their work to buyers.
The world of NFT offers legit offline artists a new opportunity to sell their masterpieces to larger audiences, including a digital component. You may have heard about the artworks NFTs on media going through the hot stage, stories about digital art pieces selling for tens of millions of dollars, and many artists producing NFTs of their art.
The non-fungible token phase in the 21st century has given new meanings and purposes to digital artworks and their artists. The massive value of these works on the web suggests the digital results produced by artists in this day and age have a future in the art world as we know it. This means for the first time; digital artworks can be exclusive, can be traded, and are defensible as property (at least, that is what property could look like).