FlightWay / Careers / Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators

Creative & Media

Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators

Create original artwork using any of a wide variety of media and techniques.

Sector: Creative & Media
Preparation: Zone 3 — medium preparation needed
O*NET code: 27-1013.00

What you'll actually do

The activities O*NET rates highest for this occupation, most important first. Numbers are out of 100.

Thinking Creatively

central to the job — rated 95/100 for importance.
Getting Information

a major part of the work — rated 73/100 for importance.
Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work

a regular part of the work — rated 68/100 for importance.
Making Decisions and Solving Problems

a regular part of the work — rated 64/100 for importance.
Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships

a regular part of the work — rated 64/100 for importance.
Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge

a regular part of the work — rated 62/100 for importance.

Create original artwork using any of a wide variety of media and techniques.

What it takes

Two numbers per line: the level the work expects, and how important it is to doing the job well. Both are O*NET ratings, already on a 0–100 scale.

Skills

Active Learning

Needed at a solid working level (48/100), and rated 56/100 for importance.
Critical Thinking

Needed at a solid working level (46/100), and rated 56/100 for importance.
Active Listening

Needed at a solid working level (46/100), and rated 53/100 for importance.
Reading Comprehension

Needed at a basic working level (45/100), and rated 50/100 for importance.
Judgment and Decision Making

Needed at a basic working level (43/100), and rated 50/100 for importance.

Knowledge

Design

Needed at a high level (75/100), and rated 84/100 for importance.
Computers and Electronics

Needed at a high level (73/100), and rated 81/100 for importance.
English Language

Needed at a solid working level (60/100), and rated 72/100 for importance.
Production and Processing

Needed at a high level (60/100), and rated 65/100 for importance.

Abilities

Originality

Needed at a high level (66/100), and rated 85/100 for importance.
Visualization

Needed at a high level (61/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Fluency of Ideas

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Visual Color Discrimination

Needed at expert level (75/100), and rated 69/100 for importance.

How people get in

O*NET places this occupation in Zone 3 — medium preparation needed. That is a statement about what employers typically require, not a rule about you.

Education

Vocational training, an associate degree, or equivalent on-the-job experience.

Experience

One to two years of related experience is typical.

Training

Employers expect you to arrive with the core skill already.

What it pays

These are typical creative compensation bands by employer tier — sector-level figures, not a measured salary for Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators specifically. Treat them as the shape of the market, then check a real posting for the number.

WPP · Pentagram · Google

$100k – $180k

Mid-size Agencies

$70k – $110k

Freelance & Boutique

$45k – $80k

How the work tends to run

Each line below is read off a single O*NET activity rating for this occupation — named, so you can disagree with it.

There is real room to invent — the answer is not in a manual.From “Thinking Creatively”

How FlightWay scores your fit against this

No black box. Here is the whole method, factor by factor.

1. You answer a short quiz: Your answers build a profile across the same 161 O*NET dimensions this page is describing — skills, knowledge, abilities and work activities. Same axes, so the comparison is like-for-like.
2. We correlate the two profiles: Fit is a mean-centered cosine — a correlation between the SHAPE of your profile and the shape of Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators. Centering matters: raw similarity between any two occupations sits at 0.70–0.85 because all work shares a common profile, so without it every career would look like a match.
3. The number you see is personality fit only: "Would I want this work" and "am I ready for this work" are different questions, and averaging them answers neither. So readiness — what your résumé, coursework and projects prove — is scored separately and shown next to fit, never blended into it.
4. Every factor is visible: You can open any match and see which dimensions pushed it up and which pulled it down. If you disagree with the number, you can see exactly where it came from.

More in Creative & Media

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See your fit for Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators

Ten questions, about 90 seconds. You get your match against Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators and 782+ other real careers — with the reasoning shown.

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Occupational data on this page comes from the O*NET 30.3 Database, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). O*NET is a registered trademark of USDOL/ETA. FlightWay is not endorsed by, and USDOL/ETA is not responsible for, anything built on that data — see our terms. What is ours is the comparison, the score and the plan.