How Georgia Norton Lodge Turned $35 House Sketches into a Million-Dollar Art Business

🎧 Listen to this episode: Apple Podcasts

Georgia Norton Lodge started charging $35 for house sketches — ten minutes each, forty a month — before "side hustle" was even a word. She did it while working a full-time job, moonlighting through exhaustion, and not knowing yet that those little drawings would lead to a national newspaper feature, clients like Amazon Prime and Brand USA, and eventually a million-dollar year.

In this episode of the Art + Audience podcast, Stacie Bloomfield talks with Georgia — the powerhouse behind Georgia Draws a House and the Secret Artist Business program — about what it actually takes to start small and build something real. This isn't a highlight reel. It's the honest version of how a creative business grows.

Stacie knows this path from the inside. She built Gingiber from her dining room table into a $2M+ art licensing brand, and she's taught 5,000+ artists the business fundamentals Georgia embodies naturally. The parallels in this conversation are striking.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• georgiadrawsahouse.com — Georgia's illustration portfolio, house portrait commissions, and Secret Artist Business program.
• @georgiadrawsahouse on Instagram — Behind-the-scenes on her business, student wins, and black-and-white illustrations that turned into a multi-million-dollar brand.
• Side Hustle Society — Stacie's membership community for artists building real businesses. If Georgia's story has you ready to take the next step, this is where the support and accountability live.

HERE ARE THE 5 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:

1️⃣ Start with the Easiest Thing You Can Do Well and Do It Repeatedly

Georgia started her art business because she panicked. She'd agreed to illustrate her sister's book cover and realized too late she had no idea how to draw what was needed. Her solution: go for a walk, ask herself what's the easiest thing to draw, and sketch the houses on her childhood street.

That wasn't a brand strategy. That was problem-solving. But it became her entire business. $35 house portraits. Ten minutes each. Forty a month for nearly a decade. She didn't start with a premium brand and a signature style — she started with something she could do, priced it low enough to practice constantly, and got better through volume. By the time she raised her prices, her skill was undeniable.

The lesson isn't "start cheap forever." It's start somewhere specific, do it repeatedly, and let mastery be what justifies the next price point.

2️⃣ One Bold Move Can Change Everything — If You Make It

Georgia spray-painted her first mural on her mother's house with the help of some friendly graffiti artists. The next morning, a national newspaper feature was live. Orders flooded in. She quit her job that day.

That move wasn't reckless — it was calculated boldness. She had a body of work. She had a niche. She had momentum. The mural was the thing that made the story undeniable. Bold moves work when they're built on a foundation you've been quietly building for a long time. The newspaper didn't write about a woman who painted a wall — they wrote about a woman with a distinctive style, a proven product, and something genuinely worth featuring.

What's the move in front of you that you've been calling "too risky" that might actually be built on more foundation than you're giving yourself credit for?

3️⃣ Your Burnout Is a Signal, Not a Stopping Point

After the birth of her child, Georgia hit a wall. Drawing forty house portraits a month had lost its appeal, even at $500 per piece. "It just became a giant to-do list," she says. Rather than pushing through until she broke, she gave herself one year to build something that could replace that income.

The result was Secret Artist Business — an education program that helps creatives across disciplines build profitable businesses. Students following her launch system are generating $10K–$20K from their very first launches. Burnout, in Georgia's case, wasn't the end. It was the forcing function that created her most impactful work.

Stacie Bloomfield has seen this in her own journey too — the pivot from "I'm exhausted by this" to "what could I build instead" is often where the biggest leap happens.

4️⃣ "Charge What You're Worth" Is Terrible Advice — Here's What Works Instead

Georgia and Stacie take apart the "charge what you're worth" myth together. It puts artists in an impossible position: how do you know what you're worth before you've built the proof? The answer, as Georgia lived it: you don't start there.

"I started at $35. I got better. I built a brand. Then I raised my prices," she says. That's a sustainable path. That's how pricing actually works in practice. You price based on where you are now, deliver so consistently that your reputation builds, and raise prices as your credibility grows. The work earns the higher price — not the other way around.

5️⃣ Community Over Competition — And Celebrate Your Students

Several of Georgia's students now draw houses too. She celebrates them publicly and cross-refers work freely. "There's enough houses for everyone," she says. That's not a generous platitude — it's a strategic reality. The artists who win long-term are the ones who build community around their work, not moats.

The creative economy is not zero-sum. When Georgia's students win launches of $10K–$20K, that's not revenue she lost — it's proof that her system works, which is the best marketing her program could ever have. Stacie Bloomfield has built the same ethos into every program she runs. Lifting others doesn't diminish you. It multiplies you.

MORE FROM GEORGIA NORTON LODGE

Find Georgia and her work here:
🌐 Website: georgiadrawsahouse.com
📸 Instagram: @georgiadrawsahouse

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Frequently Asked Questions About Starting an Art Business from Scratch

How did Georgia Norton Lodge turn $35 house sketches into a million-dollar business?

By doing them consistently for nearly a decade, raising prices as her skill and reputation grew, expanding into murals and agency work, and eventually creating an education program (Secret Artist Business) that teaches other creatives to launch profitably. The million-dollar year wasn't a single move — it was the result of years of repetition, strategic pivots, and building systems that scaled beyond her own hours.

How do you price your art when you're just starting out?

Start with a price low enough that people will say yes, high enough that you can sustain it, and raise it consistently as your body of work grows. Georgia started at $35 per house portrait. Today she charges $500+. The key is to get repetitions, build the proof, and let your reputation earn the higher price. "Charge what you're worth" is bad advice when you haven't built the evidence yet — price based on your current reality, not your future aspiration.

When should an artist consider creating an online course or education program?

When the service work has become a to-do list instead of a joy, and you find yourself teaching the same lessons repeatedly. Georgia created Secret Artist Business after burning out on house portraits — and discovered that teaching others to launch their creative businesses was more fulfilling and more scalable than any commission work she'd done. If you're already mentoring artists informally, that's often the signal that an education product is ready to be formalized.

About Stacie Bloomfield

Stacie Bloomfield is the founder of Gingiber, a surface pattern design and art licensing brand she built from her dining room table into a multimillion-dollar business with products in 1,400+ brick-and-mortar stores. She has earned $500K+ through art licensing and has taught 5,000+ artists how to build real income from their work.

She is the author of The Artist's Side Hustle (Hay House), a Moda fabric designer, and the host of the Art + Audience podcast. Her programs — including Side Hustle Society, Leverage Your Art, and the Art Licensing Pitch Playbook — help artists at every stage turn their creativity into consistent income.