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Blake Jamieson is a pop portrait artist in Manhattan, NY. He paints pop art portraits for professional athletes and celebrities, including Howie Mandel, Drew Brees, Joe Montana, Gary Vaynerchuk, and over 250 other professional athletes in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS, and PLL. 

Blake\'s path to becoming a full-time artist was far from traditional. Despite his passion for art at a young age, Blake decided to forgo art school for a more "practical" degree, studying Economics at UC Davis. After graduating, Blake began his career in digital marketing at Zynga. He worked in digital marketing for nearly a decade, working for small tech startups to publicly traded companies.

On his 30th birthday, Blake decided it was time to stop building someone else\'s dream, and start to following his own passions. He began painting full-time nearly five years ago, and has carved out a niche that allows him to paint every day.

Most passionate about

• I\\u2019m a portrait artist located in NYC. I\\u2019ve had an interesting rollercoaster of a journey up until this point, but what I do now is paint portraits of professional athletes.
• Primarily, I have worked in the NFL, although I do work with other athletes who play soccer, lacrosse, hockey, and more.
• I created this niche for myself where an athlete, or the spouse or girlfriend of an athlete, is looking for a painting that will capture special sports moments for them. I\\u2019m often the person they turn to and I\\u2019m very fortunate to work with awesome people and get to paint every single day.

Blake\\u2019s story

• I grew up in a very creative household. I was always encouraged to paint, or draw, or do photography \\u2013 all the things I do today. However, I convinced myself, from a young age, that art was about being a starving artist and that it was not a career path.
• Instead of doing what my parents encouraged me to do, which was to study art in college, I decided to study economics and tech. I thought this was the safe path at the time, and I aimed to have a career in marketing.
• When I graduated from college, social marketing was just starting to become an actual, respected career. I was able to get into very grounded levels for some reputable companies and work my way through several different companies. Then I spun off and started working for myself as a freelancer.
• Ultimately, on my 30th birthday, I decided that I was tired of working for someone else\\u2019s dream. I wanted to follow my own dreams and I realized that maybe my parents had been right all along...
• I\\u2019m very grateful. Due to my background in marketing \\u2013 especially digital marketing \\u2013 and my experience in marketing a wide range of products, I understand how social selling works and how it is really a relationship-building business. I built up a moderate following of friends, family, colleagues, and people I met along the way.
• When I first decided to start painting, I knew that I had to specialize and come out with a specific niche. I decided that I would paint a specific painting for a specific subset of people.
• Because of my networking at the time, I decided to paint for offices, especially for tech companies. I met with the people on my contact list and told them that I was an artist and that I painted office art for tech companies.
• At first, I painted many paintings of Steve Jobs, Gary Vaynerchuk, and different iconic tech founders. Those tech companies aspired to be like them and wanted to put a picture of Steve Jobs, or motivational quotes, in their offices.
• I did that for two years and it was going well. I had my niece called out and I was gaining a reputation as one of the leaders in the space of Portrait Painting for Professional Athletes.
• There was a really lucky coincidence that when I delivered art in Las Vegas, I met a guy who played in the NFL and...'