Newnan brothers make thousands from selling NFT art

NEWNAN, Ga. — Two Newnan brothers have made thousands of dollars selling digital copies of their art online, and now they are traveling the county to teach others how to do the same.

Most of the art hanging in Joey and Eric Uzar’s art studio has already been sold, but they still have the physical copies because they sold them as NFTs or non-fungible tokens. 

Eric, who’s 11 years old, said he understands how it’s hard for others to understand the relatively new concept. 

“It can be hard to explain for people who have never done it,” he said.

The brothers started selling digital copies of their artwork online in 2022, and one of Eric’s sold for $400.

“They’ll say, ‘why buy a jpeg?'” their mom, Parry Uzar, said. “‘That’s so silly; I can just snap a picture and sell it?’ Well, that is fraud, and you are cheating.”

Patty wasn’t always on board, but eventually, her kids convinced her to give it a shot. 

“We uploaded it based on how they described it, we snapped a picture, put all the descriptions in, and it actually sold the very next day,” she said. “And we were shocked.”

People can sell NFTs of nearly anything from paintings to poems to music on OpenSea, which only accepts cryptocurrency as payment.

“I like to look up to the greats, like Picasso, I’m more in to abstract, so I like to look up to him. I don’t copy because that’s plagiarizing and that’s not good,” he said.

Joey, who is 14 years old, made his sale first and said he eventually wants to write comic books. 

“People see it, and they like it; they like watching my animations,” he said. 

The kids retain the hard copies and rights to their artwork. Additionally, if their customers ever choose to sell their pieces, the kids would be paid royalties from the new buyer. 

“Some artists will actually burn their (original) copy, and they’ll make a video of themselves lighting it on fire,” she said. 

But Eric and Joey’s art will stay right where it is if their mom has anything to say about it. 

“I mean, this is my kid’s art, so I don’t want to do that,” she said. 

Check out their work on their website.