Yogo brings up a good point. You can get solid work via referrals, craigslist and e-whatever-lance by rolling a few wordpress themes and customizing wordpress sites.
You may be underestimating the value of intermediate skills. While a large agency may not pay you as freelancer, you could easily get a roster of clients through referrals and good old fashion hustle on craigslist (which leads to more clients) I have plenty of experience making this work as developer... which is weird since I am not a developer. If I can do it by accident, I am sure you can do it on purpose.
You may be underestimating the value of intermediate skills. While a large agency may not pay you as freelancer, you could easily get a roster of clients through referrals and good old fashion hustle on craigslist (which leads to more clients) I have plenty of experience making this work as developer... which is weird since I am not a developer. If I can do it by accident, I am sure you can do it on purpose.