It’s gorgeous don’t fret my pet!

Hi everyone! I listened to the burnout podcast recently and it was very much how I am feeling at the moment lol. I know there are lots of us that have gotten to the burnout stage after a long stressful year. I feel I've taken enough of a break now, but still working on the needed motivation to get rolling again. I was thinking we could all share small things we do that help get back to rolling after being burnt out. I'll start. One thing I have done that helped me recover from burnout (after taking the needed break). Was to start back up doing SUPER small things. So, for example, last year I started by just listening to the courses for a while to help me feel inspired again. I didn't try doing the lessons at first, but when I eventually felt up to it or inspired I would try a small lesson. And continued doing small things until I was up for taking on a monthly challenge and was back up and rolling again. Does anyone else have things they do to get remotivated/inspired?

@BichonBistro of course...and its not listed anymore where i have seen it before. shouldnt have waited. i guess its time to wait till he finds a other publisher? i am not sure how all that stuff works but the book itself should be jakes, right?

Let me know if you think is more orange?

@Nico-Ecenarro There is usually a post every month in the forums here with the prompt where you can post your entry, and then they send out a link for you to watch it live. I think it's also in the newsletter if you sign up for that? Or at least in the posts for news and upcoming notices at the bottom of the homepage for svslearn. Also, welcome!

I need an assessment of my website. I don't want it to be just a static portfolio, a collection-of-images site. I want it to be an active artistic hub. I have a blog that I have gone back and forth on including or not, but I'm torn as to whether that is "professional" or not. Currently, it is not linked. I have culled it many times to make it more kidlit-oriented. And I think it is reaching the point where I need to cull it again. I am currently driving people to it for my newsletter sign-up, but it also has links to my Ko-fi and my storefront. Some specific things: I know that when it comes to the children's illustration field, less is more. But the majority of professional artists out there don't limit their galleries to 14 images or less, so I'm a bit torn... I anticipate my future will probably not be in professional children's publications but instead be in print sales with a narrative illustrated aesthetic. To be honest, that may be the heart of my problem... Brian Kesinger's independent publication career has been a shining example of an artist defining their own success outside of the mainstream, and I think more and more people are finding success outside of the traditional children's publication field. I had hoped to emulate that. Multiple small streams of self-generated income and self-generated projects. I need opinions on whether it's too much and what to include or exclude. I feel like I don't have the capacity to assess what is good and bad anymore. It was clearer to me two years ago and now as I get deeper into the woods of trying to make this happen I'm losing my sense of what's effective and what isn't. I should be getting better at being able to determine that, but I feel like I'm getting less and less objective. I would appreciate any advice you proffer. I'm... To be honest, I'm not achieving what I had hoped, and there are many many signs that maybe I need to just settle on being a hobbyist and throw in the towel. I'm a later-in-life second-careerist that sees the potential of his current career disappearing around him, and so there's some pressure to make it work and dive in now while my day job still exists. But my results haven't matched my aspirations, and I'm now trying to re-examine what my strengths and weaknesses actually are. I don't have a local critique group of peers and feel like I have little hope of finding one in the face of Covid. My attempts to get into one through my local SCBWI chapter have been unanswered, and I don't quite know if that says something about my work or not... My artwork was featured in this last month's newsletter and the response has been crickets. Additionally, my social media results have been lackluster. Sooo... It all seems to be adding up... I'm wondering if a perusal of my website might suggest pathways I'm missing... Thanks so much. I really really appreciate it. https://www.coreyartusimagery.com/

@jdubz They're all really cute and promising, but I think I like 3 the most

@NessIllustration Great stuff!

@Jeremy-Ross Thanks!

@Navya-Raju Ditto what @carlianne said, I want to follow you! Drop your link!

Great podcast, love listening to your candid and helpful thoughts on illustration! Just have to speak out in the defense of museum illustration, which was carelessly discarded as a boring recipe for burnout! I'm at SVS to work on my narrative illustration and enter some new markets, but I've been deliriously happy as a working science illustrator for over a decade now. Museum illustration can be illustrating artifacts, specimens, or concepts for education, academic publication, or talks. It can be designing exhibits, web illustration, and reconstructions. These are often sought-after positions filled by incredible artists. Tangentially, there is so much work out there communicating science to experts and the public, and it can require a lot of visual narrative skills as well as understanding of a diverse set of topics. For anyone interested in telling stories of science, don't knock it. It is a quirky, specialized area of illustration, but for the right sort of person, it is never, never boring.

Thanks so much, Chip! You rock!!

Trying out some more lineless art. I don’t usually do fan art but I was inspired after watching Into the Spiderverse which should get as many awards as possible for its amazing art. If I had seen that as a kid I would have tried to grow up to be a comics movie animator.

Thank you for putting this great checklist together @NessIllustration!

@ValD oh really? How so? Can’t say I know much more about it than the name ^^‘)

@Braden-Hallett Did you complete this and hand it in?

@Stephen-Dueck this is looking great - for me I’m thinking the sword is not necessary and is very focal at the moment. I would love to see it without the sword and with the puppy version of the beast at her side that is in the tapestry instead... I think that would be more effective in showing that the character in the tapestry is also the little girl. Possibly having a slight gesture to her pose might be good too - she is very straight up and down at the moment - really nice piece!

@AustinShurtliff This is my very first post in the SVS forums, so I hope I’m doing this right. The piece I’m sharing is of my final character designs for Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This is maybe the first piece I’ve ever made completely digitally, and definitely the first illustration I’ve made in black and white! I really tried to work outside my comfort zone. 1. How have you improved this year thanks to SVSLearn? I only joined SVS a few months ago, but I’ve already made my way through several courses — Creative Composition, Children’s Books, Character Design, etc. Before I joined, I was struggling to teach myself everything I needed to know on my own and getting caught up on where to start. As an aspiring picture book illustrator with no formal illustration education, I’ve really appreciated SVS as a resource. I’m still a beginner in this field, but SVS has helped me organize my creative process, which has been crucial. 2. How did SVSLearn impact the creation of this piece? I followed the approach Anna Daviscourt laid out in her Character Design course, just with a different story (Goldilocks and the Three Bears) and time period (1940s). I played with simple shapes, proportion and wardrobe until I landed on these characters.

@carolinebautista awesome

@Elisa-Miko-Price I think if you work the highlights and the shadows better across the tree if would make it pop out better. The head placement doesn't seem right. I feel like the hair is an very uncomfortable fluffy pillow and is making her neck stiff