What Are You Working on This Year?

[ArtofAleksey]

@Lee-White this is very good insight thanks Lee! I think I deliberately set too many goals and have a “No I WILL do it” attitude sometimes because even if I don’t accomplish everything I accomplish a lot and have something to continue working on. It has worked before, however, having said that I realize that I frequently end up feeling like because I still have things to work on at the end it’s a justification to why people have not hired me for illustration jobs yet. I should rework that list in order to feel like ive accomplished something at the end and give myself the permission to call myself an illustrator regardless of work. Thanks Lee.

[theprairiefox]

I have a couple of goals this year:

1. Complete 2 books dummies (written & illustrated by me) and get them in front of publishers. Writing complete, 2 fully page spreads and the rest of the book fully sketched out.

2. In the 2nd half of the year establish a school visit business plan and reach out to at least 5 local(ish) schools.

These are the big things that need to happen this year to position me for my next steps in my long-term goals.

[Kevin Longueil]

My goal for the year is to make images that are just more fun or magical in some way and make them story driven. My favorite pieces on my portfolio site are the oldest ones...the ones that have a sense of story and magic...they are also everyone else's favorite pieces.....this is obviously not a good thing. I would like to have some major turnover on my portfolio site this year. So my goal is to make a few short series of two or three images that go together as a story, make them fun and use color. This seems doable - i'm already having fun starting it with this month's prompt

[li sha]

i'm working on my picture book. i've been working on it on and off for such a long time that i'd love to finally finish it. i'd also really love to seriously work towards a couple of visdev portfolio projects.

i'd like to make some dev vlogs for my work, but haven't so far.

[Feleri]

I'm not a resolution type of person, but every so often I start planning things like crazy, make brainstorm sessions, cover everything with post-it notes, ideas, plans and wishlists. Now its that time again, I've been cultivating this mode since the end of november.
I had 2 jobs (a little bit over full time) + im in an event organizing team and on top of that comes my art&illustration aspiration. This year's leading thought is to 1, Take the Leap 2, give a chance to myself
For years I've had the solid idea that if I had put in the time and effort to the business side of things, I could do okay in the illustration/art realm. But even with having this firm belief, I never actually put in the work. I always procrastinate with working on the craft. I always have to be better - which is good, I want to hold on to that, but I dont want to allow myself to have that hold me back from actually pursuing making money with it.

I told a dozen of friends to hold me accountable and not allow me to take on a second job or go full time in the current one. (I have a tendency to get excited about working with people and find myself in situations where I'm surrounded with cool people, work on things, but didnt leave enough art room in my schedule)

Generally: I want to explore the realm of art licesing (I'm interested in stationery things, cause I always loved greeting cards and such), I want to sell my art prints just as home decor and once I have a bit more work with storytelling and character interactions, want to approach publishers.

I want to have

• 1 day a week dedicated purely to learning (high impact things that are relevant to the fields I'm trying to tackle),
• 1 day/week to marketing (anything from putting together visuals, mockups, portfolio updates, researching how to reach customers, to emailing retailers, agents, publishers)
• and 3 to just doing work that is geared towards the goals of creating opportunities for myself on the mentioned fields. (or doing the freelance when I have them)

These "days" are only 3-4 hours, since I do have a job that I don't want to quit, but I think if I'm focused in that time, I can make it work. Beyond these hours I still want to do art, but in a freefall, way, playing around with whatever the heck I want to do.

• I keep on doing the event organizing + I enrolled in a french course and from February I want to go do exercise specifically to deal with back issues.

I'm not sure how long can I keep up with everything, but my plan is to just breathe out in January, have a plan set by February so that I can test it out, evaluate as I go or just do whatever feels right as I lean into things

If anyone has a word of wisdom to share, I'm more than happy to hear it!
http://felerisketches.com/

[Feleri]

@li-sha
Those are exciting things!
How do you think you can make it easier for yourself to stick with them?

I really like gathering friends I'm regularly checking in with and ask about their progress. Mutually cheering on each other as well as sharing some tough love criticism when that is needed.

What held you back from doing the vlog so far?

[MattBaker]

@Lee-White thanks guys for an inspiring podcast as always.
I also sell my personal art as a side hustle currently, when I have time, and am slowly learning about that side of things. Totally agreed with what you said about the joy of making un-commissioned art where no-one else is telling you what you should create, it's liberating. I'm trying to learn more about ways to sell my art; just posting them on Instagram has so far been pretty successful. I have art in a couple of local galleries in my area and the gallery owners are lovely but yeah once they take their cut of the profits there's often not much profit being made when you work out your hourly rate plus cost of materials and framing. It's tricky to find a good price point where buyers won't find it too expensive and yet profit margin is still good. Hmmm. Anyway, I can't wait to hear more about your artist run gallery. Wish I lived in Nashville!

[Lee White]

@MattBaker Good to hear it! Good luck with selling your art.

I'm actually opening my own gallery right now! Just signed the commercial lease! Best of all I'm letting artists keep almost all the profit. : )

[ArtofAleksey]

@Lee-White thats amazing. Congrats on such a huge milestone.

[MattBaker]

@Lee-White Wow, massive leap! I have a feeling that it'll be a success That's IMMENSELY cool that you're letting artists keep bulk of profits, huge respect for that.

[xin li]

@Lee-White wow. that is huge. Looking forward to hear more about your gallery and how you run it.

[Lee White]

Thanks guys, the key to making something like a gallery or anything work is getting groups of people together. Art is weird in that we are all just solo and each one of us deals with all the costs and everything as an individual. The second that you put a group together, your buying power goes up and risk/cost goes down instantly!

So my gallery concept is that I rent out spaces for a small monthly fee and we all run the gallery. Then I don't need to make a profit on the artist's work. The rent is covered and we all get the benefit of working together. Going it alone is expensive and risky, working in a group is fun, cheap, and not much risk.

[ArtofAleksey]

@Lee-White You have a group of artists you can choose from on svs