Does SVS offer a class or video that goes in detail about how any artist (traditional or digital) can go from their finished work to a marketable image for use online (website, social media) or print products? I need more understanding of converting RGB to CMYK, how to make images ready for licensing, how to make Facebook banners, why resolution is lost when scaling an image larger or smaller, how to avoid loss of quality, when to use jpg or png, what to submit by email (size etc)...also things I don't know enough to ask, probably. I'm sure that class would focus on Photoshop but would be great if it also talked about free options like GIMP and others. Or perhaps just covering the basic concepts and teaching us how to teach ourselves / what to watch out for, regardless of program used. Thanks!

@jdubz the changes you made to the wolf and the ocher colored hat/coat are really improving it! Wow totally better, in my opinion.

@theprairiefox Wow those are fantastic ideas thank you for responding! Art Wander sounds cool! I would be hosting my open studio in our 24 ft x 8 ft tiny house in a rural area so not many may come, or fit, but my goal is to connect with people who've been following my art, and maybe make a sale or two but mostly just connection.

Yes, for the postcards, the podcast talking about cannibalizing is what gave me the prints idea. I know I could save money on it and stop cannibalizing my sales that way, but only if customers want to frame the prints and not the cards or if some psychological block doesn't stop them buying the prints. The quality will be the same for cards/prints, and the new prints will be larger than cards, but cost the same while earning me higher profits. So I hope they appeal to people.

I will absolutely apply that advice about using a cool color for the focus! Thank you! I think I also need to learn what my focus is on these cards. I look at the big names in my competition and actually don't even know what THEIR focus is LOL. lots to learn. At SVS looking at illustrations, it's much easier to instantly see the focus than on greeting cards.

@Chip-Valecek thank you! That's helpful, actually. If they're in the background I can make them paler than the "key" foreground object. I was also hoping that in each card, there would be only one or at most two red objects, maybe if I'm lucky. I'll see how the 10 compositions go! Perfect time to work on them over the holidays.

@jdubz Oh yeah that looks fantastic and matches the scarf as though she intentionally picked them out to wear together.

I was in AmeriCorps in 2009 so I don't think I did ANY art. You said older was ok; is the challenge meaning:

I should find something older than 2009 and redraw it even if it's 15-20 years ago?
I should redraw something, say, from 2014 and make it a 5-yr challenge? This would be more productive for me.

My gut reaction is that the blue color on the girl's hat is blending too much with the blue sky, but I love the scene overall. I want to see more of this! I thought your colors on the girl were great. But the wolf's tail is distracting in the position upright near the girl's body, maybe lower the tail to the left of the wolf instead if you end up liking that?

I'm so glad this thread got started! I'd been wondering if there was a hard definition, too, since I hear it brought up in SVS assignments. I'd love to see a list of the most popular by sales, or something. Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (mentioned by @TessaW) is a particularly great example because (though Potter had inspiration from previous works) she was a pioneer author/illustrator, one of the first if not the first to make childrens' hand sized books, got her artistic start selling rabbit greeting cards, was also a science illustrator who advanced the science of fungi but recognized only after her death when her drawings were published - because she was a woman, and used her children's book income to preserve over 4,000 acres of farmland in the Lake District of England where she got her reference material for the illustrations (using shops and people's cottages, and animal sketches for character design). So that goes full circle through this thread (sexism, classics, authors/illustrators to learn from).

I'd like to throw in another mention of Newberry honor winning chapter books because I find the stories make great illustration inspiration and most of my favorites are set in different cultures around the world, so the content is quite diverse and I love that.

Hey forum rabbits! I have a few questions and wanted some advice.

• I want to host a holiday open house tour of my art studio, and I've never had a meet-the-artist thing like that; anyone with experience and tips for how to do that? I'll invite people through Facebook and in person, I'm curious about what happens when they show up / what I should prepare for or wisdom you have to share?

• A recent SVS podcast was VERY accurate when they said greeting cards make prints not sell because people won't buy the larger more expensive print of the design they want; they'll buy the card and frame it, which is what happens to me often. A work around! My pro printer makes postcards which are larger and cheaper than greeting cards; I'm thinking about offering these for sale at the same price as a greeting card so people who want to frame the card can buy the print and think they're getting a bargain but actually I'll earn a bit more profit (as much as 50% more). Think it's a good idea or not?

• For licensing, I need to create a 10 design Christmas boxed set, and that holiday uses a lot of red objects. I know SVS teaches us to use red as a guide for the eye to the focus of the scene, but I'm wondering if it's still ok to use cardinals, candy canes, poinsetta flowers, holly berries etc EVEN WHEN these items are not the central focus, because maybe a greeting card composition is designed to make the eye linger around the entire image (realistic still life) rather than focus on a main character or action?

Thanks a million!

I'm thankful for SVS and the forums because I work from home in an off-grid cabin (it's a tiny house on wheels) in Arkansas, so I'm isolated from other people and artists. Without SVS it would be more difficult for me to keep myself accountable to my art, because the challenges of keeping our home going plus the day-to-day busy-ness of business (I own a greeting card business) would drown out the little voice inside me that says "Make great art!" SVS amplifies that voice. I've gained so much knowledge and new skills since joining a few years ago.

THANK YOU SVS!