Hey, folks--just wanted to let you know that one of our own, @Neha-Rawat won the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) Summer Spectacular Portfolio Showcase that just wrapped itself up a few minutes ago. Out of around 450 participants, she was one of two Grand Champion winners! Here at SVSLearn, she was a featured student for February 2020!

You may recall a couple weeks ago, Neha created a thread that actually asked if participating was worth the experience... I wasn't too optimistic, but I have to eat my own words as it obviously worked for her!!! She wins free admission to the next virtual conference in February, meetings with three art directors, and a $1000 gift certificate to Blick Art Supplies.

There was a group of us on Instagram DMing each other as we watched the sessions (thank-you so much @Coley for setting it up and corralling us all together), and we had a great time! It was nice touching bases with everyone as the event unfolded. Apparently, the usual attendance for the conference held annually in LA is around 1200, but because everything was online this year they had over 4000 participants from all over the world. Neha's work was seen by thousands of people.

You can see Neha's showcase here. Judging criteria included: 1) children's book publishing appropriateness, 2) consistency of a strong illustrative "voice" throughout, and 3) a fresh and unique style.

The entire collection of illustrators can be found here. It's a great resource, and useful to see what imagery other illustrators are including in their portfolios. It will be available through the month of August.

Congrats again, Neha!!!

This mermaid went down fighting, I think...

Over a year after work started on the album (thank-you Covid) my first paid work as an illustrator has finally been published/released! It's not a children's book or a magazine or anything--just an album cover. I did it all in Procreate, and I'm happy with how it turned out. The iterations this thing went through... whew! And learning what should be included in a contract and what shouldn't, and how very different the perceptions of process are when coming from different angles... Wow. ("No, illustration doesn't mean I know anything about selecting the correct fonts... No, illustration doesn't mean I know how to Art Direct and format the interior content you want... No, I think you need a graphic designer for that part...." Oy...) Learning curve all the way around.

Anyway, I thought I'd share.

https://hemisphere.hearnow.com/american-dreams

Alrighty. Here goes.

Personal first steps!

Someone saw one of my hands from my 100 Hands of Family and Friends ongoing personal project, and wanted something like it for an album cover for their band. Haha! I guess those square Instagram images are good for something, right? I'm also making different image assets distilled from layers of the same hand portrait so they can use them in their 12-page CD insert. Ironically, the part they didn't want was the hand itself... LOL!

Anyway, I finally got to practice making a contract, talking about logistics, so on and so forth. I'm sure I've screwed up something somehow that will come back and bite me in the butt, but hey--I'm just reveling in the idea that someone is actually paying me to draw for them.

And I thought I'd share this little victory of mine with folks who I know can appreciate it.

Happy Dance!!!

Finished my series of greeting cards that will go up for sale on my Etsy site as soon as the paper arrives and I can print them out and make some product photography. Woohoo! I did them all live on my art stream, and I'm happy with how they turned out. I think they will go well with my calendar that's already for sale. I'm getting braver with the amount of detail but making stronger choices to "simplify" parts of things, too. I'm enjoying this aspect of illustration quite a bit, and will probably pursue more of it in the future.

Alrighty. Trying a double page spread this time.

Finished my last bird illustration for a while last night on my livestream. Weekend project is to print these out in their greeting card formats, take some product shots, and get them posted on my Etsy shop. Then I turn my attention toward writing and developing a "story calendar" idea I have. We'll see how it goes.

Finished my series of greeting cards that will go up for sale on my Etsy site as soon as the paper arrives and I can print them out and make some product photography. Woohoo! I did them all live on my art stream, and I'm happy with how they turned out. I think they will go well with my calendar that's already for sale. I'm getting braver with the amount of detail but making stronger choices to "simplify" parts of things, too. I'm enjoying this aspect of illustration quite a bit, and will probably pursue more of it in the future.

Jake Parker was telling us in a recent vid through CBPro that industry pros are finally learning that having a large following on social media does not translate to more sales. He used his own Kickstarters as an example. He has over 500,000 followers on Instagram, and if even 1% of those followers actually backed his kickstarters he'd have 5,000 backers. It doesn't happen. It has never happened.

In film and television, there was a trend for a while to consider casting actors in movies and other projects based on their social media following, thinking that it would enhance the project's promotion. But it doesn't prove true. Having more followers doesn't translate to more ticket sales and doesn't negate the need for promotion.

So I'm not sure whether having a large number of followers actually translates to anything relevant anymore. I'm not sure whether it's good or bad in the end.

What is effective is actual connection. Real conversations. Relevant comments. Authenticity. Increasing your numbers may actually work against you if it blows up your community and causes you to become less connected to those who are actually interested in your work.

Many artists are actually turning to Patreon and other subscription services like Ko-fi or Buy-Me-a-Coffee to put some element of their work directly into the hands of the people who like them. They are eschewing the idea that they need to generate "a profit" from Patreon and are settling for authentic interest. I know lots of artists that have developed communities around their work by simply having a single $1 membership tier and nothing else. This ensures that the people who are actually interested in your stuff are getting samples of what you're creating and are part of something more than a pretty something in their feed when/if it ever reaches them.

Some have found this more effective than a newsletter, as it's more in-depth and requires an actual commitment of interest on the part of the patron subscriber, making future endeavors more likely to be supported because the community is more substantive than simply following on a social media feed or getting a once-a-month easily deleted email.

But it takes time to grow an audience that is willing to support your efforts with $1 a month, and it takes time to sustain a community of interested followers once you have them.

And no Art Director or Agent is going to subscribe to a Patreon just to see your work. That being said, with Instagram's new algorithm priority, unless you're doing something in video they're probably not going to see your work anyway--it simply won't get pushed out to get any reach. I suspect finding new artists will become much harder on Instagram, so it will become less of a "go-to" tool for AD's to use. I suspect the age of Postcards will see a resurgence, and artists/illustrators will have to reach out to ADs & Agents instead of hoping to be discovered by them on social media.

There are some new art-oriented platforms that have come into existence lately that seem to be getting a lot of attention, but I don't anticipate they will gain the same popularity that the current giants. Neither uses the same type of algorithm that most social media platforms employ, as both seem to downplay the "popularity = reach" paradigm.

Artfol is growing rapidly, but I think it has an emphasis on its internal community more than anything else. I don't see many people on there using the app to connect with non-artist followers, so it's more like ArtStation or Behance or DeviantArt than Instagram, in my opinion. There's a lot of anime and manga on there, and from what I've seen the user base seems to skew toward a younger crowd of teens and young adults. At least in my opinion. It has optional challenges, a community message hub, a method for asking for critique, and it limits the number of hashtags and categories one can use when uploading your work.

Bubblehouse has some very very cool design features for display, and seems to have a LOT of non-artist users. It's only iOS right now, but will be getting to Android soon. There's more of a variety of art including photography, comics, and animation Bubblehouse. The app still crashes at times for me, personally, and there are a lot of "placeholder" accounts with one or two images, but it's the closest "replacement" I've found to Instagram. It's very slick, but currently has a very small user base.

Anyway, thought I'd share the two alternatives that have wafted into my life currently. I doubt they'll ever reach the levels of popularity that our current slate of social media platforms has, but they're interesting to explore.

These are turning out so fun!!!! Please keep going!!

As much as I love Instagram, I've never used it the "right" way anyway, so for me, this news just means my posts that never reached anyone in the first place will still never reach anyone... At least now they're upfront about it. It's kind of a relief. I could never drum up enough motivation to play in their Algorithm Games anyway.

I think I just stopped using social media in general for anything but sharing what I happened to complete that day in my studio. I enjoy the little happy hormone rush from the likes and comments, but leveraging those posts into something substantive was something I think I knew I was never going to accomplish. I just post what I want when I want. And I can't let it be anything more than that or I'll be continually disappointed trying to make it do something I don't think it has done for a very long time.

I honestly think people nowadays just like to see pretty, funny, diverting, or distracting things in their feeds. And they may quickly and effortlessly "like" it or post a quick comment, but the days of people taking the next step and actually moving off the platform to pursue their curiosity or interest in something they saw disappeared a long time ago.

Went back to doing some more birds lately, in celebration of my 2022 Birds of a Feather calendar. I did these on my art stream, and I think they turned out nicely. I think I may keep doing these for a bit. I really do love the "zen" nature of just letting go and studying a photo reference and having the world fall away, and I don't have to think about these so hard my brain hurt. They don't tell a story at all, but they're still fun to do!

Maybe you could go a different extension name and get lisaclark.art? or lisaclark.studio?

Just a thought.

@burvantill Lisa, that's brilliant! Have fun with it!! It looks like it's going to have all kinds of opportunities to tell wonderful stories in single images! Can't wait to see your progress through it!

Yesterday, I completed another in my series of riffs on Little Red Riding Hood, which I'm planning on making into a calendar and potentially some other self-printed stationery stuff. These are "The Woodchopper's World" and "Grandma's Reading Bench". I'm really enjoying imagining these classic fairy tale characters in different contexts that we don't actually see in the story. I like the idea of a lone woodchopper felling a forest by himself one tree at a time, and that Grandma actually has a life outside of being the victim of a wolf! I imagine her wooden tree bench may have actually been carved by Grandpa, perhaps...

Anyway. I'm enjoying these and will continue to do more.