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!!!

Alrighty. Trying a double page spread this time.

More tiger studies.

Fabulous!!! Well done!!

Been doing some studies for the book dummy I'm working on. I think I like drawing tigers. The downside, however, is that as I progress I realize how many steps backward I need to take in order to actually do what I want to do... It's more than a bit humbling. I'm glad I'm not on a deadline as this is just a personal project, because the estimated time of completion just keeps getting further and further away.

Saw this interesting graphic. Thought I'd share.

I think they'll need to expand their categories a bit... Right now they're a bit general and I think folks from illustration industries will want to have the capacity to search categories that are specifically relevant to them. There aren't many tools right now to make searching for relevant artwork very easy... For example, if you want to be found by kidlitart or childrensillustration artists, they need to use those terms as one of their three hashtags in order to be found in search results for topics that don't have a specified category. In my opinion, if they can emulate the phenomenally robust and specific search engine on ArtStation they'll be moving in the right direction.

Right now, however, I think its best strength is as a peer review tool, but it lacks the intimacy and focus of a forum like SVS or a Discord with a more limited audience, and that's both beneficial and problematic... It seems it relies upon mutually-interested "discovered circles of friends" to be relevant to the users, but I'm not sure that's much different than many of the other social media platforms out there... It's clear this platform is specifically relevant to artists in a way that Instagram or Twitter isn't, but is this a "preaching to the chorus" situation with an audience limited to fellow artists? Is that... useful? Generally?

Folks, I don't know how many of you might be interested in this, but I discovered this cool new tool recently that my family and friends have been impressed with. It's new to me, anyway... Might be good for those interested in selling prints, maybe?

Because of Covid, many artists have turned to alternative, internet-enabled alternatives to display their work. A lot of museums have likewise turned to different ways they can share their collections as well. I was involved in an art show with an artist group I belong to, and they used this gallery mechanism to share the submitted art.

In short, it's a 3D gallery offered by Kunstmatrix (www.kunstmatrix.com/en) with a simple code that you can embed on your own website, curate, and share. You decide the layout of your gallery from a selection of options, the color of the walls, the frames, the depth, and size of your work, as well as the placement. You upload pieces to your art collection, then decide which of those get displayed. You publish your exhibition. The basic plan is $12/month for 50 artworks and 5 shows/year. There are other features (including an augmented reality tool that enables folks to virtually place your artwork on their walls, as well as a system for "managing" your artwork).

Viewers hop into your exhibition and easily navigate around it in their own browser without needing to click to another website or open another window (it can go full screen with a button click). They aren't tracked and they don't have to sign up for anything as the service is European and the laws there no longer legally enable any tracking like that.

It's really quite remarkable. I created an exhibition of my own work, and it has drawn a lot of folks to see it that weren't interested in simply visiting another website. Seeing my pieces displayed like they're in a gallery has generated more interest in purchasing prints of my work, as well as merch.

For those of you who are looking to sell prints, this might be an interesting mechanism that helps others visualize your work in an environment and in a way that simply having them on a website might not be able to do. I thought I'd share, as it has garnered a lot of interest from people in my own circle, and it has a certain potential that I'm personally very interested in leaning into and using more.

Personally, I think it has some intriguing potential. I'm happy that you can't see how many likes something has, so it's not driven by that paradigm. I also really like that any art you find/like can be shared--I've found most of the folks I'm following because other artists have re-posted work they really like. Plus it seems it can't be downloaded, so the only way to "copy" an image is to take a screenshot.

I don't know what their algorithm is for their "trending" search category, but it only shows a handful of images in those results, so once you've seen them you have to go scroll through the other search categories that seem to be organized by how recently images have been posted. It has a nice "bio/info" section with as many links to your website/storefront/other platforms as you want to include. Plus, you can only post one image every ten minutes, so that's nice. And no "multiple images" per post--you post one complete image that isn't cropped to a ratio or size specification which seems awesome!!

To me, it feels a bit "youth-interest-driven" at the moment, and I wonder if that lends itself to DeviantArt comparisons. I'm not sure I care to participate in any of the challenges, but the fact they have them at all is interesting. Plus there's a specific "asking for critique" category which is nice. It's unfortunate they're mobile-only.

One thing I can suggest is doing a search of the forums using the word "prints" or "printer". There are tons of threads and posts that talk about the virtues and pitfalls of different papers, different printers, etc. You may find that there are already a lot of discussions that have been had over the years that could answer a couple of your questions... I know specifically that Lee White makes his own prints and has a favorite print machine but I can't recall what type it is.

I can also tell you that from what I've seen of those discussions over the years doing your own prints is not an investment to take lightly... Lee uses a high-end printer that was a couple thousand dollars if I recall correctly.

I think there are also many YouTube videos of artists who share their own print setups and the printers they use, but many of their printers aren't made for the large-scale prints many artists prefer to sell... I've searched for them myself in the past, and while many of them weren't making high-quality prints there were a couple that were relevant.

Fronting the money and having the space to do fulfillment and shipping has always been my particular issue that has prevented me from going all in. But others have takent he leap and made it work!!! I hope it works for you!!

@Shelley-James-0 I work as a teacher, too, albeit in higher education. And I know how it's more work than a simple 9-to-5 sometimes. My position as my theatre department's costume designer means that many evenings are eaten up attending rehearsals on top of classes taught during the day, and the days can be quite long... It's hard to find the motivation and the drive to get work done.

I think the trick might be to find a "low time-investment" drawing activity that doesn't require large chunks of time set aside to accomplish. That way you will feel a sense of accomplishment without having to also feel too busy to do anything.

For example, I watched a video of an oil painter today that has suggested painting small 6x8 still life objects (like a piece of fruit or a vase) in 30 strokes or less. It helps you imagine the plains and shapes of various tones in the object, work with thick paint, choose colors before they mix on the canvas, work with larger brushes, and make purposeful strokes. 30 of them. That's all ya got.

I wonder if something like that might be useful for you? Or create partitions in your work by only working on parts of each drawing, or only accomplishing one step in the drawing for the chunk of time you've got. The challenge is to develop an approach that can be "compartmentalized" into steps and portions that you can recognize, articulate, separate on purpose, and then feel good about accomplishing each part instead of a complete work.

I, too, have had problems completing monthly challenges, for example, and there are simply some months I haven't participated at all. I haven't done any of them since December, and my time to be present on these forums has decreased considerably. My attention has been purposely elsewhere. For good reasons.

And you have to be okay with that. It is easy to get buried under the mountain of learning and practice you have to do to become competent in the illustration field, but that's no different than the slew of education courses you had to take to become qualified as a teacher (and have to continue to take each summer...) Remember you can't compare your progress to another's pace because there is no formal structure like attending an actual school and being in an actual class provides.

Break up that 1.5 hours into 15- or 20-minute increments so you are purposely making smaller illustrations and feel a stronger level of accomplishment and progression. Put the pressure to participate in. its. place. and instead celebrate the smaller milestones in front of you. At a certain point, I had to realize my development as an illustrator was better spent investing my time in things other than challenges. I suspect you might be in the same boat.

@jakecrowe I wish I did! I live in San Diego, so I think I could probably find horses around here to take pics of in a pinch. But that's a great idea--to begin I may ask around for some folks who have some ranch-farms! Thank-you!!

@Kim-Hunter LOL! Those darn hooves and joints! Most of the imagery I've found has them standing in grass, and those parts disappear! LOL! Yeah, I need to get a book on horse anatomy, but your explanation of how their legs work is so incredibly helpful!! I will go look on YouTube for horse info--I do indeed use an iPad!! Thank-you so much!!