Best posts made by Jake Parker

Hi everyone!

My latest book comes out in about 5 months and my publisher said I could share the cover, so I thought I'd show you guys a step by step process of designing a cover for a children's book.

The 12 Sleighs of Christmas is written by Sherri Rinker and when I read the manuscript for it I gave my agent an enthusiastic YES I WANT TO DRAW THIS BOOK.

Briefly, it's about the elves going to fix Santa's trashed sleigh, but instead they decide to break into 12 teams and have a contest to see who can design the best new sleigh. They build a hotrod, locomotive, semi-truck, and snowplow sleighs, and much more. It was such a fun book to do. Probably the most enjoyable book I've done so far.

Alright, lets get down to business. Once the interior illustrations were sketched out my editor asked for some ideas for the cover.

Step 1) Idea Sketches
In this stage it's all blue sky ideas. If I haven't received any specific direction from the editor I usually have an "anything goes" attitude with these sketches, so I try to throw out a bunch of different directions.

The least amount of sketches I'll send is 3, and sometimes I'll send 10 if there's a lot of ideas floating around in my head. Usually 4-5 is a good starting point to get the creative gears moving on both the editorial and the creative sides.

Here's what I sent:

And here's the email I got back from my editor:

Great notes! I definitely had a clear direction I wanted to go now. It wasn't about what was in the book, but capturing the feeling of the book.

Step 2) Final Sketch Idea

I picked the most visually fun and accessable vehicle from the book and decided to make that the hero sleigh for the cover. It was also a sleigh that would prominently show Santa. I designed it in a way that showed motion and energy. And the title was designed in a way that felt very Christmassy. Sketched it up and sent it over to them:

And here's the email I got back from my editor:

It's approved! That's the best news. I've done covers where there's a lot more back and forth at this stage. I should not too that the ultimate authority on the cover design is the marketing team. They know what sells and what doesn't. So the "cover meeting" she talked about in the email is a group of editors, marekting people and art directors who decide what's the best direction to go with the book cover.

Now that I got the approval to go to final art I started to work on designing the back side. I wanted this to be a wraparound.

Step 3) Finish the Sketch

I thought it would be cool to see some of the other fantastic designs the elves made for Santa so I included them on the back:

I sent this in and got a big thumbs up from my editor and art director. Now it's on to final line art. At this point the team has seen my final art from some of the interiors that I've finished, so they don't need to see the cover until it's close to finished.

Step 4) Final Line Art

So far everything has been drawn digitally in Photoshop. It's easier and faster to work digitally at this stage since there's a lot of back and forth, erasing, and resizing things to fix the composition.

I draw in orange because I like how it looks.

An added benefit of drawing in orange is that when you print out the drawing to ink over it there's a stark contrast between the black ink line and the light orange. It makes it easier to clean the ink scan up.

Step 5) Inking

I inked this with THIS BRUSH PEN on THIS PAPER.

Step 6) Scan and Color Flats

I scan the inks at 300 ppi and bring them into photoshop. I won't get into my photoshop specifics here, but the linework gets cleaned up a bit and then I do flat colors. (or my assistant did the flat colors, I can't remember on this image)

Step 7) Color and Finessing

At this stage there's a little bit of back and forth as me and the art director or editor make everything "just right."

I add shadows, and highlights, I color hold some of the linework, I add effects and snow. I make it look cover worthy.

Step Proof Approval

I send in the final file, a 250MB PSD and they prep it for print. Then a month or so later I got this in the mail:

I check it to make sure the colors look fine, and they did. Once they've got my approval, it's sent to the printers!

Step 9) Hold Finished Book In Your Hands

This is my eighth children's book, and it's probably the one I'm most proud of. I put my ALL into this book. I can't wait to share some of the spreads from the interior. Thanks for checking this out, and let me know if you have ANY questions. I'm happy to answer them.

-Jake

Hi all,

Saw Wonder Woman this weekend and was inspired to do a drawing of her. Wanted to share the process here:

First a rough sketch in Photoshop to figure out the proportions, composition, and pose

Next I set that layer to about 40% and draw over it. This step is about figuring out anatomy and locking in that pose.

Then I drop that layer to about 40%, turn off the first layer, and draw on a new layer the details. I'll print this out and then go traditional from there.

I did a facebook LIVE video of the rendering. First colors, then inks. You can watch it here. About 45 min long:

https://www.facebook.com/jakeparkerart/videos/1533069573410490/

And here's the final piece:

@Clawson had an idea for a drawing challenge in June to draw a Kaiju every day for the month. I noticed a few other artists on Instagram heading up the challenge as well.

It's a fun idea, becasue giant monsters offer so many creative design opportunities. I thought I'd do one.

Here's my initial sketch (in photoshop)

Here's my final pencil under drawing (also in photoshop)

and here's my inked and watercolored final:

If you've got one, post it here!

Artwork by Tanner Garlick

Hi everyone!

We just dropped the first episode of our new podcast 3 Point Perspective.

MY ART IS GREAT, WHY WON’T ANYONE HIRE ME?

Many artists work hard and try to get there their work out there, hoping to break into the illustration world and then...nothing happens. No clients offering work. No e-mails. No phone calls. And they wonder why no one wants to hire them.

We offer our perspective on why you might not be getting hired (yet), and then go into great detail on strategies and give practical advice on overcoming that hurdle and really standing out.

We discuss:

• what might be missing in your work, and how to not miss the mark

• how to give yourself a self-audit and honestly judge your work, using Will’s 9-Square approach

• discovering specific principles to improve from looking at your heroes work

• why you should be copying and absorbing masters’ work

• getting feedback from a professional and creating a feedback loop

• the need for interest and storytelling in your work

• how to handle critique and the proper attitude to have

• how to be a more interesting person

All that and much more!

You can listen to the episode and read the show notes here.

This thread is to discuss this topic. Tell us:

• about your own experiences getting work.
• ideas you have for people struggling to find work.
• where you disagree with something we've said.
• what your main take away from this episode is.

All right, love to hear your thoughts everyone!

Hey Chip,

Great art you've been posting lately. I especially like the last one as I think you've given your work added dimension with the cast shadows. Really well done.

However, there's something I see you not doing in most of your pieces that flattens them out:

• Form shadows and light
• Occlusion shadows

Form shadows and form light are shadows and light that wrap around the form, they don't just exist on the edges. Here's an image of what I'm talking about:

Understanding how light and shadow define form directly rlates to having a solid understanding of the shapes you're drawing.

Those top 3 drawings should have A LOT more volume to them. Instead they feel kind of like paper cutout drawings.

Occlusion shadows are dark accents that occur where forms come close enough to each other that they crowd out the light. They leave a small dense area of shadow. You crazy guy there should have a lot more of these to define his shape a little more. I've added both form shadows and occlusion shadows to in a paintover below that illustrate this.

And here's a call out sheet specifically showing what's what.

Hope that helps. Keep posting! I'm seeing improvement with each post!

This is a great question @smceccarelli, and it's one that I've been thinking a lot about lately.

I'm on reason 3 of why I do what I do. I kind of feel like each of these reasons is a layer of cake piled one on top of the other. Let me explain.

Reason 1: Doing it for me

The early years. I had a knack for drawing early on...but I admit, when I look at my early drawings they look no more special than any other kid who liked to draw. However, I got a lot of positive reinforcement from my parents and classmates, and that gave me confidence to to improve. I remember getting a rush when I would create things, sometimes with my art, sometimes with LEGO, sometimes it was just combining my toys into new creations. I loved putting something cool, that had my creative fingerprint on it, out into the world. I began to crave that feeling and I found myself in a cycle:

• step one: put myself in a position to get the creative rush
• step two: feed off the rush creating something as awesome as I could create
• step three: get positive feedback and reinforcement from parents, teachers, and peers on the thing I created

At every step I was feeling good things, and that's why I did what I did, to feel good. To keep those feelings coming I kept repeating the cycle.

What happens when you do something a lot, over and over and over again? You get good at it.

By the time I was in high school I was the best artist at the school. I was known as the kid who was good at drawing and was sought out to draw things for people. I designed a bunch of t-shirts, I was president of the Art Club (and we went on to win club of the year that year). I won the artist of the year award my senior year. So drawing and art was a central part of my identity.

Reason 2: Doing it for my responsibilities

When it was time to go get a job and make something of myself I realized I wasn't qualified, nor interested in doing anything that wasn't creative. I soon found myself working for an animation studio, getting married, and having a kid all in the space of 3-4 years in my early 20's.

Now doing what I was doing meant doing the thing I was good at, and letting personal satisfaction take a back seat to getting a steady paycheck. For about 12 years I grinded at different studios working on projects that I was sort of interested in (I wasn't super excited designing foliage for background environments in talking animal movies full of fart jokes). But I was getting better at my craft and supporting a family.

I was doing what I did to support a family and a lifestyle.

But I still craved the rush from phase 1, so I did a lot of personal side projects that allowed me to go through those 3 steps. I posted on forums, then blogs, then social media, then got work published. I got the rush of creating things I thought were awesome, and were things that I wanted to create AND got a lot of positive reinforcement from my peers.

Reason 3: Doing it to for the community

While the rush, and the money are still a part of what I do, I’m finding myself more and more motivated to share what I do with others as a way to improve their life on some level. That’s why I like teaching, I like making youtube videos that unpack issues/problems facing creative people. I like drawing things that have a story to them; they aren’t just pretty pictures, but hopefully they make someone stop and take someone to a place of imagination.

If I have a mission now, it’s to help elevate people’s ability to create good things. I want people to have that awesome feeling you get when you make something, I want them to get positive feedback from peers (that’s why I love what’s going on here on this forum) and I would love it if they could someday turn it into a career or a way to supplement their income.

So, to wrap it up. At first I was drawing because I wanted to do what was good for me.

Then that turned into drawing because I wanted to do what was good for those I was immediately responsible for.

Then that turned into drawing because I want to do what is good for the larger community.

All of this said, there's nothing wrong for remaining in one phase or another, or a combination of phases. If you draw because it is completely gratifying to you, you don't need any other reason to do it.

Anyway, thanks for this question. You helped me nail down some things I've been thinking a lot about and haven;t quite put into words until now.

@jimsz Hi Jim,

Time for some tough love.

You haven't gotten that breakthough because your art is dated and unprofessional.

If you want to have a breakthrough, you need to create breakthrough art.

Your style is very much informed by the Precious Moments look. It's a look that was established in the 70's by Samuel J. Butcher and it really hasn't evolved since then. Your work looks like you learned to draw from absorbing a lot of Precious Moments art and other art from the same style.

Your art also doesn't have the polish and confidence that the art of a professional has. I see a lot of unsure linework and basic application of photoshop colors.

Here's your artwork side by side illustrations I pulled off of Amazon's list of bestselling children's books from 2016. Look at the difference:

Your work just doesn't hold up to the art of people who are making a career as professional illustrators. You can't expect a breakthrough until you are creating art this good.

That was the tough part...here's the love part:

You totally got this. You CAN do this. You haven't wasted your time or energy all these years. You've proven that you can draw A LOT, and that you have some charming imaginative ideas. But you need to level up. Big time.

I think you can have a drastic improvement in your work and style in about a year and a half. It's not going to be easy, but it's doable.

Here's what you need to do.

Step 1) Re-wire your brain.

You've been drawing in that style for so long it's how your brain thinks it's supposed to draw. But in order to be competitive out there in the marketplace you're going to need to draw in a more contemporary style. Here's what you do:

Copy 20 artists.

Find 20 contemporary artists and copy TEN of their drawings. Make as close of a replica as you can of their style, their drawing proportions, their colors, and their rendering technique.

That's 200 drawings. Finished that? Good.

Now pick the 5 you liked the best out of those 20 and straight up copy 20 more drawings from them. That's 100 more drawings.

What this is doing is telling your brain that you don't have to draw in your old style any more. It's a lot like training your non dominate hand to draw.

Step 2) Develop YOUR new style

With out looking at the artists you studied in step 1, draw 50 new characters. Dogs, children, old ladies, giraffes, whatever. Draw 50 of them. Make sure you don't fall back on your old style. try to lean in on the other styles you have been copying.

Ok, now take your 10 best drawings out of those 50 and draw that character again 10 different times. Different poses, different point of views.

By now you should be narrowing in on a new drawing style.

Take all the SVS classes related to character design and poses. Do all the assignments in the classes.

Step 3) Learn photoshop.

Go through all the SVS photoshop classes we have. And do everything we ask in those classes.

Start coloring your characters from Step 2.

Step 4) Props and environments

repeat steps 1-3 but do props and envronments instead of characters. Cut all the amounts in half. So instead of 20 artists copy 10.

take the persepcitve class, and the designing environment class. Also the composition class. And wattch the chapters in the Childrens book class on illustration.

Step 5) A new you

Take everything you've learned and make a new portfolio with 20 finished illustrations:

10 Character designs
10 Illustrations that tell a story of some kind (you can use old SVS 3rd thursday prompts for ideas)

Ok, I hope that helps!
What's great is you already know how to draw, and it looks like you have the work ethic to achieve this leveling up. Please post your progress here. I'm looking forward to seeing you grow and learn.

Last bit of advice, don't obscure your work with a watermark over the front of it. That's also very unprofessional.

Here's a progress chart I made in google drive for the book I'm currently working on. Thought it might be helpful to see how I break down a picture book into manageable chunks. As you can guess I'm a visual person, so seeing the amount of green that's on there helps me know exactly where I'm at with the project.

I get a little high every time I change a square from orange to green!

What do you guys do to help keep track of your progress?

@Rapteev I have had that feeling a lot over the years, and I still get feelings of inadequacy. There's some days I think being an independent artist is too hard, that I should just quit and go work a day job and just try to do this on the side. Which I had to do once.

And here's the thing, that's not bad, and you're not a failure if you go that route.

When I went to get my day job, I just told myself it was temporary and that I would continue to work towards my goals until I could do this full time again. And instead of working towards big success, I counted all the little successes: A freelance job, getting 100 new followers, finishing Inktober. Eventually all these little successes added up and I was able to quit my job (after 15 months) and go back to working full time as an independent artist. It's still rocky some days/weeks though. There's still days where I have no idea what I'm doing. But I keep counting the small successes and piling them on top. By focusing on that I have the motivation to keep going.

I hope that helps!

Here's another one I did today.

Concept sketches:

Loose Sketch:

Final pencil underdrawing:

and here's my inked, markered, and watercolored final:

I have those days too.

If it's really effecting my work then I stop drawing and I take a day to be creative in other areas. I'll make a video, or write a blog post, or work on my website, or send out a mail chimp post. I do something that still advances my career, but doesn't require me to draw.

I also review my work that I like. That shows I know what I'm doing. I'll remind myself that I am capable of creating good stuff. If I did it before then I'll do it again.

And lastly I'll remind myself not to compare myself to others. That this is only a race against myself. And that as long as I'm 1% better than yesterday then I'll eventually get to where I want to be.

I don't know if feelings of inadequacy are associated with creative block, or vice versa, but I think the ways I outlined in the other thread about how to deal with creative block can also help here too.

Hey, great question! Lots of really good answers here too.

Since my income is based entirely on my performance as an artist, getting artist block isn't just frustrating it can be financially dangerous. So I've thought a lot about this over the years and how best to avoid it!

I think in order to treat artist block (actually, I like the term creative block, because it isn't a problem that only artists have, so I'm calling it that from here on out), in order to treat creative block you need to know what is causing it.

In my experience creative block happens when either your body, your mind, or your soul are over stressed. You can't create and perform at the top of your abilities when any one of these things are not being taken care of.

When I get slammed with creative block I do a personal audit and see what I need to do to help relieve the stress.

I start with my body:

I check my diet first. I love eating things that are bad for me. And sometimes I make bad food choices without even thinking about it. By reviewing my eating habits I see if I need to course correct, or overhaul my diet.

I then check if I've strayed off of my exercise routine. Often times creative block strikes on weeks that I haven't been to the gym or gone running. If it's been a while I make a plan to get back into it. If it's just an off day, I'll schedule some time that day to get a good work out in. One where I'm really sweaty and beat.

Then I check my sleeping patterns. Am I getting enough rest? Since the start of the year I've been going to bed early and waking up early and it's done wonders for my creativity.

Next I move on to my mind:

This is where all the creative bank account stuff I talk about happens. I check to see if I'm doing things that actively engage my brain. Sometimes I can go a month in creative mode and not consume any books, tv, films, video games, or anything if I'm not careful. You need to have a balance of input/output.

Start a new book, study (don't just watch) a film or tv show. Go to a museum and take notes, or do studies. Go on a trip to a new city, or just go to the other side of town.

All of these things engage the brain, and fill it with dots that you can connect later when you're needing to be creative.

And lastly the soul (for lack of a better term):

How are your relationships with others? If you're religious, how is your relationship with God? Are you being honest in all your dealings? Are you trying to do right by everyone in your life? Are you taking responsibility for your actions?

When you're in a fight with someone, or you're not seeing eye to eye with your spouse or partner, or if you're trying to get away with something, it all costs you energy. Energy that could be funneled into your creativity. So, take time to reconnect with loved ones, friends, children, and make sure your life is in order.

In short, if I'm ever hit with creative block I go run a few miles, I read a good book, I eat a healthy meal, I spend some quality time with my wife, and I go to bed early. The next day I'm a creative powerhouse, not to be messed with!

It's what works for me. I hope that helps.

In case you haven't noticed, we have a new website!
We are super excited to roll out our new website, we hope you like it! It's got all kinds of bells and whistles and cool features y'all have been asking for

If you don't see it yet, don't worry, it'll be rolling out for all our subscribers over the next several days. You don't have to go anywhere different, the web address is the same, just go to our website like you normally would.

Please pardon our dust
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Your new subscriber account!
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To find your account, simply click on the Video Library link in the menu at the top of the website. Then click on the Sign In link, and follow the Forgot Password? prompt.

If you run into any troubles at all, please contact us at svslearninfo@gmail.com, we will get it sorted out.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

Art by Tanner Garlick

Episode 10 is up and ready for a listen. We just wanted to thank you, all of you who are apart of this community and participate. You are wonderful. As per usual, let us know if you have any feedback or recommendations.

Critiques can be the wind beneath your wings that help you grow in incredible ways; or they can be the source of many tears and hurt feelings. In this episode we will cover why you need critiques and critique groups, where to get them, how to prepare for a critique and what to avoid. We just launched Episode 9, be sure to check it out! It's a good one.

You can listen to it and read the show notes here.

We'd love it if you had any more insight or shared your own experience with this topic!

@amberwingart I don't know if this is the solution, but I've heard so many people tell me that Inktober got them drawing again. I've recieved emails saying that for years they hadn't really drawn, or drawn anything for themselves, but when they committed to inktober it got them out of the slump and back into drawing and being creative.

I don't think that it's inktober that broke them out, but it's the doing of a limited, month long challenge that really helped to get them back into the groove.

I think a challenge like this works because:

Constraints: When limited to one medium or subject matter you eliminate your options and allow you to focus on the creation of something. More options can lead to more opportuniies to get frustrated and lose interest.

Accountability: Once you start something with a specific end point (like 31 days) you have built in motivation to get to that endpoint. You become accountable to yourself for that.

But you also have built in empathy for all your excuses, so you need to announce to friends, people on this forum, or your online followers that you're doing this challenge. Knowing that you told someone that you did something gives a little more gravitational pull to the project, and makes it harder for you to escape it.

Physicality: The act of carving out 30-60 minutes EVERY day and physically doing something starts you on the path of forming a habit. It takes 30 days of doing something to form a habit, and stopping for just one day sets you back.

Macro Goals and Micro quotas: Big goals really work. Envisioning yourself obtaining that thing you want to accomplish give your challenge more of gravitational mass to suck you into it. Being motivated to do things internally, not through punishments or rewards help to build habits that stick. Doing a daily challenge helps you to balance the big picture with your day-to-day activities; activities that don't often result in quick, dramatic changes.

Your quotas are the daily things you do to accomplish the big thing. Instead of getting overwhelmed by doing 31 drawings, you just tell yourself you need to ONE drawing that day. This makes your big goal approachable, and ultimately achievable.

Mentality: Doing a daily challenge forces you to think outside of the box. Every year I do Inktober, after about 10 days I think, "Oh crap, I'm out of ideas." It's usually around this time that I start doing really off the wall stuff that sparks a new flavor of creativity in me and sets me off in a new, more exciting direction. The first 10 days is all my old tricks, the last 21 days are exciting and invigorating because I'm covering new ground.

Now, Inktober is still 3 months away, and it sound like you need to do something today. So I say start Inktober today....or start something today!

Give yourself a 31 day challenge. Pick one medium: ink, watercolor, pencil, digital. Then tell us that you're going to create one piece a day for the next 31 days. And you'll be posting them in your challenge thread.

The first 5 drawings (or 10, or 20, or all of them) might be bad. But this isn't about creating awesome art, this is about forming positive drawing habits and busting you out of a 5 month creative slump!

Some tips:

Create behavior chains: Make use of your current routine, don't fight it. There's a concept called: "If-Then planning." It is built around environmental triggers that we can use to let us know that it's time to act on the thing we are trying to accomplish. This involves picking a regular part of your schedule and then building another link in the chain by adding a new habit.

For instance, instead of saying "I'm going to draw every day!" you could aim for "When I finish lunch, I'm going to do a drawing." Relying on contextual cues can beat willpower.

Eliminate "Ahscrewits": Trying to form a postive habit can be a fragile undertaking. You need to eliminate any source of friction that may lead you to throw your pencil at the wall and say "Screw it, it's not worth the effort!" Audit yourself and figure out exactly where things start to break down.

For example, I usually only give myself 1 hour to draw something personal before moving on with my day on projects with deadlines. One of the most frustrating things for me is getting 20 minutes into my hour and I'm cleaning my desk, finding my pens, and searching for ideas. Realizing I only have 40 minutes now to do a finished drawing I start to draw with whatever I have and it at the 30 minute mark I realize I'm not happy with any of it and just want to throw in the towel and try again tomorrow. Once I realized this, I cleaned my desk up at the end of the day. I got out and organized my drawing supplies so they were ready to go the next day. ANd I thought about what I wanted to draw before the moment. The result was this hour of drawing became one of the most productive and fulfilling hours of my day instead of a constant source of frustration.

Ok, hope that helps! Keep us posted.

@smceccarelli A case study course is an excellent idea. Maybe I'll do one for this entire book in the fall.

Wow, solid entries every one of them!

@artwithashley I love yours. It was a lot of fun digging around visually looking for that wolf.

@nyrrylcadiz I think this one was my favorite. Great illustration.

@holleywilliamson lot of fun. Really like the white bg. works well for this piece.

No name: clever take on the topic! I could totally see this in any magazine for kids.

@Adrian-K I totally didn't see the other mice on the first pass. Great rendering and nice composition.

@KathrynAdebayo really great that you went hard with the graphic design element of this. I love it when illustrators are able to blend graphic design with their illustration.

@thekidfromthe80s I like the uplight on this. Really makes it feel ominous.

@rachy This reminds me of a dream I have from time to time where my house fills with water and I can breath under water.

@Art-of-B I love this! Looks like a cover of a graphic novel.

Great work everyone!

@QuietYell When I got my job at Fox I met Don Bluth and I asked him if he had any advice for a young upstart like myself. He said, "If you try hard to be really good, maybe someday you'll become a real boy." An obvious reference to Pinocchio, I think he was just messing around with me...but after years of thinking about it I realized that maybe he was saying that when we are starting out we sometimes feel like posers. We don't know what we are doing, and if we think we do, we are just kidding ourselves. Over time, after mistakes and triumphs we actually become the thing we set out to be. Take that with a grain of salt.

Best ever decisions were decisions I made that were true to the vision I had for myself. I think you have to figure out what the vision for yourself is, making sure you're have equal parts reality and dreaming. And then make decisions that are true to that.

As for maintaining visibility while being super busy...I just set aside an hour a day to make and post something. And then I work the rest of my schedule around that. I never have anyone post for me, though that might work for someone else.

@Karine-Beaumier Great thread!

Email and messaging can be a huge time-suck. Especially if you keep checking it every 15 minutes. Here's a technique I learned a while ago that I'm implementing for email. It's called the 321-Zero system.

Schedule three times a day to process your email and messages (morning, noon, night), set the timer on your phone for 21 minutes, and try to get to inbox zero in that time.

21 minutes is intentionally not enough time, but it will keep you focused, ensure that your responses are short, and that your don't start clicking links out onto the wonderful world of internet distractions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cv6tGGLFUo&

I posted a YouTube Video today about time management. I feel like this just scratches the surface. Watch it let me know if you think I should do a more in depth approach to time management as an SVS class.

The reason I ask is from a question in the comments. Frank asked, what about the guy who works a day job full time? And I admit, my video is geared towards someone who is doing their thing full time. Here's the exchange I had with him and it makes me think: should I do a full class on time management for creatives, approaching it from every different angle? Maybe an SVS Webinar?

Frank Murray:

Hey Jake! So glad your making videos again! I was just telling my wife I need to make a time budget for myself.... I am an artist and musician that desperately wants to JUST be those things but currently I work 60 hours a week welding to support my beautiful wife and three kids. My " free time" is very limited so this video was helpful but not quite suited for my life..... any advise for a guy like me to make the best use of his time?

Jake Parker:

I totally get it. For a long time I worked a day job and had to do all my personal/freelance at nights and on weekends. Here's what someone in that situation should do. You might be doing all of these, in which case...I got nothing else to say. But here goes:

0. If you can figure out how to get down to a 40 hour work week do that, because you'll need it to do 1-6.

1. Cut the fat - Cut back on (or get rid of entirely) Netflix, Video Games, Social Media Surfing, YouTube Surfing, Reddit, and pretty much anything that doesn't actively contribute to you creating something.

2. Optimize your commute - If you take public transportation use this time to sketch, or write. Where headphones so people know not to talk to you. If you drive, use this time to listen to podcasts and audio books related to music, art, creativity, and productivity. This boosts your desire to use the rest of your free time creatively.

3. Optimize your Lunch Break - Bring a lunch so you don't have to waste time going to get it, and find a place that you can actively work on something without being interrupted. You'd be surprised to find what you can get done in a week of lunch breaks.

4. Go to bed early, and wake up early - Studies show that you're less creative and focused at nights. Your brain has a full days worth of experiences it's carrying around and hasn't processed yet. If you can, do an hour of something before bed, then get your rest and wake up a couple hours early and work on your stuff. There's nothing like going into work already having done something creative.

5. Optimise Weekends - If your family can handle it, take one day or a half day during the weekend and devote it entirely to your craft. You can use your lunches and mornings to prep for this day, but use this day to get significant work done.

6. Rest - Take a day on the weekend (I prefer Sundays) to give yourself cognitive rest. Sleep in if you can, do chores, go on walks with your wife/kids. Don't do anything super creative.

You can do anything for a few months, like stay up until 2am every night working on stuff. But that isn't sustainable. And I don't think you'll produce your best work doing that. So try to find a work/life balance that is sustainable.

Hope that helps.