Category: personal

Jan 2020 Wrap Up – Spring Goddesses & Plans for 2020

Wow did January fly by or is it just me?  I’ve been managing a lot of stressful situations this month, including my husband launching a deer into the stratosphere with his car (he is thankfully uninjured, but the deer was not) and many production woes involving my pins.  So that’s meant a new car payment for us and dreaded Kickstarter production delays!  

I’m especially grateful to my Patrons who have stayed with me through the holidays, as I know things can be tight during the holiday rush.  Welcome to the new folks who’ve hopped on board this month when many are still recovering from the holiday expenses!  The support is definitely helping us during the extra stress this month.  For those who had to leave, I still appreciate your support during the time you were here and totally understand that life happens (Boy howdy does it. Hello, teleporting deer!).

I’m grateful that all the Kickstarter Backers have been so understanding of delays thus far as well!  I’d much rather the factory workers be safe during the coronavirus outbreak, as my pins are not worth more than people’s lives!  I’ve written an update about how this situation affects shipping and safety here for the curious.

Meanwhile, I’m marching ever onwards and have started designing the Goddesses of Spring pins!  There’ll be a Secret Sketchbook entry showing off the creative process behind these designs within the next week or so.

I’m starting to see the finish line that’s coming after a year straight of Kickstarter projects and that feels GREAT!  I love how successful these campaigns have been, but I’d be lying if I said I weren’t also pretty exhausted from doing them!  I’ve learned exactly what my tolerance is for stress and project management and plan to never do this many in a row ever again (hopefully not famous last words!).

I’ve started to ponder what’s next after the Birthstone Goddesses wrap up, which could be a whole blog entry on its own!  For now, I’m focusing on finishing the Birthstone Goddesses  pins and the wall calendar in 2020 and then we shall see what happens at that point!

I can tell after 5 years of working on this endeavor, my muse is starting to meander with Witcher OCs and other distractions and that’s a clear sign to me that I may need to temporarily switch gears when I get to a good stopping point.  But to what?  I have many thoughts which I will save for a later entry once I’ve wrapped up my current queue!

New Rewards Added in January

Posts You May Have Missed In January

I’m keen to see what amazing beginnings and endings happen in 2020!  Thanks for being along for the ride.

♥ Ang

March Wrap-Up: Health Updates, MOAR Coloring Book Updates, etc.

Happy weekend, all, and hello, hello to all the new folks who hopped on board my Patreon this month during my pledge drive!  Here’s my monthly update post to sum up what’s been happening around here in March.

I have happy news that my husband finished his radiation treatments in March!  His prognosis is a good one and in a few weeks we have a follow-up to learn how effective these treatments have been.  For now, we’re just breathing a sigh of relief and hoping that things can start getting back to a boring state of normal around here! (If I keep saying it, it will happen, right?)

Coloring Book Updates

Another major item I’ve been working on this past month is making a standard edition of my coloring book available to the masses!  This has proven more challenging than I anticipated, however.  

I was going to simply release a version of the book through Amazon’s printing service, but a good opportunity came up that would allow me to print a better quality version myself, so I’m currently negotiating this publishing path.  

There’s a LOT that goes into applying to be a vendor on Amazon instead of merely applying to be an individual seller, as well as printing considerations you must abide by.  Did you know that if your barcode isn’t scannable through your packaging or that if it is placed incorrectly that your book could be rejected and/or a vendor could be fined by Amazon?  No?  Me neither!  

I’m still doing research so I can make sure I do this right!  I’m hoping that when I’m done that it means my book will be available on Amazon for the easiest buying experience and that I would have even more reach than I would on my own!

Posts You May Have Missed This Month

New Additions to My Digital Library

Upcoming Appearances

April 26 – 28JordanCon 2019 – Come say hi to me in the dealer’s area and check out my original paintings in the Art Show!

With a sick hubby still suffering from radiation after effects and other backend tasks (preparing for taxes, getting my Patreon ready for Backerkit integration, etc.) I don’t have a lot of art to show from March, but I’m hoping to change that in April!   

Thanks to everyone who has been here even during the lean art times.  It really makes a difference in our lives, especially during these trying times which we’re hopefully coming out of now!

Much love and inspiration!

♥ – Ang

I’m Moving + Discontinued Prints Sale!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted any sort of personal update here! I’ve been super busy with my nose to the grindstone on the Ladies of the Months series attempting to make something of it while my longtime boyfriend is being the main breadwinner. It’s a rare chance to really put my focus and attention into something grand without having my attention split by a day job, so I’m taking it!

Speaking of my boyfriend, we’ve had the opportunity of a lifetime to move into a rental house for a great deal! We’ve got a few months to pack up and move to the new location, so it was about time I went through my body of work and made an honest assessment of it. I’ve known this for awhile in my heart, but I’ve been slowly, but surely, moving away from Art Nouveau work. After I wrap up the Ladies of the Months, I feel like it’s time to really give my passion for character-driven fantasy art and writing a proper go!

And did I mention that the new place will have room for separate writing study AND studio spaces? As well as a garden?  I am SO hyped to set up the new space!

With all of this in mind, it’s about time I retired that old work that’s no longer representative of my quality level as an artist or where I want to go with my work. There’s no point in clinging to it, especially with this move coming up!

I’m a little intimidated discontinuing about 80% of my older work, but that’s great incentive to make so much more new work that saying goodbye to all this old stuff won’t matter later!  I’m sure Art Nouveau won’t be disappearing completely from what I produce.  There will simply be less of it while I focus on other artistic paths.  In the meanwhile, this is the best time to grab any of my older work, if you want it!

The following prints are being DISCONTINUED!

After they are gone, they are GONE FOR GOOD, as I will no longer be printing them!

Buy them here for as low as $1!

discontinued-prints-sale-7-12-2016-square-censored

If you’ve ever wanted any of my older work, now’s the best time to grab it! Once these are sold, I am not re-stocking any of these selections.

Hope you all are well. See you after the move with pics of the new studio space!

Summary of Art 2015

Thoughts on 2015 – It’s been a tough year, no lie.  A lot of IRL challenges meant I spent a lot of time off instead of making art and that sent me into a spiral of depression that was hard to escape (I’m still not completely out of it).  When I was finally able to get back to creating art, I had to drag it out of myself.

On the upside, I completed The Rapunzel comic, which has been in the making for years!  I also finished the IP Development Mentorship with Robot Pencil and laid the seeds to a fantasy story I’ve been working on for over 10 years now and that’s something I’m majorly proud of!

My best piece this year was probably Blood of the Few.  I really pushed myself to strive for something different and cinematic!  This piece plus all the other work I did for the mentorship was yet another step in the direction of a personal project (Song of Exile) that I really want to push forward with in a major way in the near future.

Next Year – I’ve decided to do more writing and have planned to split my schedule between wrapping up some of my ongoing art projects so I can dedicate myself fully to Song of Exile.  If there’s anything I’ve learned from our trials this year, it’s that life’s too short to wait on doing those things you’ve always wanted to do!

List of Art for 2015’s Summary
Last year’s Summary of Art:
For an expanded look back of my progress as an artist, check my other art progression meme.  It has my art since the age of 9!

Sketch Diary – Satyr

 

Inspiration

Today I’ll be talking about how I created Satyr for the 30 Day Monster Girl Challenge.  For my version of Satyr, I went with my own fantasy twist of a well-known figure from Greek and Roman mythology.

The Satyr of myth is usually a mischievous male with the lower body of a goat who is known to lecherously pursue nymphs and dryads.  The Satyr were also drinking buddies with Dionysus, the god of wine and merriment.

For more about the Satyr, check out one of my favorite Greek mythology resources, http://www.theoi.com.

 

 

Tools and Techniques

For this painting, I used Photoshop CC and a Wacom Cintiq 21UX.

Concept Inspiration

For my Satyr girl, I wanted to go with the theme of grapes to honor Dionysus and his wine, so she ended up with a purple complexion crowned with grapevine adornments.  Like many Satyrs, she is also a player of instruments, in this case a flute.

 

References

A selection from my references for Satyr.

monster-girls-satyr-refs


Art Process

Step 1. Quick digital gesture drawing done to capture the movement and energy of the pose. This isn’t very precise and is more about energy than accuracy.wip-satyr-01


Step 2:  A cleaner line art is drawn on a layer atop the gesture. I used Lazy Nezumi Pro set to ‘subtle’ to help stabilize my lines in Photoshop and make them smoother.

wip-satyr-02


Step 3:  Added a base layer of color so no background color will accidentally show through.wip-satyr-03


Step 4:  Added the flat colors after much deliberation on what her skin color should be.wip-satyr-04


Step 5:  Colorized the lines to make the grapes, grapevine, and flute stand out.wip-satyr-05


Step 6:  Added a shadow layer using warm grey above everything clipped to the Group and set to Multiply.wip-satyr-06

 


Step 7:  Added a highlight layer painting in white set to Overlay. Also clipped to the Group.wip-satyr-07


Step 8:  Final touches of pure white in key places such as the leaves, grapes, and hair to help lead the strengthen the focus, flow, and dimensionality of the piece.

wip-satyr-08


 

 

For more in-depth instruction on how I created this image, Pledge to any $10 and up level at my Patreon to gain access to the narrated video tutorial!  You can also buy the individual tutorial separately at my Gumroad shop, but you won’t receive the other extras you would by purchasing via Patreon.

You can watch a video preview of the tutorial for Satyr without narration here:

 

Confessions of an Artist: Embracing Defeat

This post needed some humor so here it is!
This post needed some humor so here it is!

It’s been a long time since I wrote a personal/art career post here.  The main reason for that has been the absolutely disastrous year I’ve been having.  Rather than continue putting on a happy face, I thought an entry of candidness might be more helpful.  After all, I started this journal because I wanted to talk about my journey as an artist and I want to stay true to that instead of let this place devolve purely into WIP’s and self-promotion.

This year started with my partner nearly dying from heart complications from bronchitis.  Nearly dying being terrible enough on its own, the ensuing mentally draining recovery topped with an icing of medical bills made a perfect cake of disaster.  The funny thing is, we were more prepared for this than most and those savings got us through a difficult time, including the time immediately after his recovery where my partner was let go from his job.

I’ve said in the past we’re a single income household, with my art bringing in some income, but not a lot.  There followed another extremely stressful and depressing period where we both weren’t sure what was going to happen next.  Even still, my partner reassured me that it was okay to continue trying to do art as my living (because he’s awesome and so, so loving).  We had enough to live off of and emergency measures in place.

But I had something to prove.  I didn’t want to be a money sinkhole when we were in such a period of turmoil.  Here I was in my own little dream world trying to squeeze every penny out of my art, which only made it harder to create anything with that pressure to make everything I made worthwhile and profitable.  I spent more days tied up in a lack of motivation and depression than producing anything at all.

As this year wore on and other medical catastrophes and setbacks happened, I hit a low point.  I gave up for the briefest milliseconds on the notion that any of this struggling to be a professional was worth the suffering it was putting me (us) through.  It felt like everywhere I went, people I respect were bombarding me with the fact I was especially failing this year, that I should be farther than I am.  I needed to be stronger!  My insistence that I could never show weakness and should react by working harder and beyond my limits only worked against me because I turned all of that stress inwards, causing my own physical and mental health to decline.

In a strange way, finally accepting defeat this year has been freeing.  I have become increasingly aware of the long game and the shortness of life here on this earth.  Entering the IP Development Mentorship with Robot Pencil earlier this year was a game changer for me.  I have a lot of ideas I’ve always discredited because they weren’t producing results RIGHT now, but here were several professionals telling me my ideas are “F**king awesome”.  I’m not sure I would have entered this mentorship otherwise if I hadn’t been in the place where I was just so tired of struggling and really wanted to give those unacknowledged passions a chance they would not have gotten otherwise while I was obsessing over proving myself.

It’s funny how we need permission to just do the thing we always wanted to do…

Luckily, we’re doing much better now.  Kev has been making leaps and bounds with his recovery and has also found employment.  We continue our game plan to let me build my art career a.  And while I feel guilty for having this privilege when so many other artists don’t, I’m not going to squander this opportunity with guilt anymore because I’m trying to impress those who quantify success as merely money, when success in life is so much more than that.  That path leads to elitism and becoming the kind of person and artist I don’t want to be.  With our income stable for now, I have also started saying no to a lot of jobs that I feel aren’t going to advance me as far as my personal projects might.

I’m still terrified of the unknown and of waiting for another bad thing to happen, but I’m hoping that surviving one terrible year means we’re better equipped the next time.

I suppose if there’s any advice for other artists to take away from this, it’s that sometimes you have to embrace failure because it’s one of the best ways to learn how to do anything right, that other artists who you admire more often than not are projecting a self-image of success (even when it’s not true), and that doing so doesn’t make them any less of an artist.  Also, try to save up backup funds for those rough times because they are waiting to sucker punch you in the gut when you least expect it!

Meanwhile, I’m still here…a little older and a little wiser.

Artists and Mortality

It’s that time of year again. The breezy day in November where I wake up and realize I am now a year older! 32, to be exact.  Birthdays always have a way of making me feel introspective about myself. Lately it seems everything does. An effect of getting older, maybe?

Even before today, something clicked when I was at IlluXCon where younger artists placed their portfolios in my hands and asked me about their work, trusting my knowledge in a way I suppose I hadn’t really trusted myself just yet. Giving them advice reinforced a confidence in me that had been quietly buried by self-doubt. Then, of course, I went and did the same thing putting my trust in artists more experienced than myself to give me guidance about my work. The art industry is a wonderful place like that. Everyone’s constantly growing and learning together. Everyone has a voice all their own.

Being around so many artists, young and old and in different phases of their career, made me realize I was in that sort of ‘middle child’ group. I’m not well known, but neither am I unknown. I’m in that gap where 95% of artists stop in their career at a crossroads and decide that having a family takes precedence or giving up is more prudent than pursuing that silly creative career. The clock is ticking in so many ways, biologically and creatively.

I think this is the answer to the question Jon Schindehette asked in the Women in Fantasy panel at IlluXCon. (paraphrasing here) Where do the 20 to 30 something female artists go after they’re just getting their first portfolio reviews and breaking in to the illustration jobs?

They’re making that decision of whether or not they must take the time out of their lives to do other things which society has deemed, with some exceptions, squarely in the role of the respectable woman that usually preempts having a career – specifically starting a family. You CAN come back to your career later, but it is hard and no matter whether you do or don’t, it takes time to settle into that new family structure.

All this is layered on on top of the troubles every gender of creative professional faces, a big one being the societal pressure of ‘Why are you following a career that won’t make you money or is as important/useful as a doctor/lawyer/etc.?’ In my experience thus far, turning 30 makes or breaks your determination about what you are going to be doing with the rest of your life.

Personally? I have no desire to start a family and until that desire hits, I’m focusing on a career. My experience with family comes from watching other ladies I respect in this industry deal with the trials and triumphs that comes with starting their own as well as pondering greatly on the matter, myself. I give massive props to those of you who start families AND pursue a career both at once! You must have eyes on the back of your heads…and elbows…and everywhere else! You have more strength and will than I can ever imagine having.

So then what AM I going to be doing in 10 years? 20 years? It’s easy to drive oneself mad thinking about this, but I think it’s important to sit back and do so every once and awhile.  If you don’t, you have a chance of getting trapped in that 95% of people who aren’t going to make it because they never get out of the infinite loop where they get too comfortable where they are, are so mired down by frustration, OR never know where they should push themselves to advance in their art and career.

I am 32 today and in 10 years I do not want to be where I am now. I don’t want to be the Known Unknown. The fact of the matter is when I hit 60 or 70, that’s the time I plan to retire and enjoy the rest of my years doing whatever I feel like doing just because I can. I don’t want to hit my stride so late that I am merely a flash in the pan or that I waited so late to get myself ‘there’ that I just can’t turn out what younger artists can because I don’t have the energy anymore!  What’s more, I have a lot of paintings and words in me that must come out before I die.  They MUST or I will have failed myself because no one can get them out of that colorful pit of a brain but me.

It’s not fame I’m after, but Mastery. If I happen to gain fame for being so damned badass at telling the stories I want to tell with my art, than that is the kind of fame I approve of. Earned fame, not cheap fame. Artists and creative professionals don’t get this until they have paid their dues to the craft. Till they have been rejected 100 times or more. Till they have made 10,000 failed drawings to get the 1,000 amazing ones. Meeting the various masters of their craft at IlluXCon was proof enough of this. Most are not young and took many years to refine themselves into the flawless illustrators we view them as.

So there it is!  The answer!  Time, patience, and an honest appraisal of where you are and where you’re going, but also don’t forget to acknowledge what you’re doing right!  The simple act of getting yourself into this mindset is a step in the right direction.  It is a stone in the path you are building before you.

And on that note, I am ending this post by beginning a yearly tradition of filling out this MEME on my birthday!
You should fill it out too and show me what you got.  Let’s improve together!:)
See the full image and download the template.

Artists and The Illusion of Failure

Well, guys, I messed up.

I had so many big plans for this year and I haven’t achieved any of them.  I had an action plan that began by entering Painting Drama, a course on narrative composition, with a dedication to push my artwork to the next level.  I had an actual written strategy guide to paint exactly four portfolio pieces to present at IlluXcon this year, which is coming up next week.

I’ve only managed to do ONE in all this time.

Life has been chaotic beginning with a very traumatic death in our family.  Just when we were starting to breathe again, we also had to deal with unexpected health concerns and our apartment flooding, which resulted in having to pick up and move yet again after having moved less than six months ago.

But of course, my artbrain can’t see the cause of my ‘failure’, it only sees the effect.

It tells me “If you had slept less and painted more, you would have succeeded!”

“Why can’t you focus and be more productive? There is nothing physically wrong with you!”

That little voice inside that most artists have telling them that they’re crap for not being productive doesn’t acknowledge the fact that we are not machines programmed to plot points on a paper no matter the circumstances.  We drive ourselves to succeed, even when we are not up to the task, even when our work would suffer from our lack of focus, when sometimes we just need to take time to heal instead.  When we don’t hit a certain benchmark of success, there is a dangerous point where we feel like giving up because the steps to succeed are just too small and too ineffectual.

And that is where the illusion of failure wraps us up in a cushion of despondency.  I messed up, so why should I keep trying if it will never pay off or show results?

Thankfully, I can say after going back and forth with these feelings, I can whole-heartedly tell myself STOP THAT.  Sometimes, life is just out of our control and there is nothing we can do except acknowledge this fact and move on to the next thing.

Art has never been about the end result.  For me, it is about the inspiration.  It is about the joy I get when I take a story out of my brain and express it in such a way that another person outside of my own brain can feel the drama and the passion of it and be inspired.

(Honestly, if I ever painted the ‘perfect’ image, I think I would lose some interest because where is the fun in never learning something new? OR I’d have to get a perfect image every time from that point onward and striving for that second achievement of perfection would just drive me on more!  Or I’d just go a little insane by the end…)

Art is about doing what I’m passionate about every day because that is how I want to live my life.  Spending 90% of my time here on earth at a job that bores me to tears is not how I choose to live or what fulfills me as a person.  When I do a non-art related job to pay my bills, it is also a way to support me while I create.  It is never ‘that thing I do because I failed at art’.  Considering it a failure is only a matter of perspective.

And so it is that failure is an illusion.  I have failed only when I stop doing what I’m doing or stop acknowledging my own passion as an artist.  Sure, I may have messed up and didn’t paint all the things I wanted to paint in the past, but that does mean I cannot create more in the future.

Being too old, too broke, too slow, these are only self-imposed restrictions that do not exist until we let them control us.  As long as a brush/stylus/pencil and sketchbook/canvas/etc. are in front of me and the ideas are stuck in my brain, there is the potential for art to happen.  I can succeed.

I strongly consider this 4th year of operation as Angelic Shades Studio to be my Year One.  I’m starting over with a new focus, a new dedication to the narrative works I’ve always wanted to create, and a new drive to really get my name out there.  I will not be afraid that I am not good enough anymore.  If something is not good enough, I will simply ask myself and other artists and AD’s “How can I improve?”  I will be fearless in accepting critique and showing my work to others.

I will not stop.  Stopping is not an option.

There is no spoon…nor is there such a thing as failure.

Thinking Long Term

It’s been a minute here since I’ve really sat down to post in this journal since I moved into my new digs (other than the short jaunt through the studio). I’ve been slowly, but surely settling into the new space and entering a brand new phase of my life and art.  A whole new balancing act has begun and the time was needed to sit back and consider this without spreading my energies too thin across the net.  I’ve fizzled out of conventions this year for the same reason.  I needed time to sit back and gaze upon my work with a long lens without the obsessive selling haze of conventions and have decided I’d rather be concentrating on producing new and improved work, instead.

Another big change for me is the fact that I am living with a wonderful, loving partner who has willingly agreed to take on the bulk of our financial burden so that I can concentrate solely on my art career.  It’s a definite switch from my previous situation, which involved barely combating my student debt with part-time work, leathercrafting, and getting by with what little commissions, royalties, and art sales I could make. Eventually I wanted to learn how to buy a house after I got some money and started my life up. Seriously I was trying to invest as much as I could and looking into investing some more with my boyfriend at the time. Some might find this surprising, but even though I’ve been doing this for a few years, I still consider myself more towards the beginning than the end of this endless journey to becoming a professional artist (or, to define this term more accurately ‘professional artist’ being an artist who makes the majority of their living off of their art).

The prestigious and encouraging Echo Chernik, whom I met at DragonCon last year, gave me the advice that it takes at least 10 years to establish yourself as an artist.  By that measure, I am only 4 years into this and only ‘middle-aged’ in my career!  If so, the last couple of years were my ‘mid-life crisis’.  I’ve been struggling, mentally and physically, with this career path and if it really was worth the heartache it caused me with my debt, neck/shoulder issues, and the feelings of failure that come with not being where I wanted to be.  Your words really hit home for me Echo!  I had to stop holding myself to the standard that I was a ‘failure’ at being an artist because I haven’t reached my predefined level of success in a mere 3 years.

I’m sure some people are wondering “Well you have someone supporting you now. What are you worried about?  Kick back and relax!”  As a proud, independent, and highly stubborn woman, it’s hard for me to admit that I have to rely on anyone else to help carry me in any sort of fashion at all.  A whole slew of guilt can result from this arrangement with one’s partner, including, but not limited to:

– You comparing yourself to your partner’s profession (and therefore measuring which one is more important or worthwhile)
–  You feeling guilty that they’re murdering themselves at work while you have ‘the easy route’ because you enjoy your job. (Thankfully, my spouse very much enjoys his work, which makes this worry easier to handle!)
 – And finally the kicker for any modern woman, the fear that you’re reverting to old stereotypes where you are the content wifey who stays at home and cooks the meals and does her cute little art thing on the side (aka. art is not a serious job that will make any sort of serious money and therefore, again, not considered a serious persuit).

But if there’s anything that I’ve learned about art, life, and love, it is a balancing act.  Before my boyfriend and I could come to this decision as partners, I had to examine my direction first, ask myself the tough questions.  Is pursuing art as a career worth the struggles we’ll have along the way?  Can it really equal any sort of serious money, in the long term?

In the end, my answer was ‘yes’.  If talking to other professionals who have ‘made it’ has taught me anything, it is that an art career can be both fulfilling and lucrative, but it hardly ever just falls in your lap!  One of the most important revelations I’ve had in the past year or so is that I needed to seriously sit and consider What am I passionate about painting and where does it line up with paying industries?  A lot of people fall short doing this (to which I highly recommend every single one of you read Jon’s portfolio-building series over at The ArtOrder RIGHT THIS MINUTE).  Then, you are in danger of stumbling into the trap of Oh I’ll just draw pretty things and someone will find me.

This is dangerous trap because it often leads to disappointment and I will tell you right now it can equal a lot of wasted years of meandering boredom with what you’re doing or opening up your portfolio one day and realizing you don’t have a single consistent example of the Cool Stuff you want to actually draw and get paid for. (This has recently happened to me. A client asked me for samples of a book cover and I had only…two viable examples. Ugh!)

I am realizing that every job and every opportunity that will come in my career is a victory not just for myself, but my partner as well. He believes in what I’m doing and knows that it is not a fancy or a phase, despite the fact many people around us are prone to think of it as such.  Most of all, he respects it as a job which requires the same amount of dedication, if not more, as driving somewhere and working for a paycheck.  These factors of understanding and respect were essential for us to agree upon before we could ever settle with our current arrangement.  I share these feelings here as a matter of posterity for those who might be dealing with the same conundrum of a work-at-home partner and any of the guilt that might be involved.  It takes balance and respect without judgement of yourself or your partner from either side.  It takes clear communication of what you both expect to achieve together.  Most of all, I know that if this wasn’t our arrangement, I would still be pursuing the same goal.  My path being made easier isn’t an excuse or a reason for success.  You gotta want it first, else you risk not just your own success, but a loved one’s as well!

For now, I’m quietly phasing out the distractions from my career goals and working towards building my portfolio as a book cover illustrator (which branches out into all sorts of fun things, like CCG art and RPG art).  I have one simple goal for this year besides that, which is to attend Illuxcon and get my name out there to a few targeted companies.  I’m keeping it simple, maintaining my balance, and already I am feeling so much better for it!

I hope to bring you some actual ART to this art blog the next time around.  Till then, congratulations for reading through my entire wall of text!

My Portfolio Building Homework Part 4a

Sisyphus – the story of my life.

Once again, I am inspired by The ArtOrder’s latest portfolio-building exercise and what I’ve learned lately about my work, my regrets, and my future as an artist.

All of my art supplies are in boxes right now and I am here sitting on the verge of a big change in my life.  I’m moving to a new area with my significant other as well as taking the first steps to realizing a strategy I have been ruminating on to re-invent my art and myself.

All of this pondering on who I am and where I’m going has me realizing that there is little divide between who I want to be as an artist and what I want to be doing as a career.  I’ve looked back on my own work and realized that I’ve only started painting the things I want to paint in this past year.  I’ve made due in the past by trying to fit my art into a box (the fine art box, the licensing box, etc. etc.) just so I can be doing art and making money, ANY kind of money, so I could call myself ‘successful’ at this livelihood as long as I’m doing something creative.   My approach to being successful has been completely backwards.

I’ve been struggling in my career as an artist, unable to find a focus that I felt fit me 100% or to achieve the kind of monetary success I want.  It’s taken experimentation, a good deal of floundering with jobs I grew bored with, and a great sense of failure that I’ve had to overcome to get to this point.  I’ve struggled with the advice from others that “Not every job is going to be interesting so you need to compromise to pay the bills”.  This is true to an extent, but I realize now that if I’m bored with my work 90% of the time, there are far easier ways to be bored (and get paid better) than stagnating in a field of art that is more destructive to my drive in life than useful.

I’m sacrificing a lot to be an artist and I think where I end up in this career should justify the hardships of pursuing it, not just let me ‘settle’ because I’m doing something creative, therefore I should be happy.  I need more than monetary success, I want Mastery.  From every Master I have had the pleasure of meeting lately, this has been the constant secret ingredient. Their passion has led them to the top of their game and to monetary success.  Companies seek them out because they show drive to mastery, professionalism, and focused specialization. And by specialization, I mean that art directors think “I’ll hire this artist because I know them to be very good at drawing X thing, which fits my project perfectly!”  When you’re a jack of all trades, nobody can really identify anything with you, or they identify the *wrong* thing with you (ie. I think I’m better known for my leather masks now than my actual paintings. Funny how that worked out!)

Getting to know myself better as well as asking myself some tough questions in the Painting Drama class and the ArtOrder’s portfolio-building series have really peeled away a film of indecisiveness that I have been blinded with for a long time.  It’s no coincidence to me that both of these places didn’t jump right into ‘what are your technical skills like’ at the beginning of the program.  Instead, the very first thing you do in both is to ask intensely internal questions.

Who are you?  What are you passionate about?  Where might your passions fit in to the art industry?

It’s no wonder Jon calls this exercise “The Insanity Loop” where we do the same thing the same way and get the same results.  How many times have I written in this journal that I’ve formulated a strategy to enter a particular field of art, only to find what I am trying to do wasn’t right for me after all and then I am sent right back to square one where I’m not getting any of the kind of work I want?

The answer for me has been a simple one.  I am not presenting the kind of art I want to be doing, rather I’m maintaining a status quo of doing the work that keeps my head above water. True, we all have to pay bills, but again, I’ve reached this breaking point where I realize I could be working at a different profession and make more than I’m making now with art.  The pure act of creating is not enough to maintain my happiness and well-being in life.  The mental strain of not being successful at what I’m doing with my art or actually painting the kind of work I want to paint has made me realize that it’s make or break time.

I need to aim higher than I am and figure out a better strategy than ‘do art and they will come’. I needed specific strategic planning and that is what I am finally doing by asking the tough questions I wasn’t asking before, or accepting the answers that I was afraid to act on for lack of my own confidence.

Apparently it’s been a rather cathartic couple of months for me!  I finally feel I’m on the right path in my career.  I’ve got a strategy to paint the types of things I have always wanted to paint and I am far more confident that this simple baby step forward will help advance my career in ways that mere blind enthusiasm hasn’t in the past.  It’s taken this turning of a harsh lens inward to realize what I’ve been doing wrong.

I hope this rambling has proven useful to someone else out there who might be trying to figure themselves and their goal out.  A lot of us start out with such a broad expectation of ‘I’m going to draw and get paid for it!’ but then let our experimental nature and broad artistic interests distract us from applying a pointed strategic approach to anything.  Another important lesson I have learned recently is that there is a difference between an interest and a passion.  A passion is what my career will be.  An interest is where I will spend my time having fun without the worry of judgements or money.

Jon’s portfolio-building series has been one strategizing method which has worked for me.  Maybe it will work for you too?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings in comments, if you’ve taken on this exercise for yourself.  Share with me!  I don’t want to be the only one rambling here.