I'm pretty excited about what's happening in my brain lately... I've reached a tipping point with my career as an artist. It's a motivational moment whose montra is "The more work you make, the more work you will get." Pretty awesome laws of attraction type stuff here- you get out what you put in and so on. I have Lisa Congdon to thank for this nice kick in the pants. I've been following her on Instagram for the past year, and I've been really enjoying her new book Art Inc. Her book is full of helpful tips from licensing your work to taxes, etc. So when I heard about her two day course on Creative Live, I jumped at it and made sure I penciled out the time to take it. You can now buy the course HERE.
It's true that as artists we live in a time that is really beneficial to helping launch and maintain our careers. Social media and the internet are our best allies. And with hard work and networking you can't help but succeed. So, yeah I'm pretty excited! After taking the class, and reading her book, I now have a 3-5 year list of some grand goals, with a subsequent list of practical steps I can take towards reaching a few of the more immediate goals. I could talk about this for a long time, but I will hold back. However let me know if you want to hear more, I'm always down to chat.
SO what are some of the practical steps I am taking?
Well in general, I have revamped my website a bit more- organizing it and my shop into subject matter categories such as "Florals" and "Landscapes" instead of "Paintings" and "Drawings" because honestly, the medium I use is important, but not necessarily the number one factor that people want to peruse a site or shop- usually folks want something in particular, a certain subject matter etc. (duh, face palm)
Portfolio: By reorganizing my website, I've realized that I need to flush out my portfolio a bit more. IE: I need more landscapes, should post more illustrations etc. And overall I need to do mock ups- draw for the jobs I want, while still staying true to myself of course. That way when I approach an editorial, or publisher I have more specific artwork rather than just what I felt like making on a particular day. (still have to tweak my website- don't like the format for each portfolio category- want it to be thumbnails...)
Sketchbook: I need to get back to drawing in my sketchbook everyday. In her class, Lisa also spoke about dividing your day into 45 minute chunks. (She said this works for some people, but not all.) By doing so- you allow yourself to work on a little bit of everything through out the day- thus never getting behind on one thing should you have a few commissions at a time etc whose deadlines are fast approaching. And by working this way, I figure drawing in my sketchbook everyday is completely doable. Boom- 45 minute chunk for sketchbook drawing, done!
Can you tell I'm excited? So expect more blogging and sketchbook sharing etc.
