Books I'm Reading (4)

‘Another book?!’ my boyfriend exclaimed when I stopped by at the ABC, the bookstore where he works, and I bought Art Inc. - The Essential Guide for Building Your Career as an Artist by Lisa Congdon. ‘You should be drawing instead of reading!’
And he’s right, I should be drawing more than I am now but this book was a really good read!

Lisa Congdon is known for her art, illustrations and hand lettering. She exhibits. She has multiple big clients, a popular blog called Today is Going to be Awesome and written 3 books including this one. So I thought she might have something useful to say about the matter.

Congdon covers lots of things artists may struggle with. The first chapter is called You Are an Artist, where she tells you to embrace being an artist. Then follow things like building your vision and goals, branding your business, organizing time, all the different ways to promote your work, making digital prints, how and where to sell your art,  having exhibitions, how to deal with galleries etc. All this is illustrated by her own experience and 14 interviews with people who are working in the art business, either as artists or differently.
What it comes down to, making it in this business, is really hard work and investing lots of time and energy and not to forget the occasional money.
Some issues like law-related things you should check with the country you live in but apart from that I think that if you’re not quite where you want to be as an artist this book could be of great help.
Read this book!


Art Inc. The Essential Guide for Building Your Career as an Artist - Lisa Congdon - Chronicle Books

New work

The beginning of a new brainchild. About the beauty of the night, colours and sounds, rustling treetops and flying critters.

Rorschach for Doodlers

About a month ago I stumbled upon the article ‘Rorschach Test for Doodlers’ on the website ‘Doodlers Anonymous’. The idea is simple, just spatter some ink or paint between your sketchbook pages, close it, rub it a bit and open to admire the spatter result. Most of the time your mind will turn these spots into bats, butterflies etc. The challenge is take it a step further.
So I tried and I liked doing these pages so much that for the last couple of weeks I start all my drawing days like this! Not having any control on what will happen on the pages suits me perfectly.

Here's one I did recently:

 

 

Books I'm reading (3)

A few months ago I bought Creative Block by Danielle Krysa a.k.a. The Jealous Curator and I’m very glad I did! First I had my doubts. Again and again I would go to the American Book Center, stare at the book and wonder: ’Was this just another self-help book or…’ I was flipping through the book once more when my eye caught a sentence that made the buy a sure thing:

‘Do you ever equate your self-worth with your artistic successes?’

Guilty! My self-worth has been entwined with my art since a very early age. Not a smart thing to do but hey, what do you do?

Danielle Krysa interviewed 50 successful artists and asked them about the way they work, why they make art, where they find inspiration but also:

- Which artist’s work / life/ career are you most jealous of and why?

- Does your inner critic ever get to you?

- What do you do when you’re feeling blocked?

Every interview consists of more or less the same questions with very different answers. At times recognisable and at times not at all. Funny and good to know there are so many ways to look at this art-thing. All 50 interviews end with a creative unblock project by the interviewee.

 

Another word that stuck was ‘process’. Different artists would say process is what drives them to continue making art, not the end-product or the success. This made me re-think my own process and I concluded that I skip some very important steps.
This book is a fun read, good questions, funny and helpful answers. Next to that it’s filled with really beautiful pictures of the artists artwork. Buy this book!

 

Please don’t forget to check www.thejealouscurator.com and learn why Danielle Krysa calls herself that.


Creative Block by Danielle Krysa. Chronicle Books. Pentel Aquash Water Brush with Talens ecoline.

Dear diary (3)

Okay, I haven’t been doing things like I promised or set out to do. For one I haven’t written in 2,5 months and I planned to write at least once a week!
What upsets me most is that I wasn’t able to continue writing when things (artwise) sort of fell apart.
I meant to share these things on my blog but when things got rough I couldn’t.
The last few months I had some really important insights but alas, they didn’t come with a handy how to-guide. Two words that had great impact were ‘process’ and ‘ego’.
My process is, or hopefully was, almost non-existing, probably the reason why I lose interest and fun in a subject so quickly. It’s been a rough period and I hope that’s finished now.
Upcoming weeks I will let you know more about my findings from the past months and my start of a new chapter in art.