About Wayne

Wayne is one of the manager dudes at FolioAcademy.com, a site where anyone can learn to improve their artistic abilities with a growing compilation of video lessons from professional artists helping you with your craft by teaching you their secrets and techniques.

Folio Academy Student, James Horvath, Gets an Art Gig

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Wayne

It all started with Will Terry’s first art lesson video course

Words can’t begin to describe the feelings I’ve had over the past few years since making my first video tutorial: “How To Illustrate Children’s Books”. I’ve received hundreds of letters, emails, Facebook messages, etc thanking me for making that video and the subsequent videos I made afterwards. I get to chat with people everyday about their enthusiasm and renewed energy for working on their art projects. I find myself wanting to produce more and more video courses for my students around the world.

James Horvath shared a wonderful thank you letter and a short success story.

With permission from James Horvath I’m sharing his letter because it really touched me yesterday – I’m glad I was home alone so my kids didn’t see me get all mushy. My emotions come from the leftover feelings I have growing up in the shadow of academic over achievers in my family and thinking that I would never be able to do anything important with my life. There really isn’t anything better in life than knowing you make a difference – so I thank all of you for the kind words you’ve sent me in the past few years! ~Will Terry

Hey Will

It’s been a while since I downloaded and watched your video series, “How to Illustrate Children’s Books“. I just wanted to write to you and let you know how well your course has worked for me.

I’ve been a freelance children’s illustrator for many years. I worked primarily in the education market doing work for Scholastic, Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and a few others. And while I’ve enjoyed some modest success, I always wanted to write and illustrate my own children’s picture books.

About a year and a half ago I decided to get off my butt and actually do it, instead of just dreaming about it. I found your video course online and decided to spring for the $29.99.

I developed my story, worked on some sketches and sample art, basically, followed your process and submitted my dummy (an email with a PDF) to one publisher. A test run so to speak. I braced myself for the almost inevitable rejection that I was sure would soon follow.

Instead, within 24 hours, I received a response with a very enthusiastic reply. That was on a Tuesday. By the end of the week I had a 3-book deal with HarperCollins Publishers. My first book comes out on April 30th. And is up for pre-orders at practically all major on-line retailers.

I just wanted to send you this note and say, “Thanks”. I really do credit you and your course with outlining a path for my success. I would, and often do, highly recommend your video series to anyone looking to break into the children’s book market.

Thanks again!

James Horvath

Check out his work.

Congratulations James

– I can’t wait to buy your books when they come out and to brag that I might have played a tiny part in their creation. It’s been a crazy ride with our Folio Academy project.

Create Your Own iPad App

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Wayne

Develop a Children’s Book iPad App

Using the iPad app, Demibooks Composer, you can develop a children’s book iPad app without writing code. See how at FolioAcademy where you can find all sorts of online art tutorials.

Step by Step Process

Heidi Berthiaume, iPad app Developer at FolioAcademy demonstrates her step by step process on developing your own iPad app. It isn’t as hard as you might think. Impress your mom, your friends, your enemies with your own iPad app ready for them to purchase online.

Use Composer to make an interactive storybook.

Let Heidi show you how to use Composer to make an interactive storybook with page navigation, animations, physics, sound effects, a voice over, and a Hide & Seek game. All of the interactivity is created from menu options and since you are working on your iPad, when you Preview your pages, you see everything exactly as your reader will. Having developed her Bud the Bunny iPad app and another children’s book iPad app for Kane Miller, Heidi Berthiaume shares her experience with Composer using pages from her Bud the Bunny app as specific examples of the kinds of interactivity it is possible to create without learning a programming language. An iPad is necessary to run the Demibooks Composer app.

Find more on this at Will Terry’s blog.

Welcome iPad App Developer, Heidi Berthiaume to FolioAcademy

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Wayne

FolioAcademy welcomes Heidi Berthiaume as our newest instructor.

We are always looking for real talent to help us teach the world how to be an artist and we are glad to have found Heidi. In fact she found us. Welcome aboard Heidi. We have just finished her tutorial, Develop a Children’s Book iPad App.

She loves to create iPad apps and more.

Heidi Berthiaume loves to create stuff – from websites to iPad apps to written stories to fan music videos. She has spent fifteen years as an information architect providing instructional documentation for programmers and designers. With her help they are able to develop applications and websites for businesses such as 3M, Hilton, and American Airlines.

That at least paid the mortgage but was less fun than writing a novel or developing her iPad app. That’s right she made her children’s picture book Bud the Bunny into an iPad app.

The portal to all of her stuff is heidi2524.com

Illustration Shortcut: Acrylic on Inkjet

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Wayne

“I cut my painting time in half by starting in Photoshop”

Will Terry of Folioacademy used a shortcut to create this illustration for a greeting card for PK Press. He Painted, or blocked in the base in Photoshop, printed it on watercolor paper, then finished it with his famous acrylic, dry-brush technique. He is always looking for ways to maximize his efforts. Deadlines are ever present for the professional illustrator, and when you can figure out a way to speed things up, you’re onto something.

What used to take forever can be done in less than half the time.

It took so much longer with the old dry brush technique, laying in the background and basic shapes, can be done in less than half the time using the right tools. Embrace technology, it’s not going away.

pic of finished piece: Blwfish

“I was able to cut my painting time in half by blocking in the foundation in Photoshop.” ~Will Terry

He used to start his paintings on paper, transfer it to paper, and paint the whole thing with his paint and brushes.

Awhile ago he took a leap of faith and tried something new. This became the phase where he would start in Photoshop and finish with acrylics. “I scan my sketch and paint flat color on it in Photoshop, Then print it on watercolor paper, add texture gel and paint acrylics on top.” He now paints most everything digitally from start to finish but this was a crucial step in that direction, you may want to try it.

Why Does My Artwork SUCK? Why Most Adults Draw Like Children

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Wayne

“I would do more art but my art sucks.”

I hope that doesn’t ring familiar to any of our readers or followers here, but I have heard this and similar complaints quite a bit over the years.

Anyone can be an artist. Especially you!

Anyone can learn how to draw and how to paint. “Even me?” Of course you. It doesn’t matter if your not gifted, with tons of natural drawing ability, most of us aren’t. (And we HATE those who are. Well we don’t hate them, some of them are my best friends, but we are often jealous.) Like anything else, it takes study and practice. It helps to enjoy it however and the sad thing is, it is hard to enjoy it when you suck at it, so then it’s hard to practice, and then it’s hard to improve. It can be a vicious cycle of procrastination.

Do you ever wonder why most adults draw like children?

It’s because they stopped drawing while they were children. It’s not because you need to be gifted, or blessed with some amazing ability to draw and paint. It is simply because most adults stopped drawing while they were still children. If you stopped drawing at the age of six, you are probably still able to draw like a six year old. So if you want to draw better, draw more. If you want to paint better, paint more.

Why does my artwork look like a child drew it? No wonder I stopped drawing when I was six years old, I was drawing like a six year old.

A lot of children play piano better than I do. Do you think that since I’ve never studied or practiced piano, that that would have something to do with it? Of course it would. Why do I play piano like a five year old? I believe that with the right instruction and practice, I could learn it, and if I wanted it, and enjoyed it, I would do it.

Children have an advantage when learning art.

They don’t care if their art looks like a child did it. So they don’t get frustrated as fast when it doesn’t turn out. Their moms and dads are more likely to post their work on the fridge and compliment their little heads off too. You won’t get that from family and friends and critics at your age. But we adults can take criticisms and we can also learn.

So get started, don’t worry where you are, but look where you’ll be.

It is a new year and a great time to resolve. Get a sketch book and a few pencils and start now. When you draw something and it sucks, and if your like me, a lot of it will, especially if you are as critical of your own work as most of us artists are. Take your sketch book with you and draw. When you are wondering what to draw, don’t worry about making some master piece, just draw. Copy the dishes, the cel phone, the tires while you are in the waiting room at the tire shop. Draw the magazine rack while your in the Dr’s waiting room.

Warning! Don’t draw the people there, they will want to see your work and then wonder why a full grown artist, with a sketch book and every thing, is drawing like a twelve year old. Doodle, work on your line quality, draw a few circles with a template if you want, then decide on where the light is coming from and model (shade) them into spheres. Copy other artists drawings. Have fun with it and keep learning.

sketch of spheres and a light source.

Draw some circles then model them. Render them later when you don’t know what to draw.

And oh yeah, don’t scribble out the “bad ones” in a fit of rage just because you don’t love ’em or they don’t turn out perfectly. They are just sketches, they’re not your children, so they don’t have to be perfect. Don’t tear out the pages that you hate, yet. Every year or so, go through and take out the ones you do like and compile them into you real sketch book. That’s the sketchbook you’ll let people browse through and wonder why YOU are gifted with such a wonderful, natural ability.

A Will Terry Acrylic Painting Went for $300 at a Little Auction

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Wayne

FolioAcademy is always proud our own Will Terry who is one of our accomplished artists.

He is always painting his guts out. Sometimes for fun, sometimes for mun, and sometimes for a worthy cause. This is a little painting that he did awhile back for a fund raiser for Reagan Academy School in Springville Utah. Stephen Pratt, the school art teacher suggested He call it “Neighbor’s Cat”, and that’s how he came up with such a clever name for this whimsical piece. It auctioned for $300. It was a lot of fun to meet some of the other artists and catch up with friends in the local art community.

Stylized painting of a toothy dog with a small cat in it's jaws

Just think, this piece is probably hanging handsomely in someones house. Hopefully not the nursery. Why don’t more people have some original art work in their homes? That could be a whole blog topic some day?

Folio Academy Gets 100 Likes on Facebook

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Wayne

Grand Prize for our 100th Liker on Facebook.

Here’s to Alyeen Laurel George Lim, our 100th liker on Facebook. Should we give her the usual $1,000,000.00? A trip to Hawaii? Or should we give her the GRAND PRIZE, a mention on FolioAcademy Blog?

Grand Prize it is.

Here’s to you Alyeen, let me mention you on the blog.

Thanks Alyeen, and thanks to all our other “Likers” too, we wouldn’t have 100 likes if it weren’t for the other 99. Alyeen is a true friend however, she even shared on her Facebook page, saying “This is my husband’s cousin! His website is amazing! Check it out for art classes of all kinds for adults and kids!! A great homeschooling resource!” ~ Alyeen Laurel George Lim

Don’t judge me, love me, or when it comes to Facebook, Like me.

We’ve been around for a year and a half and you’d think that we would have achieved 100 likes a long time ago. FolioAcademy has hundreds of peeps using our videos in thirty countries around the world. But it wasn’t until December 28, 2012 at or around 6:37 pm Mountain Standard time, ding ding ding ding, Folio academy gets it’s 100th Like on Facebook. That is a small milestone, and hopefully we’ll get 1000 likes faster than 100 per year and a half.

It took these two knuckleheads a year and a half to get 100 likes on Facebook. But they did it.

If face book is a popularity contest, and I guess it is, we are not the most popular kid on the block, yet. But hey, I was never them most popular kid in school either.

When we, at Folio started Facebooking, we ended up, or rather, we started out with three different Facebook accounts. I guess Will started one, I started one, and I think our web master started one, or I started two. And knowing just what to do with Facebook is a little difficult for a couple of knuckleheads like Will and me, but we are having fun with it and we promise to do better.

Social Media Marketing, AKA SEO is a must these days for any online business

Whether we like it or not, ours is an online business, and by the way, we do like it. We just aren’t left brained enough to love all the computer mumbo jumbo that comes with online anything. We looked into a pretty cool sales campaign company called Groupon a while ago and they didn’t want anything to do with us until we had at least 1000 likes on Facebook. Needless to say, we didn’t do a Groupon’s sale with our limited number of likes.

We love you to love us, but more importantly, we love you to like us.

Resolve to improve your art skills

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Wayne

Happy New Year! A good time to Resolve to improve your art skills.

This is a good time to wish that last year you would have resolved to improve you art. And if only you would have made a plan, and stuck to it. Why? Because wishing you did that last year might motivate you to do it this year. Today is the day. It’s a New Year (well tomorrow it will be) so do it now. But what if it takes a long time? What if I do something that doesn’t turn out to be all that great? What if I decide in a year that I don’t want to be an artist, can I go back? What if I get so good that I become famous and then I am forced to leave my home and move to Hollywood?

These are all good questions, except the last three. The fact is, you will be a year older in a year whether you improve your art skills or not. I believe that you will feel better about yourself and the year 2013 if you will have done it.

making New Year’s resolutions,

You probably know that it does little good to just resolve to do better, or state that you will improve. It is best to decide exactly what you want to improve, do, or accomplish, and then make a step by step plan of action to reach that goal. It is also good to give yourself some deadlines for each step. A goal without a deadline is just a wish.

Here are some not so good, examples:

“I will paint a portrait and it will actually resemble that person.”

A worthy goal, but what steps would you take and when?

“I will sell a piece of art work.”

Ditto.

“I will complete an oil painting by march 1.”

Better, but not specific enough.

“I will paint en plein air six times this summer.”

It fails to define Summer, is September 22, the deadline? Can I start as late as Sep 21 and cram? Do I have to wait till June 22, to start? It said “this Summer”.

Here is a mediocre example with a good start: one we should all consider implementing:

Chalese sketching

“I will draw daily, at least five days per week in my sketch book for at least ½ hour for the entire year.”

Now here are some good examples:

“I will paint 12 paintings this year. By painting at least one painting every month. I will design each painting in the first seven days of each month and I will apply paint in the second week. I will start even if I don’t know what I am doing. I will not get discouraged if it is ugly. January I will start with something simple, like a cube and or a sphere. Feb I will paint some onions or fruit, and progressively work toward a more challenging subjects.”

Now we’re talking. There are specific goals, and some step by step actions to take with deadlines.

“I will design, draw and paint a painting of a cow for my mom who loves cows, by mother’s day. Mother’s day is on May 12 this year so I will start now. I will research cows and styles of painting and drawing. By Jan 31 I will find some great cow pictures for reference or to copy. (Mom doesn’t care if I plagiarize and I won’t tell her if you won’t) By Feb 28 I will draw at least 20 cow sketches using said reference. By March 31st I will have at least two drawings laid out on canvas to paint. By May 1 I will have finished one painting and I will finish the second, since the first one may not be good enough for mom, by May 12th, 2013. On mother’s day after everyone has given mom the usual flowers or box of chocolates, I will present my painting with my signature at the bottom, she will look at it and ask, “Did you draw this?” and I will say, “yes, I painted it too, happy mother’s day mom, I love you,” and she will cry, just a little, and I will feel wonderfully happy. Then I will write down my goal, with deadlines for the next piece I will do. I will sign this little contract and read it that I have made with myself and I will read it every day”.

Now that is a goal with a plan, and accountability.

Happy New Year, and good luck with your goals and resolutions this year, and by the way, you don’t have to set your goals on New Years Day, so if you come to this blog late, feel free to get started. TODAY!

Closing 2012, teaching the world how to be an artist since 7/20/11

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Wayne

Time flies when you are teaching the world, how to be an artist.

FolioAcademy went live on July 20, 2011 and even sold a few of our courses on that opening day. Since then we have added all kinds of content, made tons of new friends, some were heavier than others, started this blog, and completely redesigned our web page. Below is a pic of the old us.

Art Lessons Online: Folio’s Humble Beginnings:

Folio Academy, first known as Fun Art Now, (oh how we brainstormed on that name) was started in 2010 by artists Will Terry and Wayne Andreason in Cedar Hills, Utah. The headquarters was soon moved to Provo, Utah where it remains. We soon changed the name to folio academy, short for portfolio academy, as we figured fun art sounded like a site for children. All that brainstorming for nothing.

Circa November 2010, accomplished illustrator/artist/college instructor, Will Terry was looking for a way to assist his students at Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University with a means to take home a few art demonstrations. He created a few art demos with a cheap hard to use, editing program, a $100 little digital camcorder and a microphone that he borrowed from his children’s Rock Band video game. He posted them on YouTube for his students. As it turned out, there were and are a lot of people out there that want to learn art. Not just college students but a lot of would be students that don’t have the means to attend school, and more.

There was actually quite a demand for this type of art learning platform and a lot of people, I included asked Will to make more of these tutorials and teach the masses. In the spring of 2011 Will asked me, Wayne, to join him and we set out to teach the world to ~~sing~~ do art, well mostly how to draw and how to paint. We teamed up with Ryan Haldeman, of Amber Media Pro, famous for their wonderfully hilarious shorts called Kid History, we found some investors, hooked up with a talented programmer who is also world traveler but happened to be renting from Will while we were getting this all started. He now lives on an island in a lake somewhere in Malaysia, where he commutes via the WWW as our web master. Ain’t the internet great. And we got started teaching how to be an artist.

It didn’t take long till we realized that we didn’t know it all. OK, it was pointed out to us right away. So we realized that in order to “teach the world how to be an artist”, we should get some real artists to help us with our quest. So naturally we approached some of the best artists in the world and then wondered why they weren’t all that interested in climbing on our little cause. We are proud to say that we have been turned down by some worlds best artists who were too busy, some pretty big names. We also learned that some wonderfully talented artists aren’t always wonderfully talented teachers. It is nerve racking to stand in front of a camera, do your art work while talking to an audience that isn’t there and act natural.

the old logo

As we got rolling however, were able to talk a bunch of wonderfully talented artists and teachers into joining our quest and we are still thankful to them. It is a little sad that the great artists out there are also the busy artists out there too or we would have more. We have also had artists approach us to get on board and sadly we have to turn a lot of them away as their art work lacks the professional quality that we need to maintain here at folioacademy.

Since going live in July, 2011, we have assisted clients in more than 30 countries around the world. We know we still have a lot to do and we plan on making FolioAcademy the best place online to learn art. So stay with us. We plan on being here to assist you while you are a beginner, an intermediate and a pro. In fact, at that point, you may very well be assisting us with our ever growing library of wonderful art courses for everyone.

lots of love, happy holidays, Wayne

PS here is a little testimonial from one of our peeps, Agy, probably our number one fan.

“THANK YOU Will Terry and Wayne Andreason! I’ve been yakking about the Folio Academy courses . . . I love the fact that they’re reasonable in price. I love there’s a LOT of great information. And I have to say I love the heart of it. I’ve had wonderful friends try to explain the Photoshop process . . . Wonderfully giving, patient, artists, but I really [diddn’t get it] and they were all so wonderful at it, I didn’t want to ask too many questions when I didn’t “get it” and appear stupid. So I didn’t “get it”. Then I found Will’s course, and he not only explained it the way I needed it to be shown, but he also did it from a similar point of view (a painter who wanted to expand the boundaries) Often he would explain a process in a similar way as painting with acrylics (one of my favorite mediums) so I really KENNED it. Now he’s REDONE the original course, because he could improve it. I just LOVE that. As someone who worked compulsively, I get and admire this. Folio has a special offer for December. Will will (hehehe, that’s just funny there!) be blogging about it, when he does, I’ll share the link on my page. I just wanted to crow a bit, and let them and the world (okay not really the WORLD, but anyone paying attention)I appreciate the effort and THANK YOU, again!”

Buy one, Get one FREE Art Lesson Videos

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Wayne

For the month of Dec Folio Academy was running a buy one get one free special (equal or lesser value of course)

enjoy a gift from folioacademy, 50% off all courses through December.

How it works: Just go to this link and use this promo code. w1966 and all the courses will be 1/2 off, unless you wait till December is gone.

We were doing a buy one get one free thing. It was a little cumbersome as we were having our peeps purchase one of the two that they wanted and then they had to email us and tell us which one they wanted for their free one. Don’t get me wrong, we do love to hear from our friends and fans like you. but we were pretty busy updating everyone’s account.

We finally, and I mean yesterday, figured out how to run a promo code on our website. So now we can just send our loyal peeps to our promo page with a “secret” pass-code like w1966 and every thing is half off. COOL HUH?

So Happy Christmas and Merry New Year everybody. Thanks for being a part of FolioAcademy, and if you haven’t been a part of folioacademy thanks in advance for when you are. We will do our best to make folioacademy the ARt education site that you want it to be.