Author Archives: Will Terry

Starving Artist Trades Art for Food

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The Food Network Show, one of my Favorites. 

What would you do for a Free Lunch?

 
So my son Aaron and I were watching the food network show – Diners Drive-In’s and Dives and we just happened to catch the episode where they featured the Blue Plate Diner in Salt Lake. We both love Guy Fieriand when we saw him interview the owner of the Blue Plate, Johnny Chopper and saw the love and attention to the food we both knew we had to go.

Will(‘s) work for food. God Bless. 

So we googled the Blue Plate and put it on our “to do” list. One day when we found ourselves downing some Blue Plate goodies, Johnny Chopper just showed up and my son says, “HEY Johnny Chopper showed up” and so after the meal when we struck up a conversation one thing led to another and yada yada I walked out with a trade agreement – food for art – I highly recommend it….the food for art thingy….and the Blue Plate.

The Idea

So I told Johnny I would send him a sketch of an idea I got while stuffing my face with his food. I just thought it would be cool to do this painting of a blue plate that might be a flying saucer but might only be a blue plate flying in the air – perhaps someone threw it like a Frisbee (a satisfied customer of course) but I wanted to keep it ambiguous.

Adding Elements, using the net and Photoshop 

After he saw (and dug) the sketch I wasn’t happy with the way the cars were in front of his place and even though you can only parallel park I thought It would look cooler to have all the cars pulled in. So to make my job easier I just nabbed a bunch of cars off the net like the one above and tossed them into the sketch using photoshop.

Next step, Make it Grey and Use Your Own Color

After I got all the cars distorted the way I wanted them I changed the mode to grayscale to get rid of all the color. This allowed me to not only add my own color but with the distortions texture and color changes I’m safe from copy right infringement. Next I printed this out on watercolor paper and added texture to prepare it for acrylic paint.

and oh, this car was in there too

Here’s another car that should be up with the Cadillac but since I put it in the wrong place and don’t know how to delete and move it you’ll have to imagine that it’s up with the other one.

Finished Painting

And here is the final painting – It was a fun diversion from my regular workload. If you are interested you should know by now that we teach all kinds of art stuff at FolioAcademy, art lessons online.

Another Satisfied Customer

So I loaded the fam into the car and we headed for Blue Plate heaven to deliver the painting. I am not a starving artist as you can see, that’s me on the right. Maybe it’s because I am willing to work for food. I should paint a cardboard sign that says that. I could stand outside of Wall Mart and get all kinds-a gigs.

The Fam is no longer Famished 

It’s funny how enthusiasm for food changes in about a half hour – while waiting for your food to arrive it’s sometimes hard to maintain your train of thought as you struggle to control salivation – after you’re stuffed you’re wondering what you were all psyched about? Well now we have a bunch of gift certificates and we can enjoy Blue Plate whenever we’re up that way. YAY Blue Plate!! “Best dad EVER!”

How to become a Children’s Book Illustrator

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Becoming A Children’s Book Illustrator

Artist Will Terry answers questions from a fellow artist in Serbia. 

In the video above I answer some questions from a fellow artist in Serbia who is trying to break into the children’s book market.

I think many artists can relate to his frustrations and challenges in the quest to becoming a children’s book illustrator, so by answering him with this video, hopefully I’m also speaking to a much broader audience. I know I get long winded but if you’re working on some art just let it play in the background and perhaps some of what I say will resonate with you. Also – feel free to disagree – I welcome differing opinions so others can have more to think about.

Did I say Serbia? That’s right, we have recently acquired our first customer from Serbia that we know of. At FolioAcademy we are happy to help so many in so many different parts of the world. Serbia is the forty first country from which, people are using our easy online art courses. Thanks to the www we can learn from people any where in the world. We also get to compete with people anywhere in the world. There are a lot of brilliant artists out there, so stay sharp.

 

“SKELETON FOR DINNER” Coming Soon!

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“Skeleton For Dinner” Is Finished!

Picture of Sample Page from "Skeleton for Dinner" art by Will Terry

I just finished the last illustration in my new book – “Skeleton for Dinner” by Margery Cuyler. It’s due out sometime before Halloween this next fall. I’ll definitely post links when it’s in stores. I had so much fun with this one! I love coming up with unique characters and Halloween?! Are you kidding me? I’ve always wanted to do a Halloween book!

I was really happy that my editors were OK with the idea of making “ghost” into a little girl instead of the typical predictable cartoonish ghost we’ve seen a million times. It was fun to render a character that doesn’t follow the same color rules that other objects follow. Skeleton was fun to design too because I felt he/she needed to be cute and not too scary.

After most of the paintings were finished I looked at skeleton and realized he/she just didn’t look cute enough without eyes. This was one of those decisions that of course didn’t make any sense academically – obviously a skeleton doesn’t have eye balls but for a children’s book character I questioned if he/she should have them. I contacted my editors and they thought about it too. In the end we all felt good about eye balls. Eye balls are a good thing. :)

I’m still in search of the perfectly illustrated picture book. I poured my heart and soul into this one. There are a few things I would change or explore a little further if given the chance – but I’m glad this one isn’t perfect. Wouldn’t it be scary to bowl or pitch a perfect game?…knowing the only direction is down from there?

 

IMAGINATION & VISUAL LITERACY CLASS

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Artist Will Terry is still teaching.

I’m teaching a class called “Imagination & Visual Literacy” at UVU right now. I love this class. It’s all the good stuff. I think I learned more than my students in developing the curriculum. If you want to learn something, try teaching it.

The Assignment, Draw a cat.

Above is my attempt at the in-class assignment yesterday. Draw a cat looking out of a bedroom window and include 25 items in the room but put all of the emphasis on the cat in 45 min. Since it was a drawing – students couldn’t use color for emphasis which is one of the easiest ways to accomplish this task. High contrast and crisp lines were all they could use.

I drew the above image along with them on my iPad hooked to the LCD projector. I like creating problems that I would also like to solve – why should my students have all the fun?

TO IMPROVE YOUR ART WORK, COPY YOUR MENTOR’S!

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Copy THE ARTWORK OF OTHERS TO IMPROVE YOUR OWN ART WORK!

In this video I discuss the fact that public schools didn’t prepare us to learn art (big surprise right?). The fact that there are rules in every creative field like writing, dance, music and yes – even sports… Why then do we often fail to apply the same rules to the visual arts? From public school through college many students report that they were never taught concrete rules to help them find the boundaries that focus their creative energy into successful drawings and paintings. In the video I give advice on what I think you should do, like copy your heroes to improve the quality of your own visual art.
No wonder so many students and artists are looking to FolioAcademy.com and analyze their favorite artist’s or mentor’s  artwork for tips and help.

PHOTOSHOP DEMO FOR MY CLASS

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Photoshop is an amazing program!

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When I’m not working on folio academy, I am teaching at UVU.
I painted this for my class at UVU for our next assignment. I don’t work in this style so I wanted to work up a little example of what I’m looking for. I can’t tell you how much fun I have playing with different brushes and settings in Photoshop – it truly is an amazing program!

PROCREATING! ER UM…CREATING IN PROCREATE

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I created this image using Procreate on my iPad – I love this app!

Link to FolioAcademy.com Digital art tutorials

I just got back from the SCBWI Southern Breeze conference in Atlanta. I was being entertained by Dianne Hess (editor at Scholastic) as she gave her speech – an inside look at her company. I have to draw to listen so I was on  my iPad using “Procreate“. It’s my go to program for creating all of my sketches now – I love the screen rotation feature and the larger file sizes. Oh yeah – and I’m still only using my finger. I find it fascinating that it bothers people that I won’t go out and drop coin on a stylus. It bugs my students, friends, and strangers that I meet – like the guy who sat next to me on the plane. “You know you can buy all kinds of styluses for that device,” he informed me…I just agreed….by the way it strengthens my resolve to run sans stylus with each criticism.

A special shout out to Elizabeth Dulemba for inviting me to speak, being a great host, running an awesome conference, and being a great illustrator. I met so many cool people down there – too many to list but you know who you are! I hope to be able to get down there again sometime.

CRAWL, WALK, RUN, LEAP!

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I created the image above for my digital painting class this semester as an example of what I want my students to do for our “circle straight edge” assignment.

The rules:

  • Create an image in Photoshop.
  • Perfect your drawing.
  • Use only the circle selection tool and the lasso for straight edges.
  • Painting: use the paint bucket and airbrush tools.
  • Concept: Visually explain why the Abominable Snowman is grumpy.

I don’t think everyone is happy with this assignment. The limitations are frustrating some of them (yay!) and locking them into a style they aren’t excited about.

My philosophy: Mastery in any discipline such as science or sports – arithmetic or art is gained in small steps.

You have to learn algebra before calculus – physics before string theory and lay ups before alley oop dunks. By taking away options I’m allowing students to focus on the basic elements of design and visual communication. If you can’t develop a solid composition and execute good rendering under these restrictions how can you hope to succeed given unlimited brushes, selection tools, textures, healing brushes, filters, adjustments, mixing and blending tools, etc?

Imagine the following experiment: You are given the best brushes and pallet knives money can buy for oil painting -fine linens, mediums, easel, pallet, etc. Your set up is perfect. Then give someone like Caravaggio a pocket knife, an old tree branch, some cheap oil paints, and a crappy canvas board. Set up a still life. Do you think you could out paint him? I know I couldn’t.

It’s not just about the tools – it’s about your understanding of mediums, surfaces, tools, design, light & shadow, edges, color, value, texture, line, space, shape, etc. What you do with the tools is personal to your understanding and vision.

Try limiting your choices…wax on – wax off.

In addition: From the mouth of Kazu – the artist who just completed the new Harry Potter covers: “Anything else about your process as you went about it that artists should know?”

I tried to work on a single layer in Photoshop. I used very few effects. All of the illustrations for the most part I didn’t separate elements. I tried to keep it pure as if I was working on a canvas. I forced myself into a limitation despite having all of these tools at my disposal. (from CBS)

New Ways To Market Your Illustration

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There is still plenty of freelance illustration work out there.

In the video below I took the time to explain the changes I’ve seen happen in illustration markets over the past 20 years and what I think artists should do to take advantage of emerging markets. Yes there still is plenty of freelance illustration work out there but there are more illustrators competing for it and budgets have either remained the same or gone down.

You and I can find success in many different places.

The good news is that there are so many new possibilities for artists that unless you refuse to be open minded, you and I can find success in many different places.I give quite a few detailed examples in this video – it’s long so put it on while you work – I hope you enjoy it!
New Ways to Market Your Illustration, video by Will Terry

Painting with Cool and Warm Colors

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Warm Light, Cool Shadows add to a beautiful Contrast

a Will Terry Digital Painting of House type Castle

I painted this as a demo for my digital painting class this semester at UVU. I really wanted to play around with a dramatic lighting situation.

Photograph of Red Rock cliffs with Harsh Light and Shadow.

Get inspiration from the real world.

One of the reasons I’m a big advocate of getting out there and seeing the world with your own eyes is the feeling you get and the inspiration to find a place for it in your work. I woke up to this last year in Utah’s Goblin Valley last year Needless to say, I was inspired.  – my tent was about 5 feet to the right.

Rough Sketch of House/Castle on iPad

So this is how I begin my sketches on my iPad.

I call this the ugly stage. I’m basically making a “map” for me to trace and perfect on another layer. At this point I don’t care about detail – just the raw elements and proportions. It’s sketchy and loose but it will serve as my guide.

Pic of ProCreate Logo

Use “Procreate” for a larger file size, plus you can rotate your “paper”

I’m using “Procreate” now because I can have a much larger file size then “Brushes”  – AND – I can rotate the “paper”. That’s a huge improvement. Down side: (why is there always a downside?) It’s much slower than brushes. I’ll be making an update video for my “Painting on the iPad” video tutorial that demonstrates how you can use Procreate for your workflow.

drawing of House/Castle

And this is the perfected sketch. I probably used about three more layers to get to this point reducing the brush size and increasing the value of my lines.

House/castle digital painting in process

I think it’s really neat to look at this part of the painting because it looks so dark and different than the part in the sunlight…similar to the photo I took. I added the color in Photoshop CS5.

digital paining of House/Castle in process

I love light and shadow.

You really can’t have one without the other can you? I really like exploring with cool colors vs warm colors to see what interesting blends happen and the mood it creates.