Author Archives: Will Terry

Art, Painting, and Drawing Should be Fun

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Art should be fun, so Draw or Paint something just for fun

color sketch of a man, by Will Terry

A quick Color sketch I did Just to have some fun with my art

When you Make your money with Art, it can become a job

Art is my career and believe it or not, It gets boring, stressful and even difficult at times. OK a lot of times. It was so fun to draw and color, and take the heads of of Barbie dolls, as a child. And I was terrible at the three R-s, so I wanted to be and artist. But, little did I know, that when you are drawing, coloring, dealing with committees and art directors and other clients for 4-18 hours a day. (Deadlines can push you into overtime mode) It can get boring.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love being and artist, Art is my dream job and I feel very fortunate to be an artist. So there! All my teachers who discouraged me from being an artist. But some times you just need to sharpen the axe. Take it easy, and draw, paint, or sketch just for fun. Have fun! your an artist for crying out loud.

Pencil Sketch of a man with a mustache art by Will Terry

Black and white sketch of the art I did for fun

So I did some artwork just for fun

I decided to avoid working on the projects that pay real money and do something just for fun. I painted this in Photoshop last night sitting in our new recliner watching “The Thing” (1982 John Carpenter version) with my boys. I rendered it on my little netbook just to see how far I could take an image on that little $248 computer. Technology is getting really affordable for everyone.

Italian scene with an arch, photo

Background I took to slap into the back ground of the sketch I painted.

So I’m a copy cat, This is my art, for me, for fun

I combined the background photo (google images) with my rendering to save time. FYI I would never do this for a paying client – I don’t like confrontations, threats, law suits, etc. I don’t condone Plagiarism, but we all copy.

What I’m saying here is, if you are doing some art just for fun, sketching, drawing painting, what ever, go ahead and do what you gotta do. Borrow, copy, look to the masters.  Art should be fun, once in a while if not always. Besides, you are practicing, learning, sharpening the saw. So copy away, learn and have fun. But don’t plagiarize, that’s when you steel someone else’s work and try to pass it off as your own. Where was I? Oh yeah, HAVE FUN!   :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Brand is the Artist’s new Job Description

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Hey Artist, what does your BRAND look like?

A can of Artist Soup

Branding: The word ARTIST should be curved a bit shouldn’t it? It makes the can look flat.

Along with change, comes opportunity for artists

I hadn’t really developed brand for myself like I should have. I’ve been a freelance illustrator for almost 25 years and for the first 20 or so, it was business as usual. In the last five to seven years I’ve seen more changes in our industry than ever before. In some ways I must confess that if given the choice to see big changes or keep business as usual I would have ignorantly chosen the latter. Change isn’t fun. Change can be hard, change is usually painful. Change is scary because not knowing feels insecure and most of us crave security. But the reality is that change is on the menu to stay – so our choices are to dine or leave the restaurant and starve.

Being your own boss can be tough, “I hate my boss?”

In the past you were odd if you called yourself a freelancer. To most of the “normal” 9-5 crowd a freelancer was synonymous with freeloader or at best someone living on the fringe. Over time freelancers have become more mainstream. Most freelancers (myself included) own their job. In other words, they get an assignment from a company and then through their skills, crafts, or abilities satisfy that assignment. If they aren’t working they usually aren’t earning so while they have more freedom they still have to work to earn. And often, they/we work longer and harder.

Branding, A new job description for Artists

Now we’re seeing a whole new job description – The artist as “The Product”. Greg Spalenka a world renowned illustrator calls it “Artist as Brand”. In the past and present artist relied on companies to function as the liaison between them and the consumer. For gallery artists it was the gallery. For book illustrators – the publisher. For video game artists – the studio. These entities provide big money to produce and market products using art – the kind of money few artists could generate or commit to themselves. The artist’s risk is time – the companies risk is money. A symbiotic relationship that was virtually the only way – until now.

Artists now have a direct line to the consumer

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that the days of these entities are over by any means but their roles are changing very quickly. The internet has in many ways leveled the playing field. Artists now have a direct line to the consumers for the products they create. “Never before in the history of the world have artists had the opportunity to reach their audiences so efficiently.” ~Wayne Andreason  If you’re a fine artist you can develop a following through a website, social networking, blogging, emailing, etc. And don’t forget Pinterest. The same is true for children’s book illustrators, Picture book artists, graphic novel and comic artists, as well as art educators and so on. You say you want to produce your own video game? What’s stopping you? Many iphone games are now being produced by solo tech savvy artists or artists teamed up with a tech person. A simple upload to itunes and if the game is good they could start raking it in. “Were going to need a bigger rake!”

Nobody will hire me is no longer a valid excuse

The idea is that you can no longer use “nobody will hire me” as an excuse not to produce your own products. Many companies will go out of business in the near future. Many will adapt and thrive. For me I’m looking at each new request for my services in a different light. I’m trying to balance my freelance assignment time with time spent on producing my own projects.

So Write and Illustrate the children’s books

I’ve realized that even though I’ve been illustrating children’s books for over a decade and sold over 750,000 books (all combined) a very small percentage of my audience associates Will Terry with the books I’ve illustrated. This is a huge problem! We usually buy name brand products because people associate the brand with quality. I need to be constantly working on the Will Terry brand and for me one of the easiest ways to do that is to also start to write some of the books I illustrate. The reality is that it’s an authors world and illustrators really take a back seat in many ways. As I see it an illustrator can complain or become an author. Or take a backseat.

Take control of your own branding with technology

Last year as I was getting my brain around the changes I was seeing in art related industries I became frightened and depressed. The insecurity was really getting to me. Now that I’ve started to take control of my own branding I’m finding the future exciting and I’m always thinking of new ways to take advantage of the technology that has fallen in our laps.

Change is coming and it will keep coming. Go with it. Create your brand. Use the technology that is so readily available. Promote yourself. If needs be, start writing.

Digital Painting, Illustrate in Photoshop

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This, How to create Digital art, Painting in Photoshop got things going.

Digital painting in Photoshop. Art lesson by Will Terry

 

The digital transition was hard for me. But worth it.

Back in the day, I had such a great response to my “How to Illustrate Children’s Books” video series that I decided to make another series that explains in detail how I paint with digital paint in Photoshop. I had many requests over a number of years. to actually make a tutorial on painting in acrylic but I never got around to it. Well not at the time, so about a five years ago I was introduced to digital painting by Jed Henry – he was young illustration graduate and promising new upstart (He’d already sold two books to major New York Publishers. His generosity in helping me learn how to re-create my acrylic style digitally will never be forgotten! So I’m glad to report that I finally got around to doing a tutorial in acrylic painting the old fashioned way too. It was tough because I am so converted to digital illustration now.

Before Folio Academy I was Teaching Illustration at a University.

I was teaching at UVU, AKA Utah Valley University, and BYU. I wanted to show some technique on video so my students could log into a demo at their leisure. When the first one was such a success I decided that my peeps may want this one too. Little by little, my best friend Wayne and I created FolioAcademy.com.

Any who…

In this video series I go from sketch to finish, describing processes like: making and importing a texture, under-painting, value, brushes, layering, design, and many other aspects of coming up with your own personal way of thinking and working. If you want to know how I paint from start to finish you might be interested in these videos.

Just to be clear – these videos are not a general “How To” in Photoshop but rather a “How Will Terry fumbles his way into a digital painting with a very limited knowledge of Photoshop” In other words you could say these are Photoshop videos for dummies like me. I try to use as few tools as possible because part of my philosophy is simplicity and reduction lead to purity and essence.

Above is the digital painting that I start and finish in the videos so if you hate that painting DON’T BUY THE VIDEOS! :) Click here to purchase the video.

Self Publish Your Art Your Stories and Your Illustrations

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Warning! Self Publishing Artists and writers are going digital, you might regret it if you don’t

A Running Rat

I’m no expert here – but I do self publish and I have to share what I’ve learned both as encouragement and as a warning. If you want to how to write your children’s books and or illustrate children’s books, now’s the time.

I hope to help you find the motivation to start self publishing your own stories and illustrations digitally. The warning is that if you don’t do it soon you might have regrets in a year or two or sooner.

Lowly Self publishers compete with big business

I’ve been doing a lot of reading of various blogs and web pages about self publishing digitally and most agree that we are seeing a change in publishing the likes of which we haven’t seen in our life times. Until now the gate keepers have been large traditional publishers. They held the keys because they could afford to put up the tens of thousands of dollars to print large runs of picture books. Also, they had established complicated distribution channels that an individual author, or illustrator/artist would be hard pressed to compete with. Most of this hasn’t changed. The day of the large publisher is definitely NOT over and I’m glad – I like the publishers I work with, and most of them have been very good to me.

E books cost so little to self publish

What has changed is how inexpensive it is to publish your work which means that one of the two cards that publishers held, has evaporated. Now the only real advantage a large publisher has is a distribution channel. I’m not underestimating how important this channel is either. Large traditional publishers have relationships with stores that you and I do not. They have publicists working for them to promote our books and editors to polish the final products. They have customers that they’ve established long before you or I ever worked with them, and way before we put on our author and illustrator/artist hats. They know the business better than we. They submit our books to all the major book awards and from what I’ve been told that list is well over 200. Imagine trying to research, compile, address, and pay for 200 give away books and shipping, just to put them in the hands of jurors who probably won’t pick your book anyway. And I’m sure there are a lot more things that they do that I’m overlooking.

The E-Book opportunity may not last for self publishers

The time is now, will, maybe a few years ago but I still see a huge opportunity that isn’t going to last forever. Like the Oklahoma pan handle rush of 1889 there was opportunity for a limited time and then it was OVER. For the first time in our lives a new platform is emerging that is giving the early birds a distinct advantage. I’m sure that you’ve all thought about e-books – I have been for the past year or more. However, I never realized how important it is to be first to market until I started reading and researching. It only takes an hour or so poking around on Amazon or Barnes and Noble to see self published books doing extremely well.

The new e-book digital format is growing

Awhile ago I published my first e-book – Monkey & Croc at Barns and Noble and it’s done pretty well on B&N. The only reason it did so well as it is – is because of the lack of competition. When I published it there were a little over 500 e-books for children ages 3-5 on B&N. Crazy right? Think of how many thousands of books there are in hard copy in that group. Look, I don’t even own an ereader but you can’t ignore this new format – it’s coming on strong. Amazon said that for any particular book that they sell in physical format – they sell 48 digital copies of the same book.

Intellectual property, art and words and pixels for sale.

Aside for being early to market you can afford to sell an ebook for only a few dollars because the only cost you have is your time. Right now the big publishers are selling their ebooks in most cases for about the same price as their hardbacks. This is another reason to get your book to market quickly. While they sell their books high – we can sell ours low and create an advantage for the buyer. Think about it…if you bought a new ereader or ipad and you wanted to load it with content wouldn’t you gamble on a few unproven $2 and $3 books since the alternatives are $12.99 books that you might already own?

I believe there’s still time to capitalize on the e-book movement

My belief is that if you can create a following due to timing – your book could gain the kind of momentum that could build a franchise. If this happens there’s also a good chance that a traditional publisher would want to buy your book and print hard copies. Another option is that you incorporate a print on demand publisher and offer hard copies on your own. Either way the future is bright for self published books. I think that there will always be a place for large publishers but now there is a much larger place for self publishers.

Join a critique group, writers or illustrators, find help

Some drawbacks: You won’t have the benefit of an editor and this places a great responsibility back on your shoulders. My suggestion is to acquire the help of a professional writer and/or join a critique group that can help you polish your story. Another obstacle is finding software that will easily let you turn your jpeg images into an e-book. This was a very frustrating process for me and without the help of my brother in law I don’t think I would have been able to release Monkey & Croc. There has been talk about Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Itunes holding back publishing software and only releasing it to large publishers. Monkey & Croc suffered a bit with a few minor hiccups because we couldn’t get that software. I think that this will soon change as open source programs become available. Where there is a need someone will fill it.

I published Monkey & Croc on Barnes and Noble’s Pubit.com site. They take 35% of every sale but they give you an account for free and you can check your sales in your back office any time you like. It’s neat to go in and check every day or so.

It’s amazing what parents will let their children do if it means education

Finally for those who don’t think that parents won’t turn their kids loose with an expensive e-reader to beat up, you’re right. However think of the advantages – Carrying an unlimited amount of picturebooks on a plane, train, or automobile will keep kids pacified much longer than the few books parents can carry in hard copy form. And how nice will it be for the parents who have long commutes with children in tow to and from day cares. How long do you think it will be before they develop the kid proof ereader? I suspect it’s around the corner.

At the beginning of my illustration career I was asked to complete an illustration about e-mail – I asked the art director, “What is email”. It’s happening now.

The Artist in You

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An Artist is trying to manifest itself

young Will Terry, the Artist to be, and his elder sister

“It wasn’t that I took pleasure in removing their heads”

Every child is an artist, in one way or another. I  don’t know if you can see it, look real close. Do you see that? That little boy has an artist trying to find it’s way out. My parents should have known when I took apart my brand new transistor radio. My sisters should have known when I removed their barbie doll heads – it wasn’t that I took pleasure in the removal of the heads. It was seeing how many different reactions I could create in their emotions. By the time my motor skills really developed I painted my masterpiece – Three barbie doll heads, owned by three different sisters all coming off at the same time. Magnifique!

Without boring you with all the details I had a pretty typical American exposure to art in junior high and high school. He was always pretty good but there were always those who were much better.

Getting into college was a challenge

I really didn’t fit in the one size is supposed to fit all public school system. I had quite a bit of trouble with reading comprehension, science and history always netted below average grades and forget about math…that left art and music…the only two bright spots on my report card.

On the other hand the little girl in the picture was destined for academic honors…if you look close you can see that she knows it too. :) (Love you Beth- look what she does!)

My art skills were keeping me in the game. 

So on to college and more bad grades in english, (shouldn’t that be capitalized? How should I know, I’m an artist) history, science, and math – what’s new right? Art on the other hand was still keeping me in the game with my grades. Kind of like adding bases to acids. (I did remember that from science class)

Then…upon applying for the BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) at BYU I distinctly remember hearing the earth crack as I was barely allowed in on probation. PROBATION???!!! in art??? but I’m supposed to be good at art – at least that’s what everyone had been telling me. How could this be? If not art then what?

I finally had to come to terms with the fact that my past effort had taken me as far as I could coast. It was time to admit that I wasn’t the savant I thought I was. That I had to get to work – that I had to humble myself and start listening and learning from my teachers – mainly Richard Hull and Bob Barrett – also Rob Colvin. If not for them I wouldn’t be able to enjoy a successful illustration career. (Ironically I was later hired to teach part time at BYU by Richard Hull)

One of the reasons I wanted to release my “How To Illustrate Children’s Books” video series is to help others learn those very important principles that can be the difference between success and failure. I know how frustrating it is to wallow in depression when a piece doesn’t work out….when you spend a lot of time on an image and you wish you had never started it. I know what it’s like to try to talk yourself into liking your own work. And I know what it feels like when you show a new piece to someone and their facial expressions just can’t lie as good as their lips….and how when you work and re-work a piece and re-work it some more you want to smash it and scream. Been there. I’ll admit it I’ve shed real tears over my art and I don’t cry very often…although “Driving Miss Daisy” gets me every time.

I wanted to post this as encouragement to my fellow artists – and leave you with this: I’ve realized that all those frustrations, emotions, disappointments and tears have led to one happy camper. I love my job  :)

a BIG ole Parade, You know? for Kids.

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an image I did for Harcourt awhile ago –

a challenge, & fun trying to fit all the animals

I like how it turned out. for the most part, even though the perspective isn’t perfect. I was going for a Richard Scarry kind of a look. It was a challenge however, to try and fit all the animals in the picture. You know how art directors are, and worse yet, how a committee can be. Well it’s kinda busy but all the animals that they wanted, ARE in there and it worked. More or less.

Looking back I can see a lot of things that I could do a little better now. Oh well, always moving on. When ever Norman Rockwell was asked which was his BEST piece, he would say his next one.

 

Children’s Text Book Cover Illustrations for Innovatus

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Text Book Cover Art for Innovatus Children’s Text Books

 I painted 9 textbook covers in one year for Innovatus in acrylic.

innovatus cover
One year I painted 9 textbook covers for Innovatus in my dry-brush acrylic style or technique. I know what you’re thinking, what’s Innovatus? I know, I think it’s Latin for innovate, or maybe it means Innovate us! 1st person plural command form for Innovate.
It was a really fun project and I got to work with Karen Steinberg who I had worked with over 10 years ago when she was at Harcourt. I know what you’re thinking, where’s Harcourt? I think it’s by the second star to the right then direct till morning…

Some animals come with baggage

Where was I? Oh yeah. Working on these covers was interesting because I had coming up with “acceptable animals” to paint. Apparently not all animals are created equal in the politically correct world of educational publishing. Some animals come with baggage. In some countries for example, certain animals are sacred while others are “dirty” and there for not an appropriate fit for the classroom. You dirty dawg! It was a challenge finding usable animals without repeating. Ho the webs they weave. I just want to paint.

I also found it funny that in this cover the animals absolutely had to wear helmets for safety but were allowed to desecrate natural arches with their combustion engine desert machines – up to a $5,000 fine in a national park. Just sayin’.

A QUICK LITTLE DIGITAL PAINTING OVER A QUICK LITTLE PENCIL SKETCH

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Two Hour Pencil Sketch, Painted in Photoshop

Folio boy will Terry draws in pencil & Paints in Photoshop.

little Boy painted in Photoshop little Boy sketchSince I have been telling lately about my transition from acrylic to digital illustration, I thought I would post these little After and Before pictures ot a sketch I drew then painted in Photoshop. In the beginning I was able to get a handle on the digital painting a lot faster than digital sketching and designing the drawing. So I would do a basic drawing and then finish it in Photoshop. I also enjoy a lot of the play between the pencil drawing and the painting. I left a lot of the hatchy, sketchy, pencilly, lines shining through the paint, on purpose.

This little study took me just two hours to complete and was a lot of fun.

 

Will Terry’s Children’s Picture Book, Hungry Fox and the Midnight Pies

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Hungry Fox and the Midnight Pies,

by Jeff Dinardo & Will Terry

As I write this it is TBT Throw Back Thursday so..

Hungry FoxI did a book project awhile back, (it is TBT in my world or so I saw on Facebook) I worked on it with a wonderfully talented author and designer, Jeff Dinardo and it was a blast! It’s really fun to work with a great designer because the end product is so much more successful. Check out Jeff’s work – I’m sure you’ll be impressed! This is a cute story about a fox by the name of Fox, who smells Owl’s pies cooling on the stereotypical windowsill, as the sweet aroma wafts its way through the cool night air. Ignoring his limited climbing skills Fox begins up the tree to find a midnight snack. I won’t spoil the ending but everyone ends up having a good time.I really enjoyed dreaming up, designing and illustrating Owl’s tree house and painting the various scenes! Fun Stuff! Here’s a smiley face for you from all of us at folio academy  :)