Category Archives: Will Terry

Illustrate the word, Confined.

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How would YOU Illustrate the word, Confined?

What do you do with your spare time?

confined
This is a “Quick and Dirty” that Will Terry did in his, otherwise, spare time. He did this a long time ago for Illustration Friday.
You would thing that he wouldn’t have any spare time with his busy schedule. He deals with FolioAcademy, teaches college art and Illustration classes at Utah Valley University and he spends a lot of time in the boardroom. That is what we call Mother Nature. So a nice hike to clear you head is basically a trip to the board room.

Illustration Friday word or phrase to illustrate

Every week, Illustration Friday has a different word or phrase that they put out there for all their followers to have a go at. The thing is, they don’t really pick a winner. I mean, they don’t choose the winner for it’s merits, I think. In fact I think they just randomly choose one each week to display as the winner.

Artist Jim Madsen, I’m his best friend, has been submitting almost every week, and he his Dang good. They finally chose one of his paintings, (Last Friday, Feb, 14, 2014) for the “random”, pick of the week.

PREHISTORIC

We Should do a Folio Friday weekly competition 

I have thought that would be a good Idea and a lot of fun to allow any and all of our peeps, that is, those follow this blog or use Folio Academy, to enjoy a similar thing but with some kind of judging system that chooses the winner. And they win something like a trip for two to Florence Italy, a brand new car, or our art courses at Folio Academy. (Which ever costs less)

 

Naturally there would be a lot of times when several pieces are near equally good and we would inevitably choose one that may not be the exact best but rather, the best according to our judges opinion. And I don’t want to ever hurt anyone’s feelings, especially one of my peeps. So if we ever do this, and I do want to, I am just apologizing in advance for not choosing YOU every time.

Any way, it may be awhile till we get that, or not, what say ye? I am still pretty stupe when it comes to running a blog, so if you have an opinion, you should let me know via my personal email. wayneandreason at gmail dod com. (that is in code to keep bots from spamming me.

In the meantime, this week’s winner for the word, confined, is the above cat in the cage by my good and probably best friend, Will Terry.

How to Make a Story App, step 9, fix it.

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Gary’s Place Now Available For Android

In this post I’m going to write about what we’ve been doing with Gary’s place and some of the mistakes we’ve made along the way – and give information on how to contact my son Aaron for help with your app.

Now Playing at Google Play and Amazon app stores near you.

First: Gary’s Place can now be found in the Google Play and Amazon app stores for Android devices – YAY! We are charging a dollar less since it’s optimized for iPad and stretched a bit on many of the android phones and tablets.

Still not a best seller. 

Second: I’m not sharing sales data yet because we really haven’t gotten off the ground yet – I’ve been holding back because of all the problems we’ve had – ARRRRG! Sales data coming after we start advertising. Naturally I hope it sales like “Where the Wild Things Are” but I am also realistic. So don’t hate me if it flops. I already know that it might. That’s the beauty of free enterprise. We are lucky to have the freedom to buy, the freedom to sell, the freedom to try AND the freedom to fail.

So lets talk about the problems and subsequent updates:

UPDATE #1: FIX THE NAME.

When we first uploaded to iTunes and waited and waited for the approval we were horrified when we downloaded the app and saw that it was called “Build 17” on my iPad in the title below the icon. NOOOOOO!!!!! Let me just say, that while Apple is “user friendly” for consumers they are 180 degrees from that for developers (User UNFRIENDLY). It really feels as if they don’t care about helping you AT ALL! Or even like they want you to fail, give up, eat worms and kill yourself. When we uploaded the app file, Apple asked for the title of the app – which we filled in with “Gary’s Place”. But they don’t use that to put under your app icon – instead – they use the file name -BUT THEY DON’T TELL YOU THAT.

Now available, an awesome children’s story App, “Build 17”. No, it’s not sci fi. 

Therefor, update number one, change the name to something a little more appealing, like “Gary’s Place”.

Update #2: fix the ending and reducing the overall size

The story of Gary’s Place is about a small fur bearing animal that lives with mom and dad, and eventually moves out into a place of his own. Hence the name. Gary’s Place.
Well one of my online friends – Elizabeth – informed me that at first she interpreted the ending as Gary moving back in with his parents at the end. “Hmmm”,  I thought, “that’s not good.” So I asked Jan Watford who had reviewed Gary’s Place on her blog if she read it that way as well – and she said, “Yes, isn’t that what you intended?” …..Crap!
So…Update # 2 was to fix the ending and reducing the overall size of the app…and that update just went live for iPad. Yay!

Update #3: add a navigation bar

Then my app builder guy, AKA my son Aaron (who’s been working really hard on all of this) thought we needed navigation to make it easier to pick a specific page in the app and go directly there. (It will disappear after a few seconds so it’s not in the way.) That was a GOOD CALL. I’ve been so busy with a large freelance assignment that I haven’t been able to give it as much attention as it deserves. So luckily I have him around, and yes, I compensate him for his brilliance and work. He went ahead and did added the navigation, and it makes using the app Sooo much easier, and user friendly. Take that Apple. Below is a screen shot of what update #3 will look like. So Update #3 will add a navigation bar to quickly jump to any page and reduce the size even further.

UPDATE #4: TBA and in the mean time, Start my next App 

My writer/partner, Rick Walton has now written the next story and I’m starting to layout the entire app – and loving it! Gary’s has Worms.

My son Aaron has decided to help other people with their apps as long as they’re using Kwik. He’s spent the last 3 months working with Kwik and has gotten pretty good at it. He’s offering to coach you or build your app – you can visit his site right here: or copy and paste or click this>>>http://www.atanimations.com/ and here’s a gratuitous link to FolioAcademy.com where you will find art lessons online.

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day

P.S. Happy Valentines Day. Thanks to Photoshop, I was able to customize a candy heart pic for my wife and valentine RuthAnn.

I will post step 10 on Feb, 21, 2014, put it on your calendar, and put that on your fridge. See you then.

HOW TO MAKE A STORY APP – STEP 8, The Final Step

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For links to steps 1-7 found scroll to end of post. 

Step by Step, How to make your own story app, part 8. The final step, I hope. 

How to Build and Upload Your App to Apple

Garys place

Building and Uploading Your App to Apple is the part that scares me most. I am no techno genius, In fact I am a right-brained techno phobe, like all good hearted artists. So I am hiring my son Aaron, who also happens to be no techno genius. But unlike me, he is willing to learn.

WE CHOSE TO USE KWIK BY KWIKSHER.

You can use any app building program you want for this process. We My son Aaron and I, Okay, my son Aaron, not we but he, used KWIK. One reason for that is because it is a WYSIWYG program, (what you see is what you get) so you don’t need to be a programming genius to use it. That is KWIK created by Kwiksher see kwiksher dot com for more details. Alex Sossa is the president and founder.

I had my son Aaron do the “programming” for me. Okay, I paid him to do it for me. Hey! I’m an artist. I will let him tell it in his words. Now that he has gone through the learning curve he will be doing my next app soon and he will also do this for hire as well as coaching for hire. (in-case you don’t have children of your own to do it for you)

So Aaron, what do you say?

I say that Kwik works as a photo shop plug in, you can use layers to move things around, and you use the tools within the plugin to build the app. You can show and hide images. It is pretty neat.

“Aaron is an average kid, mediocre grades in school, not a Genius by any means, no offense Aaron.” ~Will Terry

Non taken, Dad.

He is not a programmer, he didn’t and doesn’t know coding. He is not into math, he is a lot like me, he didn’t do TOO WELL in school, was never interested in math etc. He was able to learn Kwik he says, “it is a powerful tool, like photoshop”, he was tired of working at HomeDepo and I was willing to pay him. (his motivation) ~Will Terry

Thanks dad, I’m dumb as a post, I think they get it.

It was a pretty hairy process at first, I was using a mac for the first time, photoshop for the first time and Kwik was new to me too. But I got some immediate gratification when I got started and I could see that I was making progress. On the first day I was able to get something to animate. That was cool and motivating.

You are not going to be able to just take Kwik out of the box and roll with it, but within a week or two you can get pretty good at it. There are a lot of forums and help, most questions are addressed. There are a lot of newbe questions, especially for artists on there.

I started before my dad was actually done with the art part of the app and some of his work wasn’t done when he sent it to me, I even had to send it back to him and tell him to finish it or clean up some over spray on a few layers. I think we work well as a team. That was a little weird, telling my dad to finish his job rather than him telling me to finish something like mowing the lawn or cleaning my room.

Getting your app ready for the build.

You should have all your stuff together and well organized. Maybe even story board or sequence or flow chart.

You need to make sure that any object you want to move better be on a different layer. You can compress them later or whoever puts it to the app can compress it later. (like if you have your daughter or son do it for you)

My dad decided to only have one animation per page so’s not to confuse the child, or end user.

Timetable to learn and use Kwik

If He had everything finished, it would have taken about a month for me to do it. Now that I am familiar with Kwik I could do it in half that time. There is definitely a learning curve. You won’t be able to just open Kwik for the first time and build away. But it is a good program and it is learn-able. I would give it a week before giving up. By then you should be empowered and start liking it.

Kwik does the PROGRAMMING for you,

It would take me about 10 minutes to make a page and for example I looked at one page that took about ten minutes to put together and the program generated about 238 lines of code, and I didn’t have to write or code any of that. Go WISIWYG!

Your work-space is inside PS (That is code for PhotoShop) and you test a page by exporting it to Corona. Just get in there and open it up and look around. It is pretty self-explanatory.

We also used a highlighted text feature. That was kinda hard and I wouldn’t have been able to figure that out without the tutorials, but once you get it, it is pretty easy to implement.

In my honest opinion, I would say you need to give it a chance. Then it is fun, watch some beginner tutorials, you can find them on the Kwik website. There are classes too. My dad helped Alex make some of those videos so he recommends them as well.

Would I use Kwik if I had it to do again?

In Kwik you combine all the voice files, the text files, animation files etc. I used Kwik and I will use it for the next app which we will be starting soon. So that should be a good testimonial for Kwik. Kwik doesn’t take any of your profit percentage like a lot of the other programs out there. Other programs aren’t as robust either, but you do have to buy Kwik, it is an annual subscription, I don’t know how much that is but you can surely find out on their website. One more reason to hire out. Hey! You’re an artist/app creator, have a trained professional like Will Terry’s son do the grunt work for you.

needs, if you are using Kwik to Create your app.

You need Photoshop SC6 or CC installed on your machine, it can be a PC or a Mac to make your app, you have to have Kwik, and then you have to have Corona SDK, the software developer kit, installed which It will give you an iPad and an Android and all major devices simulator.

Email Alex, the President and founder of Kwiksher.com

Rather than emailing me or asking any technical questions here on this blog, to which we Will or Wayne wouldn’t know how to respond anyway, you can email Alex if you have any questions about Kwik. His email is alex@kwiksher dot com Contact him especially if you have technical questions you can’t get answered anywhere else. He is great about responding and helping.

Another plug for Audacity, 

I also want to mention Audacity again, it is a free sound editing program. We used it to manipulate sound files. We used our voices and then altered them. It is a great program too.

Publishing to the apple app store. The fun part. Sarcasm intended.

Not fun at all. Apple is big, they don’t care if it is tough, there is little or NO help. They are big, they know they are big and they don’t care about you or me. I ran into a roadblock, at one point they just returned my money and said that they can’t accept a technical report request. I had to go back and redo a bunch of steps and look online for help. There are a lot of online forms to fill out. They need a lot of info.

You have to make an Apple developer request for which you pay them $99 per year and… You generate a signing request, you generate a certificate using that signing request, you download and install the certificate, then you generate a provision profile using the certificate and you will include that certificate in your app and Corona will search your system for that certificate so when you click build you will include that code in your app without having it put it in there manually, which is pretty nice.

It is not intuitive at all. It took me a week and a half to get it in there. Very frustrating!

That is pretty much what we did. Good luck. Back to you Dad.

In Closing…

Thanks Aaron. OK so, I will be sharing my sales and success or lack thereof in upcoming blogs, so stay in touch and wish me luck.

A way to build momentum in a really noisy market place like we are in, is to build your brand. I don’t see you getting rich quick with apps as there are so many out there. But the playing field is level and you can still play. Get up and do it and keep doing it and enjoy being a producer. There are a lot of consumers out there. We are all consumers, so we need producers like you to produce good products.

Why not hire a coach or an app builder?

My business partner Wayne Andreason has come to say, “If you want a job done right, don’t do it yourself.” Unless of course, that is what you do.

Aaron TerryMy son Aaron Terry no longer works at Home Depot, so he will be assisting others with their apps.  He is building a website now and will be offering Coaching for a fair price, and if you get frustrated or don’t want to bother with it, like me, he will be offering his services as an app builder as well. Right now he is reachable at aaron-terry@live dot com (that is code for his e-mail. use a . for dot and no spaces.)

So if you want to learn art now, go to FolioAcademy.com, if you want your windows washed, go to http://alpinewindowwashing.com/ if you want your teeth fixed go to http://www.spanishforkutahdentist.com/ But if you want your app built, go to Aaron Terry my son and office partner.

If you want to jump to the next step, Step 9, check back around (Feb 14,14). I knew I would never finish. So when I said step 8 was the final step, well it WAS, but it ain’t anymore.

and if you want to read see the previous steps, 1-7, here they are, click on the following links. Step one, two, three, four, five, 5.5, six, and seven.

Personal ART Projects for Personal Progress

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All Artists Should be Working on Their Own Personal ART Projects

a personal art piece by artist, Will Terry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’ve got to be working on personal projects.

By this I mean, something that you want to do for you, a non commissioned piece. You don’t have to have someone tell you what to do in order to create a nice piece for your portfolio.

When I was in School I would do some things just for me, or for fun or just for my portfolio. Other students would often ask me what assignment “that was for” and I would tell them that it wasn’t for an assignment. They couldn’t believe I would work if I didn’t have to. But I was working for me.

Some of my best pieces, were little things that I did as personal projects. These personal art pieces were also a big help in me finding me, or finding my style, or niche.

 

Keep it Simple, Stupid

By this I mean no disrespect, I am going with the KISS ACRONYM.

The most important thing about these personal pieces, I would say is to make them small, and therefor doable. That is to say, FINISH them. If you think you are going to create this gigantic masterpiece for you portfolio, you might be right, but more often than not, you are less likely to finish a BIG MASTERPIECE than a sweet little doable personal art project, especially at first. So remember KISS, not the rock band, the acronym. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

 

Start with Small Art Projects

I suggest you start with something small. Make one finished piece that will go into you portfolio, or not if it doesn’t turn out. Maybe your goal could be, not to stop until you get that little thing finished. Here comes another sports analogy. If you were going to run a marathon you wouldn’t just start a marathon. You need to work up to it.

One of the dangers is to want to bite off more than you will chew. Notice I didn’t say more that you can chew, but more than you will chew. I know that you can do what ever you put your mind to, so I’m saying, that you are more likely to put your mind to something that is simple, and therefor finish it, especially at first.

 

Tell that Negative voice to shut up!

The danger of choosing a personal art piece that is too grandiose is that you are less likely to finish it, and if you fail to actually do it, you are training yourself that A, YOU don’t always finish what you start, and B, it is OK to fail. Like if you decide to do a complete comic book or picture book and put it out there on Kickstarter, you may fail or run out of time or just get sick of it. Then you have that stupid little voice in your head that is there for all of us, you know, that voice that says “you won’t finish this” then if you DON’T finish, it will say, “see? I told you soo”. So beet the negative little voice,  choose small, doable, personal little projects, and complete them. Tell that little voice to SHUT UP!

 

Graduate to bigger projects, if you want.

I am finally getting to the point where I am finishing a story app. It is a big endeavor, but I have done dozens of smaller personal projects in the past and several big projects too. Even though I have done a lot before, this one is still a little tough, I gotta be honest. I still have that negative voice, and I have to keep telling myself that It will get done. I have to remember to enjoy the journey and the process along the way.

 

Choose something the YOU want to do.

 

Choose a personal piece that you want to do. If you are creating something that you want to do, it will be more fun and more likely to turn out. I have a friend who loves animals, so she paints animals. If you have a hard time with people, stay away from people or work on parts that you can conquer, like a back or torso, then build up to the harder stuff, work on something that you can do. Cats maybe, or a plate with fish on it. Who knows what you will like. Take something boring and make it exciting. They don’t all have to be gems.

 

 Take Some Risk

I’m not saying to invest a lot of money here, But I do want you do invest a little time and energy, and challenge yourself. Not too much at first, we need to have some successes to build confidence and self esteem.

Remember in an earlier blog I mentioned that a child likes to draw and paint and create artwork because it is fun and fulfilling. Not because she thinks it will make her a lot of money. Don’t kid yourself that you are going to sell all of your personal pieces and make bank. That isn’t the motivation here. Ironically, that is the work that will get you closer to making money as an artist, Or making more money as an artist. And who knows, you may monetize your personal pieces. The more you have, the more likely you will be to sell a few. Who knows. Some artists create a little personal piece of artwork every day and then sell them on their website. And that’s all they do. Win Win Win. Artist improves and hones his skill, artist makes money and end buyer gets a valuable piece of artwork.

Most of the projects I have done, I would say, well that negative little voice in my head that just won’t mind his own business and shut his big yap, would say, they mostly all failed. But did they? Well I didn’t capitalize on all of them, but they all helped me develop my style, my portfolio, my talent and my art stamina. So NO, they did not fail. They all succeeded in one way or another, even if just to keep me in the zone and to help hone my skill.

Just Do It!

Get on it and do a personal piece and then do another. To steel a quote from NIKE, “Just Do It”  and before that, Spencer W. Kimball, who used to say “Do it!” You just gotta do it.

My seventh grade, wood shop teacher, Mr. Swayze would always say, “Git-R-Done!”

“Git-R-Started might have been a better tag line because that seems to be the hard part every day when you looking at that blank canvas or work in progress. So Git-R-Started and Git-R-Done!”

Don’t Worry About Perfection

It’s a personal project so you don’t have to worry if it isn’t perfect or if doesn’t turn out. Everyone has at least 1000 bad paintings in them so feel free to get a few of them out of your system. You don’t have to hand it in to an art director, so you need not stress. Learn from it, try new things, this is where you can totally be you. If it sucks, don’t show it to anyone. Don’t throw it away either, at least not yet. You may want to use it as an example someday when you are teaching.

 

 

 

 

Tips for New Illustrators and Art Students Part 3

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 12 tips for New Illustrators and Art Students Part 3

Artist Paul Mann hard at work in his studio.

Artist Paul Mann hard at work in his studio.

            -1 Things I’ve Done as an Artist

Getting What You Want as an Artist

There are people out there who ask me ‘Other than being a big mouth and starting a YouTube channel what have you done?’ (And if there aren’t there should be, because it’s a valid question)

I started Folio Academy with my good friend Wayne Andreason, where we sell video tutorials. I have made 3 e-books, (see here, here and here) which have sold over 50,000 copies on amazon and Barns & Noble.

A story app called “I Eat You” for iPad and iPhone.

The school of visual storytelling.  With Jake Parker, where we teach live online classes.

Now I am working on an app called Gary’s Place, about a gopher who lives beyond his means.  I am working very hard on that right now. (Fall 2013) I even have my son Aaron learning how to program and animate for that. Yes I’ll pay him for his work.

These are things I’ve picked myself, and I’ve decide that I will try, and if it fails then so what? I can move on to something else.

Now as for helping you, I want to tell you.

                2- ‘Wealth is created in your spare time.’

Think about that a little bit, and my follow up is, I want you to ask yourself what you think you need.

If you could look into the future and see yourself after you’ve finished an amazing project. That is having great commercial success. And aside from all the money you’re making, and the conferences you’ve been asked to speak at, and the recognition and awards.

Now after seeing all that, if you could see what it took to get there,

Would you give up some of your Friday and Saturday nights to work on your art?

Would you live in a smaller apartment or house so you could work less at a job, and work more on your art?

Would you go for a cheaper cell phone, and save money to apply towards your art projects?

Would you spend less time watching TV and movies for your art, and I mean a Lot less time?

Would you play fewer or no video games for your art?

And if you are not willing to give up those things then I want you to say this and see how it sounds and feels coming out.

“I would rather hang out with my friends, spend this money, hang out with friends, watch TV, and play video games than have my dreams come true about becoming a (state your dream here)”

I see a lot of my students wasting time, and I’ll come clean I used to be addicted to Star Craft.  I lost two years of my life to that stupid game.  I have come to the point that if a game is really good, I can’t play it, because I don’t have the time for it.

You need to be able to fall in love with your art and creating your art.  Not the things that will keep you away from it.

        3- Make Great Art

The first step, as author Neil Gaiman said is ‘Make great art.’

That’s the first step, but it’s not the only step and it’s not an easy step.  It takes a lot of practicing, and work, a lot of NOT surfing on the internet.  A lot of just sitting down, drawing and painting and working on your craft.

If you’re starting out right now, you may not be making great art.  Nobody starts out great.  The idea of child prodigies in art is a debunked myth. An artist like Mozart who has had movies made about him, and books and is really well known was virtually unknown for the first ten years of his career.

Next step is… Continue reading →

HOW TO MAKE A STORY APP (for iPad) – STEP 5.5

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How To Make A Story App – Step 5.5

Finish the artwork.

(for earlier steps scroll down or click the following links)

How to Make a Story App – Step 1
Scene of Gary in his little house.

Shoooeeeee – that took a while! But it was worth it… I hope.

I’m not going to even try to explain how much fun I’ve had with the art work in this story app…like…nope…not going to even try. But Hey, I had a LOT of fun.

Of course it has been an incredible commitment and sacrifice. Lots of work with little or no guarantee of financial reward. I even had to turn down PAYING work and slack on my duties at FolioAcademy to have enough time to work on it – which will cause some to question my sanity. But those same people will probably say it was a good move if this pans out financially.

Do I suffer form insanity? Nope, I enjoy it.
Show me any thing of value in this world that didn’t come with some crazy idea and a lot of sacrifice? For me the journey is worth it alone. I’m content because I’m seeing my idea come to life. How many people can say that? Will it make money? We’ll find out as I plan to publish all my sales figures right here on this blog. Get ready to say, “I TOLD YOU SO!”This week I’ll be adding text and finding sounds…
Now available, Step 6.

Tips for Illustrators & Students Part 2: Why Are You an Artist?

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We are Artists Because IT USED TO BE FUN!

I became and Artist cuz art is fun.

I became and Artist cuz art is fun.

I want to start this by asking you, how did you get into art?  What made you start producing art?  Was it just for fun? Were you just a kid?  Did you get into art because people asked you to draw things for them?  I honestly doubt that you got into art because other people asked you to. Most of us got into art to make cool stuff and because it was fun and fulfilling.

There is much amazing stuff out there, and we looked out at it and decided we wanted to make our own and show it to the world.

Do you want to be an Illustrator, an Artist, or an Employee? 

Art is fun.

Art is fun.

Yet so many artists who have spent so long learning, and practicing get to a certain point, like when they’re about to finish school, and they start thinking about getting out of school, becoming an Artist, an illustrator, or just thinking about how to make money with their art skills.

After that all of a sudden we want to get hired. So we can get paid. So we can eat. We want to be employees.  We start looking for someone else to tell us what to do (or draw) so we can make a living, and so we can eat.

We get asked to draw something that isn’t fun or we get asked to do something that takes away from our vision.

What can I do To Make Money as an Artist?

I don’t want to discourage you, there is nothing wrong with working with and helping other people. I want to help open your mind to other possibilities.

It started with students across the country, and now it’s students all over the world. People want to be hired.

The main thing I am asked is, “what can I draw to make money?” I think it’s backwards, is that why we became artist? I’m not saying it’s inherently wrong, but it’s not why we started.

I’m in a position now that I can pick and choose. I’ve put in a lot of work that I ended up hating but I’ve also put a lot of work into my children’s books that I’ve really enjoyed, and I enjoyed the people I’ve worked with.

THERE ARE A LOT OF OPTIONS.

But is that the only way or are there other things that we can do? Have you ever thought that musicians, authors, actors, videographers, and gallery artists are more entrepreneurial than illustrators. Think about that, are they?

What is wrong with Illustrators.  And this is a generalization. Musicians move to Austin, or Nashville, or they record in a friend’s house, and now with the internet a lot of them are starting their own YouTube channels. Comedians are starting their own YouTube channels. Actors move to Hollywood or start YouTube channels, Gallery-Artists make something and try to get someone to buy it. Writers write something and hope publishers buy it, or they publish it on Amazon and sell it directly. Like Amanda Hopkins.

Illustrators Want to be hired, commissioned, or just get a job. 

What’s the difference between us Illustrators, and all the other artists? Ask yourself and try to answer that question. A graphic designer decided to publish his own small books. I have a friend who owns a graphic design studio, and we first started working together about ten, fifteen years ago. And he would hire me, he was getting contracts from Children’s book publishers, and he would hire me to do covers and inside spreads.

A couple years ago he hired me to do some work for a children’s book with a publisher I had never heard of before, why because it was new, it also happened to be him or his publishing company. He decided ‘you know what, I can make one of these myself’. And he’s still publishing books, and even some e-books online.

The Internet has Been a Real Game Changer. 

If you are a teenager or in your mid-twenties, you probably grew up with the internet. Not knowing life without it. I wonder if the internet is more impressive to me someone who lived without it. I can’t speak for someone who lived without cars, or plains.  But I worked without the internet. I don’t want to just assume that I appreciate something more than you, but I wonder how I ever got along without it.

There are thousands of people on YouTube who picked themselves.  People who just decided to utilize this wonderful tool. Some decided, “Hey! I’m going to broadcast the news, and I’m going to make money doing it”, and they’re doing it.

You got the guys who did kid history, (Bored Shorts) and the guys who do honest trailers, (Screen Junkies) look them up, or click the link. But don’t get sucked in, your focus is here right now.

Prank vs prank, there’s that guy from Utah “tipping servers $200”.  Video recorded it, and put it on Youtube.  By my calculations I’d say he cleared $20,000 just posting that one idea.

Now you don’t “NEED” the middle man.

You can now make a free service like Youtube, get your own channel (FolioAcademy has one right here that is grossly underutilized by the way).

My Kid History friends at Bored Shorts are talking to Disney right now, who may end up buying their channel of videos and if they do it’s going to be big.  By the way That guy who filmed the tipping video has over a hundred million views, when you do that, you get noticed, and even make money with advertising. There are tons of review channels too. Someone decides “Hey! I am going to review this product.” Have you ever noticed that whenever someone decides something they start by saying “Hey!” My friend Jedd Henry who did Yukio Heroes. Michal Dowdled who makes his own puzzles of all the famous cities.  He picked himself, Kazu who made flight, People who made their own web comics. That oatmeal guy (I love that guy) Music,  everyone in music is getting involved,  Indie Music, it’s when YOU decide that Hey! you are a musician, you don’t wait for it.

They don’t teach this stuff in public schools. 

The guy’s running public school never taught this, because so many of them didn’t create anything.

My slam on public schools, they do not teach creativity.  They teach people to obey the rules and math and language and science. And WE need that, OK we do but we also need creativity.

We have not been equipped for this world, and public schools haven’t either, our parents and friends and the world is all telling us what to do.  Go to college, get good grades so you can get a job. It makes sense, it’s safe. But ask these guys who have “picked themselves”, they don’t worry about safe.

This is starting to run long so I’m going to have to have a part 3 and maybe part 4 and more.

Okay my next posts will share some strategies, like: Things that I’ve learned, Things that I’m trying to apply now, and ways for an artist to be more entrepreneurial.

COLOR STUDIES FOR A PHOTOSHOP CLASS

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Color Studies 

Here are a few color studies I did in preparation for a Photoshop class I am teaching soon. I like having everything ready to go long before I get into the classroom so I can pack as much information into my lesson portion of the day and not waste time.
Having some color ideas worked out ahead of time takes some of the decisions away so I can focus on the techniques I’ll be teaching. Working digitally has made it much easier to make these experiments in just a few minutes…I have about 20 minutes into these studies but being able to move forward with confidence is invaluable.
Also, I teach a “How to Use Color” course as well as a PhotoShop course here at folioacademy that you may want to check out.

OUR FAMILY PLOT IN MY NEW HALLOWEEN CHILDREN’S BOOK!

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Our Family Plot in my Book!

My new book Skeleton For Dinner by Margery Cuyler takes place in a graveyard. So I put tomb stones on most of the pages of art…and then an obvious problem hit me. There were no names on the head stones. So I placed a call to my editor – Nick Temersma at Albert Whitman and said, “ummmm…what should we put on the grave markers?”…….”hello”…..Then Nick said, “I don’t know – what do you think?” Having been around this business for a while I’ve learned that it’s better to have a solution that works for you when you call with a problem. So I suggested, “What if we put our family names on all the tombstones – I could put yours, mine, Margery’s…” Eventually the answer came back, “Sure, sounds good”.
I had enough markers to put names from both sides of my family, my mom, my editors, and authors family names, and all the dogs I’ve had over the years – including pooch who is still very much alive but hey – never hurts to think ahead.
What better way to start October than with a cheesy pitch from Will Terry and a copy of Skeleton For Dinner? Click here for Amazon
Here’s a review from Kirkus
Happy Halloween from Folio Academy.

WHAT TEACHING ART HAS GIVEN ME

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Teaching art was scary at first


I’ve been teaching on and off now for the past 20 plus years. At first I was petrified. In fact I really feel sorry for the first students I had back in the early 90’s at BYU – I wasn’t very good at my craft which caused my teaching to suffer. I hadn’t put in enough time to formulate my opinions about image creation. 

Be committed to your students and your Art craft. 

Fast forward to the present – boy am I glad I didn’t quit after those first few teaching experiences! I strongly believe in exposure therapy. Afraid to skydive? Go skydiving, still afraid? Go a bunch of times. Afraid of a tax audit? Good you should be, don’t mess with the IRS. But,  I really believe that if you’re committed to helping your students learn it will improve your understanding of the subject 10 fold – especially in a subjective subject like art.

The Process

You do something that’s working in your painting. You have to explain it to someone else. You have to formulate words to describe your process. You hear your own words like you’ve never heard them before. You make a stronger connection. You make other connections with other principles. You now have to live by those principles for accountability to your students. Your art making improves. Apply, Rinse & repeat.

Making a difference in the lives of others is priceless.

But it doesn’t stop there. Because as you help someone else attain the satisfaction you have gained you are rewarded emotionally as well. The connections are so much a part of the teaching. Feeling like you can make a difference in the lives of others is priceless. I have made many friends over the years from some of my former students- and can you have too many friends?
And it doesn’t stop there either because it has helped me heal. I’ve talked about my horrible public school experience as a child on my other blog in the past so I won’t go into it again – but finding what you’re good at and feeling valuable doing it has been very therapeutic.I can’t begin to tell you how rewarding it has been to teach at UVU and be able to start Folio Academy with Wayne Andreason and now SVS with Jake Parker. To be able to dream up a class and offer it online is such an amazing turn for me. When we get together the ideas just start flowing and we think of all kinds of classes. Early next year we plan to offer a  “Luminous Color & Light” class. You can check out our Digital Painting class here.

My suggestion to artists:

Start by mentoring another artist or volunteer at a community art program. Donate your time at various art events and offer pointers. Work to learn. You’ll be amazed at how it will inspire you to want to create more…and you might find yourself teaching at an institution or online sometime down the road. The world is getting connected and if you embrace it – it will embrace you.