ONLINE CHILDREN’S ILLUSTRATION CLASS – SOLD OUT

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Online Children’s Illustration Class – Update

Jake and I are so pleased that our FULL class has SOLD OUT – but we still have the LITE class available for $150. We are humbled to realize that artists all over the world trust us to share what we’ve learned about creating illustrations for stories like children’s books and comics. What is possible today wasn’t possible only a few years ago and it is my belief that we will find learning online more and more common in the coming years. I believe that is why FolioAcademy is doing so well. To think that we can broadcast from our little town in Utah USA to anywhere in the world is mind blowing and proves that if you work hard and dream BIG you can do it! The little map above shows how spread out our current enrollment is to date – but it’s still growing!

FAQ’s:

How long will I be able to purchase the LITE version of the class? We will keep the video only version of this class available until July 10th 2013- the last day of the LIVE class. If you want to watch all of these classes – get the details by clicking here.

What format will the LITE class be in? The LITE version of the class will be in an MP4 or WMV file or both.

If I buy the LITE class how long can I view it? If you purchase the LITE class you will be given a download link to have the complete video files on your computer for as long as you like.

Will I get any feedback with the LITE version? No – we produced two price points to account for the time we will spend with FULL version participants – the LITE class will deliver the recorded version of the FULL class without the critiques, class questions, draw-overs, and skype call.

What materials will I need for either the LITE or FULL class? The assignments we will give will all require drawing instruments like copy paper and pencils (or tablet with drawing program). Adding color to your assignment is optional. You could use Acrylic, Oil, Pastel, Watercolor, Gouche, Ink, or Digital. I advise my students to avoid colored pencil unless it’s mixed with an aqueous media like Watercolor because it takes a tremendous amount of time to build up color while controlling texture. Most illustrators avoid it as a stand alone medium for this reason.

If you have any other questions pertaining to the class I welcome them and will add them to this list if they are pertinent to participants.

Story Art Class for the Picture Book Illustrators

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I, Folio Academy Artist/Instructor, Will Terry & Jake Parker will teach a Story Art Class

We are making a list and will give advanced notice to those of you who want to sign up. Simply leave your email address in the comments section below or email me privately and I’ll put you on the list. These people will get first crack at the sign up when we launch the website. No obligation however if you’re on the list – you will just get an email with the link to the class site.

Ok – so here’s the info:

I’m going to be team teaching this class with Jake Parker! THE JAKE PARKER! This guy is amazing – he’s worked on feature films and comics as well as picture books – not to mention coming off of an amazing Kickstarter raising $85,000 for his Antler Boy book! (Don’t tell anyone – but I’m more excited to learn from him probably than anyone else!)

Where: On your computer
When: Every Mon. and Wed. at 7:00PM – 9:00PM MST Starting June 10th and ending July 10th
Duration: 5 weeks = 10 classes
How much? This will be announced on the website but it will be a fraction of what a college class costs and I think extremely reasonable for what you will get.

Each class will be recorded and you will be able to watch it at your convenience – so if you have to miss a class you can still watch the presentation although you will miss out on asking questions.

In addition you will get a follow up Skype call at the end of the class to go over anything you want -concerning your work or portfolio.

Each class has been carefully thought out and the schedule will be posted on the website.

I’m just bursting – this is going to be so much fun!

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?

UVU Student Breaks World Record with her Artwork

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Inez Harwood breaks the world record for longest tie-dye as her BFA capstone project.

Inez Harwood and her world record artwork.

Inez Harwood, a student of Utah Valley University in Orem Utah, breaks the world record for the longest single piece of “Tie-Died cloth.

Vibrant Prtotest, by Inez Harwood

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THere is a lot of artistic talent coming out of uvu

“UVU is fast becoming the best University in Utah valley for to learn art and illustration”, says artist Wayne Andreason of FolioAcademy. The program is constantly improving, as well as the staff. The program tries to attract faculty that are not just teachers but professionals with teaching skills, who mentor students for the art business market. Harwood’s project required cooperation from several departments at Utah Valley University a few shall be listed: Art and Visual Communications Painting and Drawing, Theater Arts, Musical Arts, Center for the Advancement of Leadership, School of Business, Academic Emergence Services, Grants Office. Community Assistance from the City of Orem, Wolverine Crossing and Dharma Trading Company.

Student Inez Harwood is a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor who faces ongoing health challenges and disability, she found a strong support community at Utah Valley University. Inez is a new genre artist which requires considerable leadership, and organizational skills. She began her journey more than one year before the art happening, when she proposed her idea to the Center for the Advancement of Leadership. Inez and C.A.L. began meeting regularly to coach her on how to develop the project. A process that helped Harwood learn how to write a public art grant and business proposal. Months before the physical work of the project began Harwood would have to develop the bureaucratic and financial development aspects of the project, including environmental study of the effects of dye and municipal water usage policies, gaining access to public works resources, finding a donated studio location, finding sponsors, hiring a studio staff, project manager, business manager, secretary, publicist, janitor, and community volunteer coordinator. Then once the team had been trained, the real work began.
In January 2013 Harwood moved into the donated studio at Wolverine Crossing with a 850 pound roll of fabric and began the tie process. Three months later, on March 7, 2013 Inez and over 200 volunteers rinsed and stretch the brightly colored fabric around the two retaining ponds west of U.V.U’s Hall of Flags.
This world record art work stretches 2945 feet 7 inches in length, breaking the previous world record held by Japan by 200 feet. This beautiful masterpiece was woven in South Carolina by Inman Mills with 100 percent domestically grown cotton, the approximately 970 pound tie-dye cloth by American artist Inez Harwood, 36, was made of using 120 pounds of dye and 8,000 zip-ties; originally measuring 3,153 feet long, it sets the new world record for the longest tie-dye cloth, to be published after verification process later this year in the Guinness World Records.

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Record breaking piece of art is 2945 feet 7 inches long

This world record piece of art work stretches 3153 feet in length. Naturally I wonder what the previous record was. Probably 3152 feet. (or less) This beautiful masterpiece was

Woven in South Carolina’s Inman Mills with 100 percent domestically grown cotton, the approximately 950 pounds heavy tie-and-dye cloth by American artist Inez Harwood, 36, was made of using 120 pounds of dye and 8,000 zip-ties; measuring 3,153 feet long, it sets the new world record for the Longest tie-and-die cloth, according to the World Record Academy:

You can see the colorful record breaking Tie-Died piece, Vibrant Protest: Liberty, at the Woodbury Art Museum in Orem, Utah until April 27th 2013.

Cool Huh? If you could hold a world record, what would you want it to be for?

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.

HOW I USE PROCREATE TO DRAW ON MY IPAD

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Watch the art lesson video below for iPad tips with Procreate

In the video below, artist Will Terry, shows you how he’s using the Procreate app to make drawings for his children’s books, iPad apps, personal and professional freelance work.
He loves the Procreate app! It allows him to make high resolution drawings that he can email to his desktop and paint in Photoshop. No more running out of paper. No more pens, not having a pen, running out of lead, no more pencils, no more books, no teachers dirty looks.
Will can take his work anywhere and he can go through the entire drawing refinement process without the use of a scanner or tracing paper.
“It has made me much more productive, I can do finish work anywhere”
Will has been known to work at the doctor’s office (not as a doctor), in meetings, waiting in the car (well he is married), on airplanes, at conferences and more. He just has to remember to take enough work with him when he leaves his studio.
Enjoy the video…
To learn more about illustrating or how to paint in Photoshop, or how to illustrate children’s books, or many other great art techniques, visit FolioAcademy.com.

Folio Academy has teamed up with Kwiksher for a limited time.

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Get Four of Folio Academy’s video training courses FREE when you purchase Kwiksher. 

Bring your interactive stories to life, without code. Creating your own apps can be fun and fulfilling and now anyone can do it with Kwik 2 at kwiksher.com.

What is Kwiksher? The best way to create mobile apps from Photoshop!

click below to See Kwik in action.

Improving Your Work, Training with the Best

Alex Souza, the founder of Kwiksher says, “I am a believer that there is always space for improvement (in our lives, skills, and so on). Of course this applies to Kwik made apps.”

Picture of four bonus video courses: Beginning Photoshop for digital painting, Digital Painting in Photoshop part 1 & 2, and How to Design a Drawing

Quality is one of the top reasons for successful positions into store rankings.

Thinking about that, I partnered with Folio Academy and Will Terry, one of the top children’s book illustrators in the world, to provide quality instruction to anyone willing to improve illustration and painting skills with Photoshop.

Will’s life’s goal was to become a children’s book illustrator, and to date, he has illustrated over 25 children’s books with great publishers like Scholastic, Random House, Leap Frog, Houghton Mifflin, Dial, Albert Whitman, and Simon Schuster.

I am really a fan of what he is able to do and I believe everybody will get great insights from his blog. 

Every new Kwiksher customer (till end of April) will get the following four training videos for FREE.

Every Kwiksher customer can get a 50% discount (till end of April) on the following four training videos by Will at Folio Academy. But even better, all new customers who purchase Kwik 2 at Kwiksher.com will be given, all four of these wonderful lessons. ~Alex

 

  • How To Design A Drawing: explains what it means to design a drawing as well as an introduction to the design principles and elements. Honestly, I wish I had this information while in college;

Together, these tutorials cost US$100 so, don’t miss the opportunity to get them with the discounted price.