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Martin Sheen and The Way

You could never consider me a film snob and I’ve never wanted to be a filmmaker or an actor, but I love movies.  Great stories told on the screen by talented storytellers, always a collaboration between the writers, directors, actors and all of the other professional creatives and technicians that make up the industry.    I just know what I like, regardless of critical acclaim or popular opinion.

Earlier this year, I watched the movie, ‘The Way’ and it had a profound affect on me.  Written and directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his father, Martin Sheen, it tells the story of a father and son and their experiences on the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James.  I’m not ruining the movie for you to tell you that the son (Estevez) dies early in the film at the beginning of his own pilgrimage and the father travels to Spain to retrieve the body.  Despite it seeming to be against his nature, Sheen’s character, Tom, decides to walk the Camino, and in doing so discovers his son and himself.

My wife and I rented this movie and I really enjoyed it.  Likely because I’m now in my early 40’s, dealing with my own evaluation of life and meaning, and realizing that there is probably less time ahead than behind me.  There’s a reason they call it a midlife crisis.  Had I watched this movie in my twenties, I doubt it would have affected me as much.

Shortly after seeing the movie, I found myself browsing in a bookstore and noticed the book, “Along the Way: The Journey of a Father and Son.”  Written by Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen, it’s a memoir of their perspectives in life,  Sheen growing up and becoming the father while going through his own trials of life, and Estevez seeing many of the same events from the son’s perspective and his thoughts about his own life and career.  It was a truly enjoyable read and one I’d recommend, but as the book references the making of The Way, I’d see the movie first.

I’ve always felt a connection to Martin Sheen, not because I know the man, but because of my own father’s resemblance to him.  Not just their looks, but some of their mannerisms as well.  My Dad’s about the same age, and while he isn’t the spitting image of Sheen, at certain times in their lives he looks remarkably similar.  So much so, in fact, that when we were stationed in Germany, a woman in Brussels insisted that my father was Sheen, even though he denied it.  I always thought that was cool, so naturally I gravitated toward Sheen’s movies.  While watching The Way for the first time, there was one scene where I paused the film and said to my wife, “Holy cow, does he ever look like my Dad.”

As it is a movie about fathers and sons and I’ve always had a great relationship with my Dad, I bought him a copy of the DVD and then sent him my copy of the book as well.  After watching the movie, he called me and asked, “So, when are we going?”

Pretty sure my Mom and my wife would have serious concerns about he and I taking off to Spain for a couple of months to walk the Camino de Santiago.  But I was pleased that he enjoyed the movie and book.

So why the painting?  Well, first of all, I’m more inclined to paint characters, not the actors themselves.  In our society where the privacy of celebrities is almost non-existent when they’re out of their homes, people seem to think they know them from what they read in gossip rags and see on trashy shows like Entertainment Tonight and Inside Hollywood.  I’m under no such illusion.  Simply because I watch their movies and read their memoir, I wouldn’t dare assume I know Martin Sheen or Emilio Estevez.  The book only shares what they wanted to share, and the movie, while infused with their own experiences I’m sure, is about characters Estevez wrote, not the actors themselves.  But good storytelling can make those characters seem real, and in this case, it was Sheen’s character, Tom, for whom I felt a connection.

Having bought my own copy, I’ve now seen the movie a few times, the last time with the purpose of gathering reference.  You may not see in the painting what I see in it, because it’s a scene that, to me, said so much about the journey the character was taking.  This image of Tom looking up and what he was seeing, was brief, but his expression spoke volumes, given what he’d been through.  The scenes that follow really get to me each time I see the movie, and I don’t mind admitting that.  It’s a wonderful story with rich characters, played by a very talented cast.

Lately, all of my work has been product driven.  Editorial cartoons on deadline, illustration commissions, painting commissions, even my Totem paintings have become about prints, licensing and always selling the end product.  As a result, it’s been awhile since I’ve truly enjoyed a painting from start to finish.  One of the reasons I painted this portrait was that it had no deadline and has no commercial value, other than that it will find a place in my portfolio.  I painted it for myself, simply to paint something personal, and I’m pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was a bit like a vacation from the work of being an artist for a living, and I wanted to find the joy in it again.  There is a balance to be found there and I’m still working on it.  This painting was a good start.

For more on the technical details of this painting, click on this link.

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What’s Happening.

Haven’t been posting on here as much as I usually like to.  Part of the reason is that I’ve been busy, but hey, aren’t we all?  I’ve also had nothing much to say, which is likely an odd thing to read, especially if you know me well.  This post, however, I figured I’d just give a few updates, let you know what’s going on, and what I’ve got coming up.

Insivity.com is a new site that is designed to offer inspiration to artists and creatives.  The brainchild of Joe Sliger from Wacom, Colby Brown, Jeremy Cowart and others, it’s still very new but will no doubt gain momentum in the next few weeks.  A large number of creatives are represented and I was pleased to be asked to be a part of the site.  As of yesterday, my first article for Insivity went live.  ‘Fear’ was written as a ‘misery loves company’ effort, basically to illuminate the fact that being afraid of not measuring up is part and parcel of being an artist for a living.  To quote from the article, “You’re always going to feel fear.  Before every single painting I create, there are moments where I wonder if my best work is behind me.  Is this the painting where the personality doesn’t show up?  Is this the one where somebody says, “What happened?  You used to be good.”

And honestly, it happens with every painting I create, without question.  To read the full piece and check out all that the Insivity site has to offer, here’s the link.

Speaking of paintings that scare the hell out of me, I’m currently working on a painting of Martin Sheen as his character ‘Tom’ from the movie, “The Way.”  This piece is purely for my own enjoyment and it is doing the trick.  It’s the most fun I’ve had on a painting in quite awhile.  The reason is probably because there is no deadline, it will not be for sale, and there is a bit of a story behind it.  I’ll share that when the painting is done, likely sometime this weekend.  This is also a bit of a dry run for my upcoming portrait painting DVD from PhotoshopCAFE.

Incidentally, PhotoshopCAFE is having a big sale right now for everything in their library, including my DVDs, until the end of the year!  20% Off!  Just use the Promo Code PSNL1212

My wife and I own a townhouse condo here in Canmore and since we never wanted kids, it’s the perfect size for us and we never felt the need to get a big house.  The downside is that even though we’re on an end unit, we still share a wall with the neighbours beside us.  In our 11 years in this home, we’ve had both good and bad neighbours.  Just recently, a couple of good ones for the past three years moved away and we were sad to see them go, as they were friendly, considerate and most of all, quiet.  Even though the new neighbours appear to be the same, it’s a rental unit, so you never know how long they’ll be around, and we decided to have some soundproofing installed.  That’s kind of a misnomer, as you can’t really soundproof a home, but we did our best to install some noise dampening measures to our living room and bedroom walls.  Call it noise insurance, if you’d like.  Although the drywallers were professional and only in the house for 3 days, it’s incredibly inconvenient when you work at home.  I didn’t get much done this week as each morning was spent putting drop cloths on the furniture we couldn’t move, wrangling the cat into my office, then cleaning up at the end of the day.  Not to mention that during the day, it was noisy.  Daily routine and keeping the same hours is what keeps me on track and focused while working at home.  That routine went out the window this week.

Still, it’s all done but the painting, something my wife starts today, because she’s good at it and enjoys it.  Despite my skill with digital paint, I would just turn our new walls into a sloppy mess with real paint and a roller.  I’m not very handy that way.

Christmas is upon us and while many are stressing out over shopping and having to be elsewhere, it’s actually a quiet time of year for me.  We don’t decorate or exchange gifts and haven’t for years, simply because we lost interest and didn’t see the point of spending money on things we don’t need just because a calendar tells us to.  It’s an unpopular choice with many people, but one that works well for us.  Our parents got on board with it a few years ago and now enjoy the fact that they don’t have to shop during the craziest time of the year.  It’s a lot less stressful and while we still enjoy going to parties and visiting friends, the holiday season is pretty peaceful for us.

With that in mind, I had a former client approach me with an illustration gig this week, but he needs it by the end of the year.  With few newspapers actually working the Christmas week, I won’t be drawing editorial cartoons, so I figured I could squeeze in one more job for 2012.  It’ll be a pretty fun job involving cartoon animals.  I’ll share it when it’s done.  I’ll also have one more commission painting to share, sometime next week.  It’s been done for a little while, but the client hasn’t given the gift yet, so I have to wait.  It’s one of my best pet portraits, I think.

And finally, I’m preparing to be away from January 7th-11th as I’ll be attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year, doing demonstration work for Wacom at their booth.  Hadn’t planned on heading back to Vegas so soon, but the opportunity came up, and it sounds like a fun experience.  It’s the largest conference Vegas sees each year, with over 150,000 people attending in 2012!  I do enjoy teaching, so I’m looking forward to it.

Big plans for 2013, but that will wait for another post.  Have a great weekend!

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Risking your love for a living.

There’s an old saying that says, “Do what you love for a living and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

There’s  another old saying, “Be careful what you wish for.  You just might get it.”

With the accessibility of training, the affordability of equipment and an endless string of stories of people who have turned their hobbies into their living, it seems that many have become convinced of that being the end goal for any creative pursuit.  If you can draw, write, paint, play music, act, sculpt or create anything, you’re supposed to be working to make that your profession.

As someone who made that very choice and is creative for a living,  I consider it a great job, but it is still very much ‘a job.’

Right about now, you’re likely thinking this motivational blog post just went wildly off the rails.  My apologies if you’re disappointed, but there’s plenty of ‘you can do it!’ advice out there and too few reality checks.  Brace yourself.

Now, I don’t want you to think that I’m not comfortable with my choice to be an artist for a living, because I am.  I make my own schedule, I answer only to whom I choose, and if I sense a job is going to be a nightmare, I’m in the enviable position that I can turn it down.   Lately, however, I’ve been experiencing an uncomfortable anxiety about my work.  While there are going to be bad days  in every profession, regardless of how much you like it, there seem to be many more days lately where I get up in the morning and just don’t feel like drawing or painting.  For somebody who used to find any excuse to do either, that’s disturbing.

I used to work at a hotel in Banff.  As far as jobs go, it was a very good one with good people, and I look back on my time there fondly.  During my six or seven years at that hotel, I ran a waterslide facility, then worked night audit, front desk and eventually became the accounting clerk.  During the off season, there was more than the usual downtime.  Sometimes, after all of the cleaning was done each day, I might be alone in the waterslides for an hour or more, just sitting at the desk.  It was then that I’d doodle and sketch and it would pass the time.  When I worked night audit, I would arrive just before midnight, run the reports and balances until about 2:00 AM and then just babysit a sleeping hotel until about 6:00 when people would start to be up and about and the day staff would come in.  That gave me about four hours to read, draw and sketch.

No deadlines, no expectations, just enjoyable drawing.  It was a nice hobby.

During that time, I began drawing one editorial cartoon for the Banff Crag and Canyon, the local weekly newspaper.   Not very well drawn, not very insightful, but no real pressure.  It wasn’t the National Post.

I could write a whole volume about what has come between then and now, how one thing led to another and how I ended up being a full-time artist.  Let’s enter that as read and we’ll jump ahead to the present, shall we?

I can’t remember the last time I drew something simply for fun.

You see, these days, everything I create is part of an end product.  If I’m sketching or drawing, it’s for an editorial cartoon or illustration.  If I’m painting, it’s for promotion, a training video or DVD, or an image I will sell or have been commissioned to do.  Everything feeds the constant deadline.  I realized this recently while working on my last couple of Totems and a commission piece.  There was something missing in the enjoyment of it and it was unsettling.

At the beginning of this ride, there was excitement in the scramble of it all.  Getting that new newspaper, having a magazine print an image, being recognized by a publication or resource.  I was younger, hungrier and enjoyed the competition.  After you reach a certain level, however, it’s no longer a thrill of being ‘on the way up’, but the maintenance required to ‘keep from losing any ground.’  The same old drug dosage is no longer providing the high that it used to.

Continuing on with known sayings, how about this one? “When your hobby becomes your job, you need to find another hobby.”

I used to have full-time day job, and editorial cartooning was the fun gig on the side.  Then it became ‘the job.’  Illustration was then the fun side gig, then it became part of ‘the job.’  Painting became the fun side gig…you can see where I’m headed, here.

Being an artist for a living is great.  I wouldn’t want to do anything else and I would still say that even when I’m having a bad day.  But if you’re considering that leap, go into it with your eyes wide open.

The truth is that business and marketing is where success lies as a creative, not doing what you love.  I’ve seen artists so much better than myself and others, fail to get anywhere because they don’t know how to sell and manage their business at all, or ignore the necessity of it.  I know some self-employed people who are three years behind on their taxes and are living under a ton of debt they’ll be lucky to ever crawl out from.  They wonder why they have no money but they haven’t done any invoicing in months.  I speak to school classes regularly and one question always comes up about whether or not they should go to art school.  I tell them to go to business school.  If you love art, you’ll do it anyway and will find the resources to become better by yourself, but where most artists fail is running their business and selling their work.

You have to be every department as a freelancer.  Accounting, PR, sales, admin, and creative.  Invoicing is done immediately or at the end of the month, without fail.  GST payments are never late.  Tax installments are never late.  You must foster relationships with your clients all the time.  If they know you and like you, they’re unlikely to replace you.  I would estimate that I spend only half my time drawing and creating, and the other half of my time running the business.  All of that comes with expenses, too.  Website design, printing costs, accountants, bookkeepers, lawyers, etc.  Even designing your own budget website will cut into the time you’d rather be working on why you’re in business in the first place.

If this is what you want and are prepared for what it takes, then more power to you.  I would encourage anybody to give it a shot because I prefer these long hours working for myself than shorter hours, vacation time and weekends off working for somebody else.  If, however, you just love to draw or create, seriously consider if you really want to risk that by turning it into your job.  When your hobby becomes your work, it will change how you feel about it and it will no longer be that which you do in order to relax and unwind.  While compromise is always a part of life, decide how much you’re comfortable with.  There is no right or wrong answer, but there is a choice.

I will still write inspirational ‘you can do it’ posts here and elsewhere, and if you read one of those, don’t doubt that I mean it, but success stories will always be about hard work.  In this age of instant celebrity with folks believing they will be ‘discovered’ on shows like American Idol or YouTube and that they deserve to be successful by the simple virtue that they exist, inspiration needs to be tempered with reality, too.

Finally, a word of caution in the form of one more old saying.  “Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

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Take Twenty From Two!

Just picked up the first prints for the Otter Totem and Bison Totem yesterday and they look great, if I do say so myself!  After adding those two to my online store and updating my inventory, I’ve decided to celebrate by having a sale!  From now, until December 7th, I’m offering 20% OFF when you buy TWO matted Totem prints in any combination!  It can be two 11″X14″ prints, two 16″X20″ prints, one of each size, or two of the same Totem in the same size!  And if you buy more than two, the 20% off applies to the whole order.

Here’s the catch (there’s always a catch).  Not all of the prints are available in 16″X20″.  The Bison, Otter, Ostrich, and Humpback Whale Totems are only available in the 11″X14″ size.  While I have inventory available in every Totem as I post this, I’m not Walmart, so it’s a limited supply.  When I run out of a particular print, that’s it until the new year.  Chroma Surge in Calgary (where the prints are made) is closed for the month of December, so no new inventory until January.

The discount will be reflected in the shopping cart and does not apply to shipping fees.  Here’s the link to the store.

 

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Bald Eagle Totem

Here’s my latest painting, the Bald Eagle Totem.  This one was a real challenge because of the ‘white’ feathers which really aren’t white at all.  I used three different reference photos for this one.  The main image was from well-known wildlife photographer, Moose Peterson.  It was a full body shot of a bald eagle and while all of the main features I needed were there and it was a very good photo to work from, I had to buy a couple of stock photos as well, ones that focused on the close-up details of the main features.  I’ve started to use a minimum of three reference photos for my paintings this year, all paid for or used with permission, of course.  I find that more images provides more insight and I can do a better job with the details.

From looking at the three reference photos, I quickly realized that bald eagles are just like people.  Their features can be very different from one another, the colouring of their feathers, even the shape and texture of their beaks.  So between the three images, I had to make my own choices, based on what I liked and which features from all three would best contribute to the final painting.

One choice I made was to include warmer tones around the face, blending out to cooler colours around the edges and shadows.  As I said, white really isn’t white, so painting the feathers was about finding a balance between yellow and blue and the tones in between.  There’s even some magenta in there.  While another artist might not have chosen to make the blues so prominent, I really liked how those tones contributed to the overall mood of the image.  It felt right, so I went with it and while it still fits the look of my other Totems, it has a different light quality to it.

As for the expression, I don’t know where that comes from.  As I’ve said about many paintings before this one, the personality just seems to show up at some point during the painting process and I’m really pleased with this one.  Pardon my candor, but he just looks like an absolute bad-ass, and I love that.

On to the next one!

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Another Wacom Webinar

Wacom has invited me back for another webinar, coming up soon on Thursday, November 8th.  Click here or on the image to go to the registration page.  Best of all, it’s free!

When I was in Las Vegas in September for Photoshop World, Wacom invited me to give a demonstration at their booth on the Expo Floor.  Yesterday, they posted the session online in two parts.  While this one shows you more of me talking about painting, next week’s webinar will show my screen and you’ll be able to see the work up close and personal, just as I get to while I’m creating it.

Here are the videos from Vegas.  Enjoy!

PART 1

PART 2

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Forward Momentum

One of the best things about being a freelancer these days, whether it’s writing, photography, illustration or just being self-employed is that there is no shortage of information out there to help you.  Just twenty years ago, there was no such thing as Google.  The Internet didn’t begin to gain real traction with the public until the mid to late 90’s.  Before that, you had to go to the library.  That’s a building with books in it.

We enjoy almost instant connection today, but it used to be a lot more difficult to find information while learning a skill.  If you were lucky, you might find a professional artist with whom to apprentice, but what to do if you lived in a rural area and had limited resources?  Now, we have access to apps, books, trade magazines, DVDs, online courses, webinars, forums, and websites full of information, all from the comfort of our own homes.

The problem with access to all of that information is that it is far too much for any one person to take in.  You may have the resources to learn all you want to, but so do your competitors, so there’s no room for complacency.  Thirty years ago, for example, a newspaper would have an editorial cartoonist on staff and that’s how they’d make their living, drawing one cartoon a day (sometimes less) for that one publication, spending the whole day working on one image, and not having to worry about sales, marketing, printing, promotion or local, national, and international competition, certainly not to the extent one must do so, today.

Most daily newspapers have dismissed their cartoonists and are opting for more regional, national and international syndicated cartoons and paying significantly less than they used to.  We are all familiar with this trend in every industry, so lamenting the fact is a useless exercise.  Adaptation is the order of the day in every profession.

With all of that information available and so many options, it can be easy to become anxious about where to put your efforts.  Ask ten freelancers which sites, organizations, and advice you should follow, and you’ll get an infinite number of answers.   If you dig a little deeper, you’ll discover that each of those ten freelancers is following the advice of ten other people, and everybody is just winging it, hoping to get enough work to pay the mortgage.

Put simply, you have to try new things and then evaluate their worth on your own.  Then you have to consider that something that worked for you yesterday might not work for you tomorrow.  Your own instinct will be your best guide.

For example, I’ve been a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals since September of 2004.  That’s quite a long time these days.  In addition to all I’ve learned about Photoshop, I’ve made invaluable contacts in the industry, and have formed lasting relationships with many people, a number of whom I consider good friends.  The investment in that membership has been very good for my career.

In recent years my skills have reached a point where I’m now in need of more advanced training and when the air gets a little thin, it’s tough to find that in any organization that must cater to a wide variety of skill levels.  That, coupled with the fact that today, NAPP’s focus is almost exclusively on photography, it has become obvious that there isn’t much left there for me anymore.

The friendships and connections, I take those with me, but when my membership expires next month, I won’t be renewing it.  It was a tough decision, but I based it on the question, “Had I not been a member for the past eight years, would I  join the organization today?”

The answer was an easy No. It isn’t that NAPP doesn’t have value for photographers, because it clearly does.  But I’m not a photographer.

While I had a good run and it was time and money well spent, I’m looking for other learning opportunities.  That being said, there’s still a good chance I’ll return to Photoshop World in Las Vegas next year.  Connecting with others, networking and spending time with other industry professionals is invaluable, not to mention that I always have a good time.  My experience teaching at the Wacom booth in September was great and I hope to repeat it again next year.  But I’ll be there on the periphery, not as an attendee.

So the message here is that continuing education as a freelancer is crucial to developing and maintaining a thriving career, but it’s up to you to find your own teachers,  a task that will never end.  You must constantly adapt to an environment that is changing so much faster than most can keep up with.  When something is working for you, get as much from it as you can.  When it stops contributing to your momentum and success, you need to cut it loose.

For now, my own path to continued education is uncertain, but I’ll keep looking to online courses, webinars, trade magazines and I’ll follow the art of other creatives, those who inspire me to be a better artist.  They say when the student is ready, the teacher shows up, so I’m not worried.

While I’m waiting, I’ll just keep working.  Practice makes perfect and even though I’ll never get there, I’m still aiming for it.

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You, Me, Them and Online

 

With limited or no knowledge of your background, skills, training, experience or business, there will always be somebody else painting a black and white picture of what your path to success should look like.  Nowhere is that more evident than when it comes to your online presence.  Too many experts pontificating on the right way to do things (the way they’re doing it) and the wrong way to do things (any other method they don’t like).

The questions each of us should ask ourselves are simple.  What are you putting energy into that isn’t giving you anything back?  What are you spending time on that is or isn’t worth the effort?

I’m not an expert.  I just play one online.  Here are some of my own answers.

Website ads:  It took years for it to happen, but my website gets plenty of traffic these days.  Some people advocate selling ads on the site to give you more revenue.  Personally, I don’t like seeing them on another person’s site, so I don’t put them on mine.  If I had a physical storefront on a main street, I wouldn’t block up my own window and doorway with billboards for other businesses, even if they were paying me.

Blogging: I love watching the ‘you should blog/blogging is dead’ argument that pops up now and then.  My take on blogging is simple.  I enjoy writing, I do it well enough, and I find that keeping what amounts to an online diary of my work to be an enjoyable process.  It’s interesting to look back on thoughts and perspectives I had a few years ago and compare them to what I think today.

If I didn’t enjoy writing, however, I wouldn’t keep a blog, no matter what anybody said, because it wouldn’t sound genuine.

Social Media:  When I joined Facebook, the goal seemed to be to get as many friends as I could and that would tell people whether I was popular or not.  That got old really fast.  So I started a business page.  Then I had to get those people that were friends to ‘like’ my business page.  Get as many ‘likes’ as I could and that would tell people how popular my business was. This becomes an exercise in groveling.  I didn’t like it.

After Facebook, came Twitter, LinkedIn, and eventually Google+, because other people said that’s what I was supposed to do.

Here’s what I know now.

I’ve put the brakes on my personal page and focused my energy on only having my business page.  I’ll include links to it in posts, give away prints from time to time and promote it when appropriate, but I’m no longer holding my hat out, getting people to ‘like’ it out of guilt.  It stinks of desperation.  I want people to like my page only if they like my work.

My personal page still keeps me connected to other people and the pages and information I like, and allows me to comment on those, so there is still value in having a personal page.  Connections are very important and interaction on social media is a two way street.

But you have to control your own experience.  Everybody has that one person that posts ten cat videos in a row, or is constantly picking a fight or complaining, or turns every one of your posts into an opportunity to further their own agenda.  I hide those people from my feed, block them or unfriend them and I don’t feel bad about it.  With a limited amount of energy available to me in a day, I can’t afford for social media drama to sap any of it.

Facebook gives me the most return for the time invested.  The people who follow my work there are the ones with whom I interact the most.  I get regular work and referrals from both new and repeat customers.

LinkedIn hasn’t done much for me, but then again, I haven’t done much with it.  I can say the same thing for Google+.  It costs me very little time to post my cartoons, blog links and other business related happenings to Facebook, Twitter and Google+, so I continue to do that.  But despite how many followers I have on all three, Facebook gives me the most interaction and traffic (the numbers don’t lie), Twitter a distant second, and Google+ a very dismal third, even though if you look at my profile, it shows the most followers out of all three.  For me, Google+ is quantity, not quality.

Too many people are flailing about trying to be everything to everybody and following every bit of advice that’s offered them, even when it ends up being completely contradictory.  There is safety in numbers, which is why sheep and other animals will form a herd.   But, if safety were my biggest concern, I’d still be working for somebody else, and wouldn’t have left the herd in the first place.

So here’s one more bit of advice, which you are free to ignore.  Take a moment to look at your online presence with fresh eyes.  Take a breath.  Then ask yourself what’s working for you and what isn’t.  If something is paying off, helping your business grow and showing promise, then keep doing that.  For everything else, cut it loose, despite what ‘the experts’ are saying.  Adapt, move forward, and ignore the herd.

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The Hidden Power of Blend Modes in Adobe Photoshop

http://www.adobepress.com/ShowCover.asp?isbn=0321823761

While Adobe Photoshop can easily be called the most versatile imaging toolbox on the market, it is a monster piece of software and monsters are often frightening.  With so many features and often multiple methods of accomplishing similar tasks, it can be very intimidating for even the most experienced user.  Because of that, there is an abundance of training resources on the market, from large phone book manuals that try to tell you everything to books that dissect specific features in the software.

Trying to learn everything there is to know about Photoshop is an exercise in futility.  True there are a number of experts out there who know a lot more than the average person, but even the most educated and skilled of those professionals will agree that there is always something more to learn.

Even though my use of Photoshop is limited to what I do, which has very little to do with photos, I’m constantly looking for new ways to improve my painting skills and to streamline how I work.  Speed and efficiency applies to art as much as it does to technical operations, especially when you venture into the land of commercial art and deadlines.

I don’t recall when I started using blend modes in Photoshop, but I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t, so it has been awhile.  There isn’t a painting, editorial cartoon, or illustration that I do these days that hasn’t been touched by at least one blend mode during the process.  The four blend modes I use most in my work are Soft Light, Multiply, Screen, and Color.  In fact, I even have Actions set up in my Wacom Tablet Radial Menu for them.  If your eyes are starting to glaze over, don’t worry about it.  This happens to a lot of people when you start breaking down the building blocks of images in Photoshop.

The thing about blend modes is that the more you dig into them, the more uses you find for them.  Scott Valentine’s new book, “The Hidden Power of Blend Modes in Adobe Photoshop,”  from Adobe Press,  has answered a need that a lot of people likely didn’t realize they had.

With Photoshop evolving every 18 months or so, anybody who uses it has to keep learning and the information in Scott’s book is as current as you’re going to find.  But even if you don’t have the latest version of Photoshop (CS6), you’ll be able to apply the knowledge to previous versions, as blend modes have been around for awhile.

So what are blend modes?  It’s funny, but if you’d asked me that question before I read Scott’s book, you’d have been met with a long pause.  The truth is, I had a good idea of what blend modes are, I knew what they did and how to use them for my own work, but I really wouldn’t have given you an answer that would have left you satisfied.  Today, my answer would be this book.

Without going through chapter by chapter, I’ll simply say that Scott has done an excellent job of breaking down what blend modes are and how to use them.  He gives very technical information for those who want it, but he also offers explanations for those who don’t.

No matter how you use Photoshop, you’ll find a reason to try blend modes, but without real world examples from different disciplines, it would be easy to get lost in the information and you might fail to see the practical uses.  In this book, Scott has assembled Photoshop professionals from a number of digital creative mediums to show how they use blend modes in their own work.  In other training materials I’ve seen, you usually only get one professional’s perspective, opinion and methods.  While there is value in that, it’s great to see how many ways others use blend modes, because one artist may offer a technique that is of no use to you, but the next one could reveal the buried treasure you’ve been looking for.

In the interest of full disclosure, my own blend mode techniques are featured in this book.  I was happy to offer some of my tips for using blend modes in cartooning, painting and illustration, but even without my small contribution, I would have still bought this book.  I’ve been through it a couple of times and I’ve no doubt I’ll continue to reference it, because I learned a lot about a feature I already thought I knew.  Turns out I had just scratched the surface.

What this book does very well is reveal possibilities.  Rather than give you a step-by-step for one procedure or just give you tips and tricks, “The Hidden Power of Blend Modes in Adobe Photoshop” shows you solutions that can be applied to a number of problems, even if you don’t know what those are yet.

I’m not exaggerating when I say I’d be very disappointed if I was no longer able to use blend modes in my work.  It would take longer to do my work and painting light and shadow (which is what I primarily use them for) would feel less dynamic and more difficult.  I’m certain there are more uses for blend modes in my own work than I am currently using and I will be looking to this book to help me find them.

The tools for art and creativity are like anything else.  When you first begin to use them, you may feel awkward and it’ll take some time before you develop any finesse in your methods.  When it comes to developing that skill with Photoshop, I’d recommend giving blend modes a closer look.  Scott’s book is the best resource I’ve seen to help you do that.

To find out more and to purchase the book, follow this link to Adobe Press.

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Otter Totem

This is my latest painting, the Otter Totem.  Under normal circumstances, I’d publish this post on the same day that I finish the painting.  In this case, however, I was a little swamped with other deadlines and it kept moving down on the priority list.  But better late than never.

This Totem was done in about a week, which is the fastest I’ve ever painted one of these.  While I’m sure the hours spent were close to the same as prior Totems, I had a few very late nights and early mornings, largely due to the fact that this was being used in another deadline, a painting video for Wacom.  Despite the quick turnaround, I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.  As I’ve said many times before, I don’t pre-plan the expressions and they’re often as much a surprise to me as they are to anybody else.  The personality just seems to ‘show up’ at some point during the painting and I just go with it.  In this instance, the personality was there very early on and I really loved the curiously goofy face that emerged as I spent more and more time on the details.

This was also my first painting on the new Wacom Cintiq24HD and the experience of painting on this display was very enjoyable.  While I’ve never had any complaints about the Intuos tablets for painting, I just felt a lot more connected to the brush strokes with my pen directly on the screen.  I’ve always enjoyed digital painting and never felt that I was missing any of the tools I needed to get my best work onto the canvas.  The Cintiq, however, gave me something I didn’t know I was missing and improved the experience.

As for that video for Wacom, it is part of something else that will be coming a little later on, but they posted it on their YouTube channel, which means I’m able to post it here as well.  If you haven’t seen it already, it shows a high speed time lapse of the Otter Totem, from start to finish.  The narrative is aimed at traditional artists who might be considering the digital medium, but haven’t yet taken the plunge.

Enjoy!