BEGINNINGS WITH FREELANCING: AN ANTI-GUIDE

Who likes reading "failure-stories"? Everyone of ourse! It just so happens that I have one for you today. It could be titled “A Freelance Illustrator - My Ineffective Way to Financial Independence” (not very catchy, I know).

The story takes place about 5 years ago, when I earned a Master’s diploma in architecture and could finally start to develop my illustrator’s career. I had knowledge about design, drawing skills, tons of energy and... a business plan! What could go wrong? Well, pretty much everything.

My business plan looked more or less like this (don’t try this at home!):

1. An illustrator needs an online portfolio. But wait… I already have a well-developed portfolio on DeviantArt, hurray!

2. Writing a blog is a great way to present yourself to your watchers and potential clients. Naturally hundreds of people would wait impatiently for every new post (because they have absolutely nothing else to do) and I’d surely earn some money of it (there are many professional bloggers, right?).

3. Now the most important point: I should join a team of awesome, experienced and enterprising people. They will create a super-popular product (a game/book/music CD/whatsoever), and hire me as an illustrator. Well, “hire” is not the most precise word, as I would work on a profit share basis, but that’s ok! This super project will surely be my springboard to success, make me recognizable and... bring me money.

4. And one more brilliant thought at that time: Even if I won’t earn serious money, that’s fine, because I love drawing sooo much.

...........................................................................................................

However, there were a few small bugs in my elaborate plan:

1. If you want to do something professionally, you have to make an impression of a professional. While DeviantArt is a great (and highly addictive) platform for social networking with other art lovers, it’s not the best place to show yourself and your works to potential clients. Let’s be honest, all these emoticons (which I love) and a little bit chaotic interface don’t make a great impression at first sight.

TIP: Make your own website and/or create an online portfolio on www.behance.net . Behance is a great place to present your projects and resume in a professional way and I got many good job offers from people who found my works there https://www.behance.net/ElwiraPawlikowska .

2. Most of the people earning money through blogs are those who write about… earning money through blogs. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but in case of illustrators it doesn’t really work anyway. However an idea of running a blog to let your watchers know you better is still fine! Who knows, maybe they will be keen to support you in your future endeavours?

3. I could write a whole dissertation about absurdity of working on a profit share basis (unless we’re talking about gigantic, well established publishers). First of all, if someone is unable to collect money for an illustrator, he/she won’t be able to run the project and the marketing process in order to make the product popular. Marketing a product requires strong entrepreneurial abilities and people with such abilities are able to gain some money to pay an illustrator for the job, trust me (or not, the choice is yours J )! So, by “working” on profit-share basis for a group of enthusiasts (yes, yes, it applies even to those super-experienced guys who have been developing discussed project since high school) you are going to achieve neither glory nor decent money. To discourage you even more  I’ll mention, that (based on my own experience) many such projects are NEVER EVER PUBLISHED. Eventually they are printed on demand and thus, they reach only friends and families of creators (which means no new fans, as your mom already knows that you’re brilliant J).

A SUPER IMPORTANT TIP: If you want to expand your portfolio, focus on your own projects. Illustrations attracting most clients to me are my personal works:

4. There is no rule saying that you are entitled to monetary compensation only if you hate your job. Unless you want to live with your parents for the rest of your (or their) life, you just have to earn money from what you’re doing. Good luck!

PS: Right now I'm doing fine J

If you found these reflections valuable somehow, you’re very welcome to share this article!

Frequently Asked Questions

“One is expected to show a bit of eccentricity to be interesting. Otherwise one is simply a sad old crone, and no one wants that, you know.” 

"The Ice Princess", Camilla Läckberg

Today I'm celebrating 50.000 views of my blog! I thought that it might be an occasion for you- dear readers and watchers- to "get to know" me a little better. So! Somewhere in the top left corner of your screens you can see me working hard. And below you can read Top 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions  (questions I've been asked by wonderfully inquiring people who stumbled upon my works or under interviews) along with my answers. Maybe you'll find them interesting or useful:

1. When did you start to be interested in illustrating?

Since childhood I've been surrounded by books about art (very classic, traditional art to be precise).  I really loved to browse through them. However it was a "passive" interest.

My "active" interest in making illustrations began when I came into contact with fantasy games and books in a high school.

2. Where and when did you learn drawing?

I began to learn drawing at the age of 18 (some of you may think that it's quite late). I was attending drawing classes to pass entrance exams for Warsaw Faculty of Architecture. Then, during studies I had a broad spectrum of art classes (drawing, painting, sculpting, study of colors, digital graphics etc). It was a valuable base for practicing at home. Even more important were classes from architectural design and history of architecture. These enabled me to draw detailed buildings and landscapes from imagination.

3. For how long have you been working as a freelance illustrator?

I'm a freelance illustrator since graduating from Faculty of Architecture (2011).

4. Which artists inspire you most?

Old masters:  L. da Vinci, A. Dürer and G. B. Piranesi. Their sketches brilliantly presented the whole process of "constructing" their works (the visible guide lines). On the other hand my favorite painter is Zdzisław Beksiński. He was able to create a mood which can be easily felt, even though it can be hardly described with words.

5. What are your other inspirations:

On the first place I'd say long walks. My thoughts flow the most freely when I'm walking. Moreover: dark and melodic music, fantasy books, historical buildings.

6. What techniques/tools do you use in creating your work?

-watercolor paper: yellowish Canson Colorline and white Daler-Rowney (300g)
- watercolors (in tubes and bars)

-a waterproof Faber-Castell's "PITT artist pen", size S

- Rotring's Artpens, various sizes. They're quite handy and allow to draw fine, stylish lines

- mechanical pencil, size 0.5

- After scanning I use Photoshop, mostly to set the colors/contrasts and add a text

7. What does your creative process look like? 

1. Usually the first step is "brainstorming". In a relatively short period of time I browse through plenty of photos and illustrations related somehow to my task. The purpose is being in the right creative mood, not searching particular references.

2. Then I make about dozen of thumbnail sketches just for myself. If it's a commission I often send about 3 more detailed sketches to the customer to get a better idea of his/her expectations.

 3. And then the whole fun begins. A delicate pencil sketch helps me to set the right composition. Then it's time for a more precise pen drawing and finally watercolors can be used.

4. Sometimes it happens that I'm not really satisfied with the color scheme and I need to redraw the whole work.

 5. If the original looks fine, it is scanned and edited digitally to prepare it for example for printing.

What can be said in few sentences may actually take me several days.

8. What are the biggest advantages of being a freelance illustrator?

1. The most important for me: continuous development of skills.

2. A very positive feedback from foreign people from various parts of the world. It's really motivating and uplifting.

3. Quite low level of stress.

4. Freedom in managing time.

9. What are the biggest disadvantages of being a freelance illustrator?

1. Uncertainty in economic matters. Very low earnings at the beginning (at least in case of the vast majority of cases).

2. Sporadic direct contact with other people. My contact with customers is usually limited to e-mails, less often to Skype talks.

Not so many after all :)

10. Did you always wanted to be an artist? What would you be doing if you weren't an illustrator?

For a short period of time I  wanted to be a garbage collector (big cars + working in the open air). Then I wanted to be an archeologist or paleontologist as I'm fascinated by the past.

If I weren't an illustrator, I'd be an architect as that's my learned profession.

Motivators

As I promissed a few days ago (or maybe as I planned a few days ago ), here's the next part of the article about making plans and executing them. Acoording to my assumptions there are three factors for succeding  in realizing a plan: 
-a logical, specific and feasible plan
-motivation
-luck (or at least lack of bad luck)

Here I'll focus on the second factor - motivation. My main motivation is fear (I know, most psychologists would conclude that it's a bad motivator). It's fear of not taking full advantage of my opportunities, fear of  mediocrity, misery and wasting of the only life I have. Believe me, it's a very strong inner motivator (however I'm still quite far away from achieving my all goals). And there are also many external motivators. Here are some of them!  

MOTIVATORS HELPING IN EXECUTING YOUR PLANS:

1. Writing down plans in a notebook. It should make you feel obliged to fulfill them, right? From that point they are not elusive, unspoken thoughts, but clear and real plans.

2. Telling your friends and family about your plans (in brief, it's a hardcore version of point 1.). It may seem to be a  very effective motivator, but it's also risky, if you won't choose the right listener. Honestly, I never do that. I've got a  very personal attitude to my plans and I don't need any additional incentives in the form of a possible shame in front of  acquaintances. Furthermore many people (including my relatives and mates) tend to have an ambivalent attitude to everything exceeding mediocrity and everyday life. Thus, their reaction can be more demotivating than uplifting.

3. Writing about your not personal plans online. This is a wonderful motivator! It would be kind of unprofessional not to fulfill what has been announced in front of at least hundreds of people.  Usually I get tremendous support from people , I haven't met in person, which really fills me with energy to work.

4. Developing a personal system of rewards and punishments for respectively efficient performance of a task and failure in performing a task (I limit myself to reward system :) ). My prizes are very small, like: "you can watch an episode of your favorite TV program", "have a coffee break",  "eat a muffin", or "you can watch an episode of your favorite TV program  while drinking coffee and eating a muffin" (excellent!).

In the next few entries I'll focus on presenting my latest illustrations, so there won't be so much to read. And that's a plan! 

How to Make Plans and Stick to Them?

Are freelance jobs a good fit for scatterbrained, unorganized people, who have problems with motivating themselves to get out of bed before noon? For some strange reason I was thinking so...  and I was wrong. I'm afraid, that for those people the perfect  "occupation" is being a proud heir of a fortune. Whereas those, who want to be masters of their time but still have to earn a living, need to be able to plan and organize.

Presumably there are  very few people with a natural talent for being well-organized. Mere mortals have to prepare an action plan to evaluate, segregate and arrange individual steps for achieving their goals. 

THREE STEPS OF PLANNING:

Planning system doesn't have to be very sophisticated. I've never been good at making multi-color notes, drawing schedules on a paper bigger than me  or hanging a whole bunch of notes on a corkboard.  My method is quite simple and not very visionary. But it has one strong point - it works!*

*(at least for me)

It's based on a system of long term goals and short term goals and it can be created in a standard planner (even if my long-term goals refer to the much more distant future). At the end of such planner there is usually a place for some notes, which I use for setting long-term goals. And that's THE FIRST STEP. Long term goals can be very general, like: "a stable source of income as a freelance illustrator" or "a healthier lifestyle". At first it may look like a wish list, letters to Santa Claus or a storytelling, but that's fine at this stage.

THE SECOND STEP is a closer defining of long-term goals and an attempt to transfer them into a sequence of short-term goals. It should help you to understand what your long term goals actually mean to you, for example does "a healthier lifestyle" means a better diet, more exercises, less stress or moving to a quieter place? Short-term goals should follow long-term goals and lead to achieving them. Let's say that to have "a stable source of income" you plan to establish cooperation with a few book publishers. Simplifying for the blog's purposes, the plan could look like this:

1 Creating a relevant portfolio.

2 Making a contact list of various publishers.

3 Preparing your own branding.

These actions can be loosely written on a separate page dedicated to a specific  month.

THE THIRD STEP involves dividing issues from the previous step into specific actions, estimating the time required to perform them and assigning them to specific days (and even hours) in a planner.

Regarding 1: Six children illustrations - one every two weeks. Estimated time - three months.

Regarding 2: Estimated time-a week (assuming, that you have other daily responsibilities).

Regarding 3: Building a website, sorting sample illustrations, preparing CV, resume and cover letters in a consistent style. Estimated time - two weeks.

That's how a vague idea of "having a stable income source" starts to take a clearer shape in a realistic time frame.

ADDITIONAL LOOSE TIPS:

1. It's easier to forget about writing an email than about drawing something, so I mark  all the tasks related with contacting people with "!".

2. After completing a task I mark it with "+" . If the task hasn't been completed, then... well, it shall be crossed out and moved to another day. It may seem that I have quite long delays, but I don't because:

3. I make plans for only 5 days/week. However, if some of my tasks haven't been completed on initially planned time, I tend to work also on weekends. It could lead to workaholism, unless:

4. I reserve some time for relaxing activities, like "10.00pm.-Midnight - reading a book" or Saturday 10.00am.-1.00pm.-a long walk + lunch in the park.

5. It's a good practice to have your planner/notebook with you. All the ideas for drawings can be written down in it as soon as they appear. From time to time (once every 3-4 months) I browse through these ideas to check, if they still seem so splendid as when I was writing them down.

Formulating a plan is one thing. The other thing is motivation to execute it. It would be an extremely long article, so MOTIVATORS HELIPING IN EXECUTING YOUR PLANS will be described later on this week.

New Year's Resolutions

It's never too late for New Year's resolutions... or maybe, rather, it's never too late for resolutions in general.  

Honestly, I've never made them before. I'm always feeling  downcast and burnt out at the end of the year and even more depressed at the beginning of the year.  At that time my future appears as a  sequence of disasters and failures, with no possibility of improving, but with many opportunities for deterioration. The advantage of this situation is that the worse my mood is, the better my works are (Hipp Hipp Hurray!) - strange but true.

After this short, personal digression, we can go straight to the point - my resolutions for this year:

1. to make a few  illustrations with people* (no problem,  this should be feasible)

*amendment: to make a few good illustrations with people (ok,  I'll do my best)

2. to make some character designs* (easy part)

*side note: these designs should be outstanding... or at least interesting (aha, here's the catch)

3. to write regular  blog entries* (yes ma'am)

*side note: "regular" means at least twice a month (hmmm, what's next?)

4. to develop abilities in digital speed paintings (absolutely!)

5. to start a video blog about drawing/painting (great, I was afraid that I would have to sing or dance)

6. to find a mysterious way to work more effectively and keep the right work-life balance (tough challenge)

7. to stop talking to myself (that was cruel...)

What a short blog entry! In the next article I'll describe how I make long-term and short-term plans and how I actually keep them :)

A Short Interview

Last week I was aked to share on my blog a little more information about me as an illustrator/painter. I got 5 tricky questions (just kidding) from a fellow artist Patience Brewster . Hopefully the answers are informative and who knows, maybe even interesting :)

1. As a child, do you recall a significant moment when you felt truly affected or inspired by any particular artwork or artist?

I don't think there was such a specific moment. Almost since I was born I've been constantly surrounded by books about art and I really loved to browse through them. My favorite ones were those about Old Masters:  Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. I have a  mathematical brain, so complicated designs of Piranesi's prisons and technical thoughts of da Vinci made an enormous impression on me. 

2. As an artist, what do you hope to convey with your work?

I'm fairly introverted, so my personal works are results of an inner pressure to capture what's happening in my mind. Especially in the past I loved to retreat into my inner world and imagine wandering through unknown realms and fantastical buildings. Painting was helping me to make them more "touchable" and real somehow. It may sound kind of egoistically, but I wasn't thinking about potential viewers back then. 

Nowadays personal projects  are largely sidelined in favor of commissioned artworks and in these cases I'm just making the best illustrations I can.

3. What memorable responses have you had to your work?

Most of responses I get are really worth remembering so I regret I don't have a better memory...

Probably the most (literally) memorable response is a tattoo based on my "Butterflies Tree", which one brave girl have on her back. She sent me a photo. Impressive!

In general it's really uplifting when my works are perceived as useful somehow.  For example when they take someone on a trip to imaginative places and help to forget about real-life problems for a while. 

Recently I was really glad to receive this comment: "There's a stark, grim chill present in your work that feels almost like Dr. Seuss, Edward Gorey and Edgar Allan Poe had a baby."

4. What is your dream project?

One of them is related with my personal paintings and it's kind of secret :) 

The second one would be making environment and architectural designs for some big projects: movies or complex video games. It would be great to see how, in cooperation with other specialists, ideas initially captured on two-dimensional sheets of paper are getting alive.

5. What artists, of any medium, do you admire? (Famous or not!)

My favorite painter was, is and always will be Zdzisław Beksiński. Actually his paintings inspired me to study Architecture (just like he did). Moreover on my list there are previously mentioned Old Masters. Finally I must also name Caspar David Friedrich and Lars Lerin due to their technical skills and an unique atmosphere in their works.

Animations

“Don’t ever get old. (...) The only thing to hope for is that you get so senile that you think you’re twenty years old again. That would be fun to relive.” 

Camilla Läckberg, "The Ice Princess"

I guess that all my personal works have one common denominator. Namely, they present solitary realms, environments frozen in stillness, as if life was on hold.

In the past painting such places was a kind of autotherapy or  an escape from reality. Materializing thoughts on paper made my inner world more "real", though the results were still quite ephemeral. 

Lately I decided to make something new with these environments by giving them some life. Just like here:

Bored with this introduction? In short: I made animations based on my previous paintings.

1. https://vimeo.com/130967262 - a full-length version (almost 3 minutes!) tells a story about a brave, tireless voyager who is traveling the world and looking for an inspiration (she is in the top left corner of this post actually).

2. https://vimeo.com/130965397  - a shortened version is a little bit more serious presentation of my works (a kind of an animated portfolio with a quite atmospheric music).

HD QUALITY IS RECOMMENDED.

I don't want to promise that I'll be posting videos regularly, but any support, comments and subscriptions to my Vimeo channel (https://vimeo.com/elwirapawlikowska) will be very very welcome and appreciated.

Good books about drawing/painting/illustrating?

When I'm trying to define what had the greatest influence on my decision to become an illustrator I think back to my childhood. From an early age I was literally surrounded by books about art. My father was (and actually still is) buying tones of such albums (even if some of them are written in languages he doesn't understand). 

Personally I prefer books focused on strictly defined topics. This unfortunately means that what is "incredibly valuable" for me, can be "not-oh-so-useful" for others.

Hopefully I haven't discourage you from further reading... Some books greatly influenced my approach to illustration and helped in developing my skills. Here they are:

"Fantasy Art Workshop" brilliantly written by John Howe. The author have not only presented stages of development of his illustrations along with a whole bunch of tips, but he also described his professional path and gave valuable information about freelancing.

 "Drawing & Painting Fantasy Landscapes & Cityscapes" by Rob Alexander and Martin McKenna. The subject couldn't  fit me better! It's an  inspiring set of works created by Rob Alexander and other fantasy artists, enriched with presentation of creating process . Moreover it contains tips on basics in art (composition, color theory, capturing the right mood etc.) and description of elements of landscape and various types of fantasy places (naturally with examples). 

"Painting Spectacular Light Effects in Watercolor" by Paul Jackson. This book proves that watercolor works don't have to be delicate, blurry and bright. Quite the contrary, they can be very dark, extremely detailed and hyperrealistic. It changed my attitude to watercolors a lot! The process of creating masterpieces (yes, MASTERPIECES) were presented very clearly, step by step.

"Drawing and Painting the UNDEAD" by Keith Thompson. I bought this book a few years ago as a Christmas gift for my younger sister. I haven't expected then, that it can be so valuable also for me (even though I've never drawn the Undead). What captivated me most was a very well described concept process based on strong logical thinking. The way the author analyzed all the factors combined with his artistic skills contributed to very interesting and inspiring results.

"Naturlära" by Lars Lerin. I suppose that so far the book was published only in Swedish. Anyway hundreds of watercolor works done from nature are just breathtaking. You can find there all aspects of nature: from Swedish winter landscapes to... dead fish.

"Anatomy for the Artist" by Jenő Bartsay - an absolute classic released first in 1953.  It contains over 140 pages filled with very accurate and aesthetic sketches of bones, muscles and other parts of a human body. I haven't done all the exercises yet, frankly speaking I'm not even close to the end, but I'm not going to give up!

And most of all I'd like to recommend countless albums about:
-renaissance artists (and their technical approach to artworks),  
-baroque artists (and their extraordinary focus on chiaroscuro),
-landscape paintings form 19th century (and their amazing atmosphere).

As you can see, there is none strictly about perspective among them. If any of you encountered such a book, let me know! Or maybe you know other good books about art?