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By Timothy Piotrowski, January 6, 2010 8:56 am

Last year in March I got laid off from my production artist job at a big educational publishing company. And I was fine with that, and I went on unemployment and my husband has a full time, good paying job, so we were going to be alright. And I thought, now is another chance to do my thing. I’ve always wanted to be a freelancer, even if I was just making enough money to not have to get a 9-5 job. I’ve done that most of my working life, and it’s just not for me.

Since then, I’ve learned a lot about being a freelancer, and getting work, so I thought I would write about that.

Network

By networking, I mean with others who are trying or are doing what you want to do. I learned this from personal experience and from reading the book, My So Called Freelance Life, by Michelle Goodman. I started going to figure drawing groups which lead to getting to know other artists and making connections. This kind of network gives you support and information. Got a problem with a client, ask your fellow artists if they have ever had that problem and what happened, how did they work it out? You may also get work. If someone is to busy to take on a new client or a client wants something they don’t do, they may recommend you. Your style might be just what they are looking for.

Not to mention, it’s awesome to be able to talk shop with friends who do what you do. It’s a real learning process, hanging out with others. The figure drawing groups gives me a social and creative outlet. I’ve seen my skills improve with just the once a week meetings, and now I’m looking for other outlets for this same type of activity.

Use the Internet to your advantage. Facebook and twitter are great for networking. Twitter more so, I think. Find artists that you like who twitter. Follow them. I’ve gotten several jobs via twitter. Artists fall through and sometimes people will twitter looking for an artist. I responded, we chatted and I got some work. For me, I follow people in the comics industry, and comic authors mostly. Someone that draws comics isn’t going to need a cartoonist often, maybe a colorist.

Facebook is a great way to show off your art. More on that below.

Actually do what you love, regardless of pay

You have to work at what you want to do. The people that seem to create effortlessly, probably do so because they spend much time creating. Want to draw, then you need to draw. Want to paint, then you need to paint. Much like how you learned to write, repetition is the key. You learned to write your ABCs by writing rows and rows of letters, the same goes here.

It’s not often that we get work that can also translate into a portfolio piece for whatever reason. So when not working, work on something for your portfolio, that you feels shows off your abilities. I know, it’s hard to just come up with ideas. Pick up a magazine that uses a lot of illustrators, pick an article you like, and come up with your own take on how to illustrate it.

Working all the time, for me teaches me how to do things better, work faster, and keep my focus for longer periods of time. That’s something I can have trouble with, keeping my focus. I’ve come up with tricks to try and help keep that. My favorite, set a timer, and you aren’t allowed to do anything but the task at hand till the timer goes off. I generally find that I will be at a point that I don’t want to stop when the timer goes off, and end up working a few more minutes. Then take a little break, check your emails, and all that, then set the timer again.

Show your work

I hear to often from people that they don’t like what they did, and don’t show their work. You will never get feedback, nor will anyone stumble on your work if you never show it. Unless you tell people, they will never know that what you ended up with, wasn’t what you had in mind. One rule I have, work a piece until it’s done, regardless of how it’s coming out. If it’s for myself, I don’t stop and start over, I work through. And I try to learn from it. Finishing a piece is important lesson to learn. That’s another thing I hear from people, they don’t finish what they are working on.

If you get an online portfolio, don’t let people know about it till it’s ready. That means no sections with “Content to come”. Just don’t put that section up. You can always add it later. Having multiple sections on your site isn’t going to make you look any better to clients, but empty sections make you look unprofessional. If all you have is 10 samples of your work and a resume, put that up and make it easy for someone to look at it. Don’t put an entry page, go right to the main attraction. Don’t put a blog if you really don’t intend to blog save once a month at best.

It doesn’t take much work to post something once a week and it can’t be “So, not much to say this week”. If you are drawing/sketching/painting/whatever several times a week, post that and talk about it. Did you like what you did, any realizations about it? Do you feel you improved? And try and keep it professional. Personal is fine, so long as it’s not bitching. Really complaining about the world at large and all it’s injustices are best suited for a private personal blog.

Can’t afford a site of your own, or a professional one? Use facebook, and make a fan page, or deviantART to at least get your work out there. The thing with these is that some art directors don’t go to these places to find work, but might be willing to go look if they ask you for samples. It’s best to just have your own site I think.

Those are three things I learned well the past year, trying to feed myself as a freelancer. Hope it helps.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, December 17, 2009 6:17 am

It’s Thursday morning, so that means figure drawing. This is the last for the year, we won’t be having any sessions during the holidays, and the first week of January, I’ll be in Boston. There will still be art posted. Just not figure drawing.

We tried something new this week, a 5 minute pose, where the model picks a pose, and every 5 seconds, changes the pose slightly, by moving an arm or a leg, so there is something similar from pose to pose. It’s an interesting exercise, and I recommend trying it. However, I’m not posting anything from that, while interesting to do, it’s not as interesting to look at.

I started going to the drawing group back in April of 2009. Back then it was every two weeks, and eventually it went up to once a week. While you should try and draw every day, even once a week figure drawing makes a noticeable difference. As seen as below.

The knee and leg on the left side are so over worked. What is there is what I saw, but my execution of it wasn’t correct. The proportions are good in both, but I know, it was a lot more work to get them in on the left. There was a lot more sketch in, take out, adjust. I have my own list of things to focus on and to learn, such as facial features/expressions, hands and feet. How lighting works on the body.  I’ve definitely seen an improvement in those areas. When learning to draw the figure, it’s a natural reaction to try and avoid drawing hands and feet, but if you do, how are you ever going to draw them correctly? The solution, draw the figure big enough so that feet don’t fit on the page! Uh, no. Learn to fit the figure on the page.

Between then and now, I’ve changed the way I hold my pencil.

The suggestion came from my friend Marc, who is an amazing artist. It’s something I’ve read in books and knew was a better way to hold your drawing tool. I just never really done it. The way you normally hold a pencil is a very natural way to hold it. But holding it the other way, quickly becomes as natural. It also gives you a wider range of movement, and the ability to make bold lines, fine lines, shading just about any mark you need to make.

During the break, I talked with the other group organizer, Kristen. The subject was, when do you stop having to measure out like you learned in school, when does it become automatic. I doubt it ever does. Oh you probably get really good and make less mistakes along the way. There are always adjustments. I passed on the advice from Marc to Kristen, about how to hold your pencil. Because it really does make a difference in what you can do. I can’t remember if I was ever told this when I was in art school.

And getting used to holding your pencil like this doesn’t take much time at all.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, December 10, 2009 11:00 am

After a two week break, we got our figure drawing back on last night. At first, I just wasn’t hitting it. It was a new model, so I wasn’t as familiar with her body as I was with past models. It might have been that it’s been two weeks since the last session, even though I’ve been doing drawing and such at home. But the final pose, which we gave a hour for, I felt I really got the form down, though I wish I had paid more attention to the stairs and surroundings in my drawing, I feel I crapped them out.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, November 19, 2009 7:16 am

It’s Thursday, so that means last night I was at my weekly figure drawing group. We used a new space last night, which was a combination studio/living area for several people, so it was very eclectic, 100% awesome. Wanna see? Of course I took a pano of the space!

Click to see larger

I felt it was a very good session for me. I focused more on cleaner lines, more confidence in when I make my marks. I think it really paid off. I feel I’m getting better proportions, and more in. I bought a bigger sketchbook, so I’m not cutting off hands and feet so much. If I have one rule during these sessions, it’s to NOT cop out on the hands and feets and heads.

So, if you find your normal drawing size doesn’t work with the sketch book you have, get a larger one. Mine is a little larger then a laptop, and it fits into my backpack. Finding the tools and materials that you feel work well for you is so important.

And now, some drawings, click to enlarge:

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By Timothy Piotrowski, November 17, 2009 9:05 am

Some times, trying to draw every day, is hard because you think, what to draw. I could certainly draw my husband every night, as he watches tv or reads, or catches up with people on Bookface.

But one thing I seldom do, is find photo references and work from that. See, for some reason, it’s taken me a long time to work that into my workflow process. And it’s a concept I fully understand. it’s not so much about copying, but having a reference source for what you are drawing. Lets say you need to draw an old wrinkly women. You can sit there, trying to visualize what wrinkles on a face look like, or just go find some examples and ta da! Thank you google images.

So, I also play Dungeons and Dragons, and I thought, it would be fun to draw some of the people in the city where the players are currently living as a visual aid for the players. I had ideas on what they looked like in my head, and started sketching things down. And of course, when I wasn’t quite getting what I saw, or having to make a lot of changes, I thought, what a great time to go to the intrawebz, and find some reference material!

In one case, I liked the top half of the face for the drunk I wanted to draw, but I didn’t see him having a full beard. I found another face I liked the mouth and jaw, so quickly photoshopped them together, and I had a good reference for my drunk.

Here are the sketches.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, November 12, 2009 9:33 am

Yesterday was Wednesday, which means more figure drawing! Next week might be our last time in the space we use for December, as the owner will be traveling during that time. So we are already looking for a new space. Last night we had the largest group so far, 12-13 people. So it would be great to try and keep this going, since we are building a very nice group of people.

My friend Marc, encouraged me to try sketching a different way, to break out of my mold and habits, and push myself. Namely, to not be so scribbly with my lines, but to draw the shape in one line. First, you get more drawing in, since you aren’t spending all this time on line.

It’s something I’m working towards, not belaboring the work. I’m not looking for perfection mind you. But I do want to be able to draw what I want, and not overwork it. To that effect, I’m going to apply some advice I tell people who ask me, how do you draw? You practice. Just like you learned to write letters and numbers, drawing is similar. You must practice. You must train your hand to do what you want it to. That’s the simplisty of it, I think. Yes there are a lot of other factors, but I honestly think that is the basic concept.

So here are two sketches from last night, and the long 40 minute pose.

10 minute sketches.

40 minuge pose

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By Timothy Piotrowski, November 5, 2009 8:28 am

Last night was a very good night for drawing, at my weekly figure drawing group. I’m really happy with the progress I’m making. I would like to increase the number of times a week I go to a figure drawing group, and I’ve found several others that I’m going to start checking out. It helps when you have a good model, and Shawna (I think that’s her name) was great. She does very good poses, she brought props, such as little crystal globes, scarfs and fun hats. And she does something with puppets, I will have to find out what, and if she does puppet shows.

Two ten minute sketches. I liked the proportions I got, with minimal correcting.

Five minute drawings

This 20 minute drawing was my favorite last night. I just wanted to capture her with the scarf around her head, and I think I manged to do just that.

I will admit upfront, I tweaked this in Photoshop. The drawing came out fine, but I was having trouble with the interaction between pencil and paper. The paper is some what smooth, and I'll lightly sand it, to give it some texture, and then tone the page. I've done it on previous drawings, so I can have more depth. So what you see is what I intended, but the materials didn't execute as well as I hoped, so I'm going to have to find some pencils that work well on this paper. I'm using a single sketch book for the longer poses, so I don't want to start a new book for that, till I've filled this one.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, October 31, 2009 3:49 am

With my new goal of drawing every day, here is one of the things I worked on yesterday. I didn’t actually draw, like I intended to, but there is a tie in to drawing.

I’m up to do the coloring for an 8 page comic for the next Nation X Anthology, and I had to submit samples. I got asked to submit more samples. I’ve done some coloring work, submitted all that, and some of my own stuff, but my own stuff isn’t the kind of stuff Marvel publishes. The art above is from a book I’m coloring that won’t be done for some time.

So over Thursday and Friday, I put together more samples, asking other cartoonist friends for line work that I could color. I think my second set of samples came out better then the first set I sent. And I noticed that attending the figure drawing group has definitely made a noticeable difference. The shading on this and the other pieces came out extremely well. Very happy with it!

Drawing is pretty much the basis of good painting, and cartooning. Sure you don’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to look real, you just need to be able to make your drawing convey what you want it to say.

Now I have lots of coloring samples, so I’m going to put up a coloring section on the comics page.