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1. Do not leave your Sketchbook where your child can find it.  2. Do not moisturize your hands when you are working.  3. Do not drop your Peanut Butter Sandwich on your drawing. Even better - do not eat a Peanut Butter Sandwich on your desk at all. Or anything else for that matter.  4. Do not rinse your brushes in your tea. (And Don't Worry, Tea Happy.)  5. Do not drink the Brush Water. Cheers!  Simply avoid these 5 mistakes and you'll already be a better artist than I am!
Have a nice day and remember to not be too hard on yourself.
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7/5/2022 0 Comments How a Painting comes to be.From a simple sketch to finished work on a canvas, there are countless steps involved in turning one of my ideas into a painting. For my painting "Starlight" I have taken quick photographs at stages throughout the process. This painting took an incredible two years to complete - although I have just yesterday broken that record by finishing a painting I started four years ago! Please excuse the messy desk in some of these pictures - things can get a little intense when painting!  24/4/2022 1 Comment Email, Draw, Smile, Repeat. Over the past few weeks, a strange thing has been happening. I'm being ghosted.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "Ghosting" is the act or practice of abruptly cutting off all contact with someone (such as a former romantic partner) usually without explanation by no longer accepting or responding to phone calls, instant messages, etc. I have had regular enquiries for illustration work, to which I've responded as soon as practicable (within a few hours or a day at most). For several I quickly drew samples or suggestions, and always asked the potential client to please confirm a time when it would work for me to give them a call. Or alternatively to email me back. Unfortunately though, none of these Ghost Clients ever responded to the initial email, nor any follow-up emails sent afterwards. It honestly frustrates me, because besides getting my hopes up for working on these exciting projects, I also always do some research on the project, brain-storm so I can present suggestions, or spend a couple of hours on the samples. My time is quite precious and limited, and realising that it is being wasted or simply not being respected by someone asking to work with me really gets me worked up. Granted, there are good and bad clients and everyone is bound to get a few of each. I certainly have certainly had my share of good clients in the past. But for this to happen several times in a row is unusual. There is the option of reporting those contacts to the company who manages my enquiries, but I would like to reserve this step for clear fraud or abuse. For the time being, I unfortunately do not have anything to show for the hours spent working on those enquiries. I do have some ideas for the winter months though, which would make me less dependent on Illustration clients, so please watch this space :) Meanwhile, thank you for listening me out - if you have experienced similar "bad weather", please share in the comments! Rant over. 20/2/2022 0 Comments Making Time At the end of last year I decided to put an end to the vicious cycle of guilt, aka New Year’s Resolutions. Instead, I now want to take some time at the end of December to reflect on things I learned, changed, improved, and to be grateful for any growth the year has yielded. But I do have some rough ideas on what I want to work on, and one of these areas is being stressed/busy. Last year, I would race from home to day-care to work to day-care to home, always resolving to take a moment to breathe “once I get to XYZ” (hint: that very rarely happened). Then at the end of the day I expected to magically have all this energy left to work out, paint, clean etc. Of course, by the end of the day I’d then just want to go sleep. By instead making sure there is time for the things which bring me joy I can build up resilience against the things which stress me. So at the start of the year I made a few changes:
"Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent, and not enough time on what is important." - Steven Covey
 It was getting real. This project had to be finished in a matter of days. The original did not fit my scanner at home, so I could only scan from the office. Their accounts team had somehow forgotten to get me set up for payment because someone was away. There were more changes. I had run out of projected hours. And I realised at the last minute that I had gotten something wrong about the perspective. Joy. Headaches. Inner peace.
I made it. I worked it out one problem at a time. Got in to work early to scan. Chased up the accounts team and got preliminary approval (in writing). Worked through the changes late at night. Asked for additional hours. Somehow patched up the perspective - I cannot un-see it, but hopefully no one else will notice. Took some Panadol. When the digital image was cleaned up and the final submission email written, all while supervising a toddler, I held my breath and pushed ‘Send’. The feeling of that weight being lifted off my shoulders was extraordinary. It got better when I decided to give the customer a curtesy call to follow up and felt like I was talking to a friend. It got even better when I received a copy of the final completed piece. It was all I could do to not message everyone and let them know. I did it. I finished it. I took the project on on a hunch. Why on earth would this particular company contact me, and how did they even find me? It seemed unreal. It seemed God-appointed. During a conversation I was told: We are glad we took a gamble hiring you. Once your work is well received, there will be further projects. The hard part is getting in. To which I responded: Well, I didn’t do anything… I am still waiting for the payment to come through. And while my husband is lying in bed, snoring, I am still up writing. And I think to myself: This may be my new normal.  During one of my “I need to get back into it” phases I applied to Unicorn Factory, an agency of sorts, but doing things a little differently. Got accepted, set up a profile, forgot about it.
A few weeks back I got a message in my inbox saying someone had requested me specifically for a project they wanted me to join. My first thought was “no, I can’t do that”. But I researched the company, did some sketching, gave it some thought and decided I had nothing to lose. If I did well it would be a big step forward. If I suddenly found myself struggling, surely I could still come up with something that met the brief (i.e. a low-quality work in my eyes would still be good enough if I just relied on muscle memory) – and that was all the reassurance I needed. I took the job. I even went all out and started using HelloBonsai for Project organisation – it later turned out this was not exactly necessary, but it sure made me feel important. Thankfully, my day job as a Food Designer works along the exact same tracks as working on client projects – when you cook it down to the very essence, the only difference is that there I fine-tune flavours rather than colours. So as it turns out, even during the long leave I took, I was still gaining invaluable experience from my day job. So I discussed with the client, outlined my terms, their requirements, the scope, their mock-up, their contract, my timeline/availability. The last one turned out to be the most critical. My profile on Unicorn Factory had clearly stated that I was a side hustler and only available for a few hours per week, but the project happened to have a very close deadline and I still had to find those hours somewhere. I put my husband on toddler-duty during the evening, worked on the weekends and until late at night. Felt bad about it of course. Emailed back and forth for feedback, approvals, timelines. I got really lucky. Again, in my day job I have worked with many a client. Occasionally there is a “good communicator”, but the majority tend to be somewhat relaxed (yay for working with Kiwi’s – sorry). But this client got back to me right away, pushed for approval from their team, went out of their way to give clear feedback (in writing PLUS visualised). It was a joy. It was exhausting and I had a marathon headache, but it was a joy. And then we were getting closer to the deadline and things got real...  First off, I need to apologise to all the moms, whose vlogs and blogs I have followed in the lead-up to my maternity leave. Of course they all said that they had to take a break, that baby just absorbed all their time, that they were simply too tired-out-of-their-minds to work. I listened, I politely gave them a mental nod and thought to myself “yeah nah, I’ll be okay”.
I sat on my desk at 9 months pregnant, belly between me and the paper, working on drawings. I had a sketchbook with me in the hospital. I sketched while breastfeeding (in the dead of night; yes, I am committed). I kept this up for a few months and then reality hit. It wasn’t working (surprise!) and I was right on course for another burn-out. So I took a break from drawing. Of course, my day job was just starting again, and I was slowly building up the hours there. About a year after Junior was born I started to cautiously paint again, mainly shells (small and quick to finish). This worked well until the top of my desk in the lounge joined the “baby-reach-zone”. This one took us quite a while to solve, we tried physical barriers, moving my painting supplies to the very back, clearing the desk during daylight hours. It wasn’t working and I didn’t have much energy to fight. My daydreams of teaching Junior to respect “mom’s working time” and painting alongside him as a team building activity were also quickly shattered by the reality of a 30-second-attention span. I bought him paint. He only coloured the water. I sketched while he was drawing. He snug up on me and added his very own touch to the page. We bought a new desk and I set up studio in our bedroom. He figured out how to open doors. It has been almost 3 years since I kept to any seriously productive schedule, regularly updated social media and had a decent output in artwork. But I’m going to just let that go. My perfectionist self has been on extended leave since the first week with a newborn anyways. It’s time to dust off the brushes and dig out the pencils - because someone just sent me a message. A few months ago I had a beautiful and yet daunting task ahead of me: to design our baby's nursery. Pick a theme, pick colours, buy furniture and decoration. I loved the idea of a forest theme, so the colours I went with were green (foliage), brown (wood) and blue (sky). Instead of buying artwork for brightening up the walls I decided to make my own, personalised painting. Today I will show you how to recreate this and make it your own! Supplies - Canvas: The largest expense was a canvas of the approximate size I wanted the painting to be. - Paint: I ended up using both watercolour and acrylic paint for different effects, but would recommend acrylic. - Brushes: some fairly large ones are needed for the background, as well as fine ones for details. - Cardboard: single-layered and preferably white. - Hot glue gun. 1. Prime the Canvas Using acrylic paint in various shades of green and blue, paint the background onto the canvas. Start with the blue center, mixing in lighter blue and white towards the middle for added depth. Make sure the colours are smoothly blended out. Then apply dark green foliage by short brush strokes. Add a lighter green towards the outside of the canvas to resemble tree foliage. Let it dry well.  2. Cut out and apply leaves Sketch shapes of leaves in different sizes and from different angles onto the cardboard. Cut out and roughly sort by size. If you like, put the leaves down onto the canvas before glueing, adjusting where need. Then using the hot glue gun, apply the leaves to the edges of the canvas. Start with the larger ones and then add in smaller ones, generally pointing the tips away from each other. Use the glue to slightly lift the leaves off, creating a 3D effect.  3. Paint the leaves Paint the leaves light green, adding dark green shades as well as brown spots and darker veins once dry.  4. Add decorations - such as animals! Again using the cardboard, sketch out various animals, such as butterflies, caterpillars, ladybirds, spiders, squirrels, bunnies etc! Cut out and paint, before applying to the canvas. Be sure to visually and physically balance the painting by evenly distributing the decorations. Glue them onto the canvas and leaves, again using the glue for a 3D effect.  5. Add the name* Sketch out letters on the cardboard. Cut out and paint - for a wood-look paint the letters light-brown and then add the grain with a darker brown. * Name shown is an example only.  20/11/2018 0 Comments 'Tis the Season to be merry...?Christmas is approaching fast, with only a few weeks to go until this year's Holidays! How is your Christmas shopping going? Your meal planning? Your traveling plans to see family?
For most of us Christmas is a joyous time, which we get to spend with family and loved ones. A merry season filled with laughter, gratitude and abundance. Unfortunately, for others, it is not. Every year a number of people have no choice but to spend the Holidays in hospital, away from home and often alone. It is so easy for us fortunate ones to forget about them - and the doctors and nurses working shifts over the Holidays to care for them. So every year DeviantArt, the artist platform I am part of, runs the Holiday Card Project. Artists (and non-artists!) are encouraged to write a self-drawn, painted, glued-together etc. Christmas card for a patient hospitalized over the Holidays. Those patients can have minor injuries or terminal diseases. The cards are collected and distributed in hospitals both in the US and overseas. The response from the patients is usually disbelief and gratitude that someone is thinking of them. You can find the official Project Brief here! I have been eagerly awaiting this year's announcement of the project and I would like to encourage you to participate as well! You do not have to be a member of DeviantArt for this. And even if you do not wish to make and send a card yourself you can participate by helping me participate! Here is what I will be doing: I am painting a small number of Christmas Cards, of which prints will be available in my shop at FineArtAmerica. You can support the project through me by ordering these, because I will be donating the original painted cards to the Holiday Card Project. In the next weeks I will be releasing an overview of all my limited-edition Christmas gifts for this year - Christmas cards, Painted Candles and Painted Shells. But you can already have a look at the cards here (since I need to make sure I meet the deadline for sending in the originals!). So please get creative, please contribute! Either by sending in your own card or by using my cards for your Christmas greetings this year! Thank you so much in advance! Nadin Let me start by telling you that the "starving Artist" cliche is outdated.
The idea of the "starving artist" was very popular back in Romanticism (18-19th century - thank you, Wikipedia). This would have been back in the days when young adults chose one profession - and one only. Choosing an art career may have meant being forced to live rather simply, since there were no jobs available at a local supermarket to supplement the income. But while it can be hard (and truthfully - for most of us it IS) to make a living with art, in today's world there are many ways to make ends meet, should one be struggling financially because of (s)low art sales. I will also add that in my humble opinion it is irresponsible to suddenly quit ones day job and rely on art as a sole income, unless one is a prodigy already bathed in commissions and support from childhood on. It does take time to establish art sales - often it takes years before there is a regular income to rely on and to live from. But circumstances can change, unexpectedly sometimes. I know of one artist, who was never able to work a regular job at all due to illness, but managed to make a name for herself and is now supporting herself through her art. There may be other reasons why someone suddenly looses a regular income - redundancy, disability, having to choose between income and family. I admire these artists, who do not give up accepting their circumstances, but work hard and long to build up an art career. In these cases, art can be the way out of unemployment. And to help and support those who persevere - artists who create and need to make an income with it, but also full-time workers who sacrifice their free time to create because they love it - another concept from back in the old days has recently been revived: the system of Patrons. The concept of Patronage has been a red thread through the history of art since the ancient world. From the Roman Empire all the way through medieval times, Renaissance, up to today this artist - supporter relationship has existed, but now it has become unfamiliar to many. Patronage is a system of direct support, which benefits both parties. To revive this age-old idea, which really is a win-win, in 2013 Patreon was created. A platform where Patrons (supporters) can financially support artists by pledging a monthly amount, and in turn receive exclusive and special rewards - often the best part of the artist's work. Because the artist appreciates their support. I have been watching Patreon grow over the last years and seen many examples of it doing exactly what it is intended to do: It enables artists to create by taking the financial aspect out of the equation, or at least minimising it. For the last 9 years, I have always, always put my education and then day job first - ensuring that I could provide for myself and my family, while creating art only in my free time and at night. But circumstances can change. I have less than two months left to work at my regular job. Then I will be at home for many months or longer to take care of my baby. I will have time to draw and paint! But I will be losing the largest part of my income. So for the past 10 months I have been filling my Patreon page with content: Reference pictures, projects, stationery, drawings, colouring pages - many things, which I have not made available anywhere else. Every two weeks at least I add another file. All these come with the full set of rights - my Patrons can access and download all of these and use them however they like. 10 months of my work, and more being added all the time! Patreon operates in a tier system. You can pledge as little as $1 per month, but as much as you would like. Apart from access to my uploads there are other rewards! You may receive a postcard from me or I may thank you on my social media pages, and who knows what else - I like to surprise! And you can let me know what you would like to see. So I am inviting you to join me there. Let's create together. The coming months will be exciting! www.patreon.com/nadinbirke Nadin |
