Creative Freedom: October 2011

Welcome to the second Creative Freedom monthly. Each month, we post a Creative and a Business prompt to encourage you to expand and explore your creativity and focus on the boring parts you often neglect…the business side of things! Without further ado, here’s the creative prompt…

This Month’s Creative Prompt

This month, we’re going to step outside of the comfort zone again (do you detect a pattern here?!). Here’s what we’d like you to do at some point before next month’s prompt…

You know what it’s like when you get stuck doing things the same way, in the same format, in the same style with the the same media? Well size is also one of those things which we get very comfortable with. Working with similar size pieces often means you use the same perspective, the same focal points, the same scales.

This month, we’d like you to create an illustration that’s a completely different size to the size of piece you normally create. Ideally, you’ll do 2…an illustration that’s way bigger than you would usually create and an illustration that’s much smaller than you normally would create.

The idea behind this is that it pushes you to explore different perspectives, different scales and perhaps notice things about the subjects you illustrate, that you’ve never noticed before. For example:

• If you’re used to doing very detailed work, it might be incredibly free-ing to create a huge piece which uses broad strokes and expansive sweeps.
• If you’re used to using large strokes and swathes of paint or colour, it might be a refreshing change to work on some of the tiny detail you can’t usually get down to.

Whatever you choose to do, give yourself permission to create a piece which is on a completely different scale…and then enjoy doing it!

This Month’s Business Prompt

This prompt is focused on the business side of your illustration business. We know this is often the most boring part, left till last and rarely prioritised! Hopefully this will help change that…it’s a monthly reminder to take your business skills as seriously as your creative skills.

This month’s prompt is to update your portfolio website. Go through your site and do a thorough review. Things to check for:

• The illustrations currently displayed showcase your latest, most up-to-date and best work.
• Your “about” page is up-to-date and compelling - Lea has a great service to write an effective about page for you. Statistics show that this is often the 2nd most important page on your site and yet most people treat it as an after-thought.
• Your contact details are correct and up-to-date.

If you need a checklist and more help, then this article on zero2illo might be valuable.

If you’d like to leave us a link to anything you create as a result of the creative task this month, we’d be happy to publish a round-up of the results next month. Happy illustrating!

Last Month’s Links:

Just one to showcase this month (let’s change this for next month, please!)…

Here’s what Stephane Lauzon shared:

“I do a lot of portrait, and most of the time I draw adults. Drawing child is always a challenge for me because I have to change all my proportions before I begin an illustration. I’m sharing an editorial illustration that I just finished. The subject is: To speak about death with a child. The translation of the text goes like this: But where are you? Ask the child. And the answer is: Just here… from his heart.” Here’s the piece.