@davidhohn that is such an amazing break down!! I’m excited for your next class

@Laurel-Aylesworth-0 thank you very much for your suggestion!

Wish you the best too!

Hello everyone!

One place I'm struggling in the realm of contest submissions is in the most frustratingly practical sense. I don't know how to get my image to be 500kb or less without shrinking the image to be tiny or lowering the quality of the image so much that it doesn't look good anymore.

Is there a program that people like to use for this that is Mac friendly? I am sure this will come in handy in the future for lots of things.

Thank you so much for your time 🙂
Alice

Oh, my friends, this is a difficult club to belong to!
I still struggle with this so much, both my kids are special needs and especially when I was a single Mom with my oldest who had the most sensory struggles when she was little- I cried so much because nobody could relate to how difficult it was. I felt like most people assumed I was "doing it wrong" either as a parent or regards to the system.
It's a little easier now that I've been doing it for over a decade, but when I easily lose an entire day because a sock is wrong- there's a part of me that has a pity party thinking I'll never get there because I can't put in the time that other artists can.
I always wanted people to be able to relate to that more, but not like this!!
I see you all, you are doing great, and it gets better!!

@erinrew Thanks for sharing! I think it looks promising. Maybe you can have more contrast between when the tree transforms to other things and becomes magical. Like it can become really tall or maybe the whole tree is out and flying, stuff like that. Think it would give a more magical feel. I would also recommend trying to break up the perspective or composition a bit more but I guess that goes with your doing them more dynamic phase 🙂

PBPitch twitter party tomorrow! Are you going to participate? 🙂 Do you have more than one story ready in case editor/agent likes your tweet? I really really wanted to participate, but it looks like I'm not going to have my picture book dummy polished and ready to present on time. Also I only have one picture book dummy right now (although I have few more manuscripts finished...) So I don't know. Should I try it anyway? What are your strategies regarding this Twitter event?

I get really excited when you post and update on this thread! Thanks so much for sharing your process. I'm really learning a lot of useful tips.

@Cayleen yeah, it's really tough to find the right solution i think! When it comes to kneeling chairs and those that engage different muscles I've definitely heard it's important to switch them up regularly.

I can totally see the sense in that and it's an ideal concept to have more variety, but that's easier said than done in my case. Don't really have the space to swap between different chairs XD

I think sooner or later the standing desk is always gonna be a stand-out option.

Exporting it as a JPG is probably the most efficient way. PNG would probably be the next step up. Going into things like PDFs and TIF files will be a lot larger.

I like C and B because they hav4 action ☺️ I could see B being a spot illustration, or even A. G feels kinda lonely.

Hi team of SVS! @Will-Terry @Jake-Parker
I tried to find a class for how to design an organic environment. The course "Creative Environment Design" helped a bit, but I had to go to YouTube to find what I was looking for. As it looks like you guys are working on this topic right now for the curriculum, here is a question: Could you try to acquire Phil Dimitriadis for teaching about creating organic environments? On his YouTube channel, I've already found very good videos on drawing organics. Now, for creating a hilly forest environment I watched this: Drawing Organic Environments. Very good stuff! But I had to dig it out. There's a lot of construction going on on straight plains and with cubic or round objects, but it's so hard to find a guide to organicly shaped environment.
How's the new courses going? When can we expect them to be out?
Thank you!

@LauraA oh yeah I should post all the stuff I learned, because mind blown LOL

I love that pencil!

Gordon C. James illustrates books with expressive brushstrokes. The backgrounds get very loose and abstract. The about page says he’s inspired by impressionists and artists like “John Singer Sargent, Nicholai Fechin, Henry Ossawa Tanner.” He also has a section of his website dedicated to fine art, so he does both as his career.

Maybe I’m taking your question about “fine art” to mean “painterly style.” I think there is room for this in illustration. If not many other illustrators are working like this, it could be an advantage for your pictures to stand out!

I think the difference between fine art and illustration is not the style, but the process on the business-side. Illustrations are usually commissioned by an art director to tell a story, and fine art is more self directed art for art’s sake.

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“Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut” Gordon C. James 2017

I’m a little confused by how to start up a multi-artist collaborative drawing session but after reading through the website, I think live sessions aren’t available to users. More like communities listed on the Magma Studio website. Which I think is better 🙂

Count me in — what a beautifully designed book. I’ve only had time to read a part of the section on emails and so far gained a new perspective. I’ll be reading this weekend. And as an avid listener of the podcast, it’s also really cool to know how much this book was a dream of Will’s to make. And here it is in my iPad! Hopefully I can get a print version someday.

Any last minute revisions or suggestions? Other wise I feel that I am about set on this one ☺️

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Congrats @Katie-Kordesh!!!

@Kori-Jensen Very true 😞

@Frost-Drive yeah it’s definitely good to look at things critically like that but I don’t think art directors spend all day going to artists websites. If an art director is on my site then I have already gotten their attention in some way so they’re already there with a purpose, not just busily hunting for illustrators on the web. I can still understand how it may not be clear that there are individual galleries on the illustrations page. I just made a simple change to that page that to help that.