I absolutely love studying ancient art and architecture. I find it fascinating that almost the entire collective knowledge, beliefs and social conditions can be understood and interpreted by art and architecture alone. The classical and ancient styles of architecture are my favourites (aside from Art Deco), and I'm constantly building a library of stuff from these times.

I find studying traditional and vernacular design not only helps develop your potential to create but also to interpret the environment and contextual conditions differently. Where I live (South Africa) there is so much traditional art and influence on contemporary design in the creative disciplines, (architecture, fashion, interior design, industrial design), which it is quite exciting.

@ZackracK Thanks for posting, Zack! You have really great work!!

Awesome - I'm going to take part also! It'll be my first time...

@artspreadsjoy Thanks for the input! You're right, I need to decide. I still have more to learn with traditional and not ready to move away from it yet. I love painting and rendering. My digital skills are really beginner so I know I'll need a lot more practice till I feel like I'm on track with it. Good call on the fire. I was thinking it was to be an accent to add interest but not draw the eye too much. Thanks again!

@Kevin-Longueil I just did too, and agree! (But I'm not going to attempt the Russian word or pronunciation.) HA!

Here's my latest update to this wip. I'm working on other things too, so it's kind of slow going, but I'm trying to incorporate the things I'm learning from the SVS vids I'm watching, so I'm learning a lot with this one. I still have to do the water, the fishing pole, the fish's tail fin, the rest of the reeds and the rest of the bear, so any input is appreciated! 🙂

0_1474972296929_147497221230424.jpg

I really like this a lot. Haven't seen the show, but I love this style of illustration!

This piece is awesome! You did a great job on this - playful and creepy at the same time 🙂

Looks great!

@Eric-Castleman hah well at least I'm not the only one! I actually did a couple of pieces but was too embarrased to upload them!! I'll take pics tomorrow and upload them though - argh!

@smceccarelli Thank you. Yea its all pretty rough. I guess the big thing I'm wanting help with is box placement but I don't really think about the cropping thing because I do everything traditionally instead of on the computer. That makes sense though. I'll work on these some more.

Nice work!

@Lee-White Aesome Lee, I love love SVS!!!!

Hey, @Leontine! When I post the thread tonight, just hop on the thread to say you're taking part, then either pick one of the prompts I post or post a prompt for everyone else to draw. Then work on a sketch for no more than 2 hours and post it to the thread. You can ask for feedback if you'd like, but you don't have to. Then move on to the next prompt that's posted, or post another prompt for everyone to draw. Everyone can post prompts if they want, or you can just do the prompts I post - it's up to you. 🙂

@smceccarelli I wish I would have recorded those classes....lol...don't tell anyone...yeah, I agree with you I think Sam Nielson's first class on there is the single best class I've ever taken and I didn't take it live. I would stress watching those extra videos where he crits the live classes there is as much helpful info in those as there is in the course work. He was suppose to publish a book with all the info from that class but it never happened. And I did the same as you I re-watched those classes over and over again because there was just so much info in there. I let my subscription there run out this year and I sort of regret because it was a great reference but I couldn't justify the expense since that was really the only class on there I watched. I didn't get much out of any of the other classes. (how much fun was it to paint that fuzz effect the first time....I was like "This is SO AWSOME..." lol...

@BradAYoo Thanks, I hope it does help to share some financial info. Money is so often shrouded in mystery with this stuff which can lead to illustrators being paid less because they don't know how much their work is worth. I've really appreciate how transparent @Lee-White is about money talk.

@Kevin-Longueil You bought the book?! That's awesome, thanks Kevin!

@mattramsey I think $10k-$15K is decent pay for a full 32 page picture book. I couldn't imagine doing it for $5k, seeing as how much work it was and that there were no royalties.

I have got a bit further using the same way I would paint animals in oils, seemed to work ok but I still have a lot to learn from the pros. 0_1474578847016_VEGETARIAN DOGS.jpg

It will be available after the full class has wrapped up.