8 months of contest entries, edits and thoughts
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Thanks for sharing your experience! It's excellent and inspiring! The before/after is really enlightening as your pieces are indeed stronger. Good job! Keep it up!
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@carlianne said in 8 months of contest entries, edits and thoughts:
Hi all! So last year I started working on my portfolio with the goal of having ten completely new pieces in my portfolio. I competed in every contest from November through July. Of the pieces I made I had one win and got a critique of some sort in the arena for all but one. So now that I'm pulling the final ten together for my portfolio I'm making the edits from the arena critiques. I thought it would at very least be interesting, and possibly helpful to see them.
Hi Carlianne
I loved seeing all of your art in one post like this, I appreciate your beautiful style. It was so interesting to hear your thoughts on participating in the contests and to see how you applied the arena critique to improve your pieces and ultimately help build your portfolio - that is my goal in the coming months as I develop my skills and style so thank you for sharing your perspective, it’s very encouraging!I submitted my very first piece for the August Prompt and spent a good chunk of time today reflecting on my processes - what worked, what didn’t, what I want to change/improve in the piece, the next piece and in my practise generally.. Self-reflection and self-motivation is what is going to make entering these contests a truly worthwhile growth experience because it can be uncomfortable putting yourself and your work (that you likely aren’t 100% happy with) out there. If the goal is improvement rather than winning or recognition, I find that it turns the pressure down a notch. And it certainly helps that the SVS community is so uplifting and invested in helping one another - I feel like I’ve found my people!
P.S. the deadline definitely helped my avoidance/procrastination tendencies too!
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What a great idea for a post! It's a great retrospective and I love the example you set with how you've approached the contest. You are really making the most of it.
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@carlianne i enjoyed reading this. Making art for yourself instead of making art that everyone will love is definitely the better move. I wish you all the best!
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I was just thinking about you yesterday as I hadn’t seen any of your art in a little bit ( so I went to Instagram
). Nice to see this thoughtful post this morning! It certainly is a busy time as a mom of two young wee ones and working on top of trying to do this, and start and run your shop! That’s quite amazing , I loved your write up, thanks for sharing. -
you rock, girl. -
Thank you for sharing this! It's really interesting and helpful to read your insights.
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Thanks for sharing @carlianne! Definitely inspiring! I might do the same.
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Thank-you for this generous post. It is an exceptionally encouraging and helpful and the kind of thing I do when I have time (which I haven't, so thanks and kudos esp with two toddlers!) Congrats on your banner year. I look forward to more inspiring things from your work. I love the achoo and the kittens in the pitcher. and now I know one of the reasons why I have been impressed with the Kiwico products. Good job. Thanks again.
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Very inspiring post. I'm more determined now to enter each months contest! I love that you carried your yeti character on to feature in more images. A book coming maybe?
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@carlianne Thank you for sharing this with us! This is quite the journey, and I can see the improvement made with each piece. Very inspirational
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Wow--You've really been able to use these monthly prompts to your best advantage! It's so impressive to see "the whole thing" all together! I can remember so many of those monthly prompts but to see a single artist's collection/package of their participation in them is really enlightening. I'm so impressed!! You've done lovely work, and it looks like your portfolio is going to be really strong!! I think you're setting an awesome example, and I'm so happy you shared this--it's really inspirational! Kudos!!!
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@carlianne so inspiring... I truly admire your work. Amazing style and composition. Hope I can find my style and be consistent like you did!
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@carlianne This is really encouraging. I am happy you returned and took the time to alter your work. Thank you for sharing!
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@carlianne What a great post, Carlianne! I'm sure a lot of people procrastinate in actually going back to an old piece and reworking it but this is so inspiring! So proud of you!
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Love this post and I'm a big fan of your work! This is a great representation of how to make the most of your time. Thank you for sharing this with us.
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@carlianne Thank you for sharing. And well done!
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This is really nice to see all these pieces together, complete with the improvements and your commentary about each! I especially like what you did with the "Yeti in the cafeteria" piece.
I am going through the same process right now of revisiting old pieces, though only one has contest feedback. You are correct that one take away from the contests how important concept/storytelling is! It is an often forgotten part of student (or even early professional) work.
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Hi Carlianne. It's great to see all these pieces together and with the corrections you've made to them. It's really interesting to see how these tweaks, however subtle, make a difference! (And I love that the Yeti reappeared in March
) Well done for completing so many contests and doing so well. And your portfolio looks amazing! Really inspirational. Thank you for sharing. -
Wow you guys, THANK YOU SO MUCH. I am so grateful for finding this community, you are all so kind, and I'm so happy that many of you found this inspirational! I really wasn't sure when I was writing this up if it was going to be helpful, so your feedback is so touching!
@djlambson I AM working on a book with the yeti! I want to do a whole series with him! But first I'm working on a book about how to draw cute art! I even have an agent for it!
I think my next steps are to get a professional portfolio review for guidance. I personally think I need to some character poses on a sheet and two separate illustrations that are a part of the same story. I also want to have a piece with a more dramatic composition.
