I dream of Jeannie is a property of Screen Gems Productions. Artwork by James E. Lyle
The image above has almost nothing to do with what I was going to talk about today. But since I get more people looking at stuff when I include artwork, this is what you get.
The piece above was done around Christmas of this past year, for my friend and patron, Tim Chandler. He was going to give it to a friend as a present. So I happily took his money and turned out a pretty decent piece, if I do say so myself.
Now, as to what I was going to talk about.
There's a great paradox in being a freelance. You'd think I'd be constantly drawing. But then I have to do a great deal of self-promotion. During the times that I have a lot to draw, I have little time for self-promo, and then I get done with whatever assignment I've been working on, and have to get back onto finding jobs.
Preferably I'd spend my days drawing. The fact is that I'm sitting here with a piece on my drawing table that needs inking, and I'll get to that in a few minutes. But right now I'm blogging. I function that seems contrary to that ideal of actually drawing.
However I have to eat. A function neccessary to my continued breathing. Which is required if I want to keep on drawing.
So the idea of me simply sitting at my drawing board all day drawing, is unrealistic at best.
The piece that I'm currently working on is for a lady in California who wants her boyfriend drawn on a comic book cover as a surprise. Since I'm giving little detail here, I'm sure I won't spoil the surprise.
After that I'm supposed to be doing a number of mini-portraits of famous people for the "Character Counts" School Agenda people (Alliance Publishing). You may have seen the "Character Counts" banner in front of a school in your district. I was shocked and pleased the first time I saw one. It's kind of nice to see something that I've worked on actually having an impact somewhere.
But in between jobs I have to make sure that I'll have more work in the future. So earlier this week I ordered a copy of "The Artist's and Graphic Designer's Market 2007" (got a good deal on Amazon.com, of course). I wrote an art director who had just informed me that a piece we'd worked on together WASN'T going to see print after all (it's not her fault, and we're hoping to work together on something else soon). I just wrote my buddy, Butch Guice, hoping he might have a contact or two for me…
This sort of thing goes on and on. It's becoming second nature to me. It's sort of like digging around in dumpsters for scraps (not to cast aspersions on any of the people mentioned above). But what truly amazes me about it, is I took so long to develop this skill.
They call it "networking". Pretty funny name for it if you consider the above analogy. And I have adapted slowly to the idea. I see young artists every day that seem to know more about networking than actually drawing, and I envy them! Then again, if I'd known better how to get work back in my 20s I might neve have worked as hard at learning to draw.
I'm sure I've still got a long way to go in both respects, but at least I'm out there trying.
Now I have to stop doing the self-promo networking thing and get back to drawing.
