Greeting Card Day

Some humorous greeting card creating going on at my studio last week.  This mid production photo shows what my desk looked like before I started to finish the lettering, do some spot art for the insides and  then render overlays for the embossing that the cards would eventually have.     A fun day here last week for sure.

Illustration Friday

Does a Bear Text in the Wilderness?

When I was a Student

I was putting away Christmas decorations this past weekend and I spotted my very old (and very dusty) student portfolio tucked away in the corner of my attic.  I hadn’t looked at it in many years and  it’s very  embarrassing to view the work I used to do.  Yet I know as an artist, each piece you create  over your life is simply stepping stones to the next one you’ll create.  Why?  Because you’re ALWAYS learning.   I’m thankful that I still  have this portfolio to  reflect back on for that reason.   In fact I  always encourage my students to never throw away their work so they too can look back someday on their own artist journey.

That said, this particular image really caught me off guard.  Dated 1979, it  firmly places me in middle school.  I belive I would have been about eleven years old.  As I looked at it, I couldn’t help but wonder why such a young student’s  work  would show  such despair.    I’m sure it was a classroom collage project and I can vaguely recall working on those hands.  But why the smokey city and what’s the deal with those clothespins. Ouch!!   I’m just not sure why I would have chosen such a desolate scene to depict.  Maybe I had a bad day at recess.

Whatever the reason for this work of art– I know Art is a journey.  And I’m thankful that my  journey over the last few years has taken me towards the job of a humorous illustrator rather than creating art that makes people want to run for the hills.

Book Dummy Paper Mania

I’ve been working on a book series for a while now.  Five stories in total!  Although the 30 page  written manuscripts have pretty much stayed the same, the art has changed a lot during the submission process.  Now that I’ve pretty much nailed down the right look for the books, it’s time to create proper book dummies for each effort.  So if my basic math skills haven’t failed me, that’ll be 150 sketched pages (160 counting covers and back art.)   During the sketching process I do a lot of pre sketches of my sketches.   This got me wondering as to how many typed AND related art sketches I’ll produce for this entire effort. A conservative guess;  it’ll probably be  well over 1000 before it’s over.  Sounds crazy when you think of it like that.  But as much as I love working digitally, I still love drawing on an old fashion drawing tablet.  I only feel bad about all the paper I’m wasting… and the paper mess I’m making in my studio. 

Pirate art follow up

This past Spring I had done a logo for an ice cream and hot dog stand that I blogged a bit about. I forgot to post a photo of  the final sign and show how the customer used it on top of their “drive in” styled business.     Fun stuff!!!

Information Robot

I opened my studio doors back in 1988. It was a tiny office space on the 9th floor of  a very tall highrise. Being a cartoonist mixed in within a world of accountants and lawyers was the ONLY thing I had going for me since ”word of  mouth” P.R.  was the only way I could initially achieve any drawing assignments. You see I had  just missed the Yellow Pages phone directory add cut off and this forced me to wait another 6 months before I had the opportunity to  go public with my business phone number.   Gee, how things have changed.  You can literally get your information out to the public in minutes… not months!!!

Artistically speaking,  I find this new technology really neat.  You can create something and within minutes, all your friends, family and even business connections can view your ware.    (Sometimes even if they don’t want to. )   So even though this  information super highway thing sometimes seems like a machine ….or you feel like a robot….  I like it.  Because waiting for a slow internet connection or delayed text is a lot better than waiting 6 months for your phone number to become public.

Halloween Art

Creating art on illustration board or on the computer screen is normally all I do as an artist.  All I REALLY want to do.  Yet in the last few years I’ve  found that there is other forms of creativity for me that is just as rewarding. And  I “think” it’s making me a better artist.

I’ve never been one to take pottery, photography, print making or countless other lessons  that teach you how to express yourself creatively.  Artistic outlets that help you understand form, light or design.  But I do like to decorate for the holidays.  Christmas is a big one for me and I enjoy Halloween too.  What’s odd is I’m not a horror movie fan and I don’t like gore!  But what started off as a few pumpkins on my walkway quickly turned into an elaborate yard scene filled with vampires and zombies.   Now that yard scene has  become a full-blown spooky haunted tour.  For the second year in a row, my neighbor and I joined forces with our friends and family and put on a pretty good show for the community.  We had over 21 actors, 7 separate scenes and I belive we had over 250 trick or treators come through my yard.

Creatively I really enjoy the art of making the props, costumes and setting up various scenes with some acting involved.   This seems like it would have little to do with being an illustrator but as I tell my students, draw what you see around you.  When I look at a blank piece of paper I see mentally how the final piece should be in a few hours.  I think it’s the same way with the Halloween show.  Except the blank piece of paper  is actually my lawn and I saw what it should look like way back in September. 

Although this paricular post has little to do with art from my sketch book, I’m simply showing  how I get my inspiration.  Case in point– the two images below.  That’s me  in my home-made scarecrow outfit and stand I made perched 4 feet off the ground.  Inspired by The Wizard of Oz scene I saw as a child.  And theres my witch punting a football 4 yard down field.  Inspired by a memory of my son and I having fun kicking the ball back and forth a few weeks ago.  The two may seem totally unrelated  but they actually are.  I’m always inspired by what I see!  I just never know when it’ll come out.

Have a Nasty Christmas

I remember many years back doing a design for a card company named Comstock Greetings.  They wanted the  jokes and art  to be VERY smutty or as nasty as possible.  Their P.R. actually had the F bomb in it and said we sell cards that shock people!!!   WOW!  I honestly don’t recall what joke and art I did for them but it must have been a gag about boogers.   :)  After many year of staying away from selling to that kind of card  lines (since I’ve never been that good at writing dirty jokes) I  recently approached another card company similar to Comstock determined that this time, things would be different.    The publisher asked for some low brow ”ideas” so I put my poor taste joke nose to the drawing board and  came up with 16 of my best “worst” ideas ever.   Certainly they’d see that I could tell a nasty joke with the best of em!   Just got the call.   None were nasty, dirty or shocking enough for them.  I need to up the humor  a lot more!

                                                                         End result was NO SALE!        Bummer.  

In truth though…. yah gotta sell what you’re good at.  Guess I’m more cutesy then smutty.  I do like that joke below about the snowflake slipping  on the bottom of someone’s shoe though.   )

Waiting for something good

 I’m still TRULY amazed that I take a blank piece of paper and create a living from it.  It doesn’t seem possible! Yet it has been.  And for a while — I couldn’t keep up with the work load.

About 12 years or so ago I landed a greeting card account that kept me busy.  Then just when I thought I couldn’t keep up with the various card companies I did some assignments for , not excluding the caricatures and the children’s book efforts, this ONE company gave me triple the amount of work.  At that point I stopped advertising and didn’t really push my other customers to keep me busy since it was all I could do to keep this one customer happy.  Then a few years later, as all good things do—- the card company was bought by one of the giants in the industry and that was that.  Bye Bye Scott!   I think back to those  times and say to myself “was I wrong to put all my freelance eggs in one basket”?   The answer that  inevitably comes back to me is always.. “no.”  When one customer is keeping you as busy as the sum of 10… you can better service that customer. 

Since then I’ve been trying to play catch up in the card market world but I’m doubtful that it’ll ever be the same for me again.  E cards, the 99 cent racks and the 2 for 1 have  slowed down the whole greeting card market in general. Especially the humorous stuff that I do.   Ironically the card  industry has seen this slow economic time coming for a while now.   Oddly though, I think my own card drawing ability has actually gotten better since my “heyday” time.

So is it over?   Well hopefully the greeting card market recovers a bit and as I sit here waiting by my mailbox having just sent out a large self promotion package, I can’t help but not be excited for what’s to come.  Something good I hope.     Something REALLY good!!!! 

How a sketch is born

99% of all my work starts off with a  real basic sketch.  You can see the entire process on how I create a greeting card concept if you visit my YouTube channel here…  WWW.ScottNelsonandSon.com  /watch Scott Draw.

In previous posts I’ve talked about a  children’s book series I was working on that revolved around embarrasssing bodily functions.  Ewww !  (chuckle)   An artist rep I’ve been working with was kind enough to show my ideas to a few  different publishers. It’s my understanding that a number of them liked what they saw but they couldn’t fit it in with their current marketing niche.  In this tough economic climate, it’s tough to sell something unproven.  Especially when it’s about awkward suject matters.    Determined though to get this series published, I’m reworking the interior look into a more “comic book” like format. 

My normal process with children’ s books is to write first and then draw afterwards.  Then it’s a constant process of  editing the dialogue to fit the art or to edit the art to fit the dialogue.  It’s truly never ending and on occasion there may be two dozen versions of one little image all in an effort  to get the look just right. 

Now as I’m dealing with the agent, I’m not drawing or painting final art  just yet. I’m just trying to sell them on my ideas.  That said, I don’t want them to see my REAL sloppy sketches either. It’s a balancing act of not wasting to much time yet still showing something that is better than my sloppy initial sketches.  Attached you can see the process in which I’ve roughed out tiny interiors on post it notes while I was sitting in auto shop the other day.  Not sure if I’ll use any of em and I certainly wouldn’t show them.  But that’s how I do it.  I’m also showing you my original SLOPPY sketch  of a cover and then a more cleaned up version  of the same thing that I actually would show the agent.   Although I’m never totally satified with my finished art,  the process to getting there is actually very satisfying.    So— draw, draw draw.  Especially while you’re waiting for your car to get new shocks.  It’s great fun.