// February 17th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Illustration, The Biz of Art
Creative Play as a Brainstorming Aid
Creative play is becoming a widely recognized method of producing unique ideas in many design firms across the globe. Creative play activities involve exploration, experimentation, role-playing, challenging preconceived ideas, and other tactics to push the boundaries of thought. In today’s society, there are many artists that render well, but there are fewer that begin the rendering process with a concept that speaks to the audience. Through creative play and brainstorming exercises, illustrators can learn to expand their brainstorming to produce a firm conceptual foundation for their work through creative play. The object of creative play is to limit the self-censoring tendencies adults often foster and to focus on the quantity of ideas.
For More Information on Creative Play visit The Help Guide, The National Institute for Play, or watch Tim Brown’s video from the 2008 Serious Play Conference.
Review and Categorization of Ideas into Thumbnail Drawings
Preliminary Sketch
Personally, I find that in the creative play phase the artist should steer as far from attempting to categorize as possible as the object of the play is to develop ideas outside of one’s normal train of thought. That being said, after the play is complete, the artist must go through the ideas gained during play to somehow make sense of the ideas and possibly push them further. Such strategies as visual mind-mapping, list making, etc. can aid the categorization process. It is here that the artist should narrow down the conceptual notion and begin to develop basic thumbnails to communicate the idea through the compositional plan.
Drawing, Personal Style and the Sketchbook
Personal Style Appears through Drawing Consistently
Illustrators often struggle with creating a style that they like, when the truth is that through drawing each person develops his own personal style naturally. In our current era of instant gratification, illustrators tend to what their style to develop quickly with little dedication of the part of the artist. This is where the sketchbook plays a vital role in the development of the illustrator. Through daily sketching, the natural “style” of the artist presents itself in its own time. The sketchbook is a necessary tool for the illustrator and should not be overlooked or undervalued.
Follow The Daily Sketch on Twitter for daily sketchbook activities to jump start your mind!
Illustration Techniques
Digital Rendering
Watercolor and Ink Rendering
Acrylic Rendering
The many methods in which an illustrator may render the final illustration is unlimited, but the artist can narrow down the options through experimentation, observation, and consideration of time. Choosing the technique is a personal decision that can prove challenging yet the artist’s natural inclination towards a certain technique will avail itself through the artist’s trial and error. The techniques available to illustrators range from traditional methods to digital methods of illustration. Traditional methods include acrylic painting, watercolor, ink, pencil, pastel, collage, and sculpture to name a few while digital methods tend to be either raster, vector, or a combination of the two. It is advisable to experiment with each of these techniques.
Promotional Marketing
Marketing any business has changed substantially over the past few years. While traditional marketing practices, such as postcards, mailers, and other print materials are still appreciated and valued, eMarketing and Social Networking has become necessary as well. As an artist, if you don’t have a website with a digital portfolio, you are missing out on an estimated 80% of your possible market. These days a website is only the beginning of the online marketing world. It is preferable for your website to include a blog where you can post new projects, talk about your industry, offer advice to others and much more. There are also online communities such as LinkedIn, Red Bubble, and Flickr that allow for networking with other artists, potential buyers and other clients. The wide world of the web has become more and more active due to the blogosphere and the social media folks that use services such as Twitter, Digg, and Stumbleupon to mark articles and artwork of interest. By learning to use these venues properly, an artist can become quite well-known without an agent.
A word of caution is in order – if you are spending all of your time online, then you aren’t drawing, and that’s the name of the game – right?
