chronicle Issue Six
WEBSITE and PHOTO REFERENCE USE TIPS
My thoughts this month can be framed within three different kinds of clicks.
I wondered why we came to use the word “Click” to describe both the sound a camera or a computer mouse makes and to describe a strong connection with a like-minded person. So, I looked up the origin of the word to help me understand and found on www.writingexplained.org: “The word click comes from the Dutch klikken. It has existed in English since the 1500s. It’s main meaning is the sound of a clock, which sounds like click. The figurative meaning, to function well together, originated in the early 1900s.” A clock makes a “click” sound and its inner workings are in harmony in order to precisely tell time—so they click! Now we know folks. And I love it.
Click 1: The Best Kind of Click
When it happens, you know it.
You know that sensation you get when you find someone you “click” with? It’s a magical feeling. It’s the best feeling. You have found someone who shares an interest or a passion with you, or they may have the same sense of humor, or they may share an origin story or background with you. It makes them easy to talk to and to be with. They get you and you get them.
This summer I will be a mentor to an aspiring picture bookmaker through the PB Rising Stars mentorship program www.pbrisingstars.com. (Being a mentor, teacher, and/or coach is something that I’ve been aspiring to myself, and I am hoping to include these “services” as part of my illustration practice in the future.) The founders of the PB Rising Stars program gave us some advice while we reviewed the hundreds of applications we received—a daunting task—in order to find our mentee match. We were told to carefully read, absorb, and evaluate everything sent to us (including long applications, dummy books, and portfolios), then narrow down the choices in stages. Once we narrowed our choices down to a few equally strong candidates it got more difficult, and at that point we had to just go with “our gut.” We were looking for a connection to one person—we needed to “click” with our potential mentee.
Of course, I found many, many people that I felt I could “click” with. So many! There were scores of talented and worthy applicants that I felt a strong connection to. But I’m just one person—one person with a full-time day job while working on picture books and other illustration deadlines. So, I knew that I could only mentor one person. In the end I was able to easily narrow my list down to about 24 people. After that it got harder. I struggled to get it down to 12, then to 8, then to 4 and that’s when the real struggle began. At last, I made my choice and am now very happy and excited to work with that person, a person I think that I will “click” with. The bonus for me is that some of my top 8 were chosen by other mentors, which made me feel a little bit better.
Click 2: As Few Clicks as Possible
Website Design for Illustrators
My website does have very few clicks, but it still needs some polishing, so I will be redesigning it this summer. It’s time.
While evaluating a very long list of possible mentee applicatioins I had the pleasure of perusing their websites. The design of those websites was all over the map. I saw many nicely designed sites and many that were hard to make my way through. As I reviewed them, I made mental notes on things that did not work. I have learned from my agent, art directors and through various workshops and seminars about what makes a good website and what makes a not-so-good website.
Here are some things I have learned.
1. As few clicks as possible. Your illustration work should be seen right away. Not your bio, or your picture—your work should come first. No clicks to see it, or maybe only one click if you divide your work up into a few (not many) categories. The “About” or “Bio” will be read after your work is seen, but it’s not the first thing that prospective clients want to see.
2. No passwords. If you want and need to, you can password protect a client area, but there should not be a password just to enter your website.
3. Make Your Work the Star. Not only should the work be first and foremost, but it should not be competing with the design of your website. Now you might say, “But I want to show my personality, and those bland white websites don’t show any!” Hey, guess what? Your work is showing your personality. An illustrated and hand lettered name/banner or a large slideshow style banner of your work is a way to add some of your flair while not competing with the artwork. While looking at your website you want an art director to say, “What creative artwork!” and not necessarily “What a creative website!” unless you want to design websites.
4. Less clutter = no barriers = quick access to your work. Keep it simple. You shouldn’t need a bunch of sections.
Organize your website pages by the work you want to get. Are you only wanting to work on picture books? Then you just need a link to the picture book illustration work and that could even be your home page, no clicks at all. Or do you also want to sell your work in other markets? Then you can divide up your work that way, like having additional pages for Editorial, or Fine Art, or Licensing let’s say.
Do you want to divide up your on-line portfolio by the type of children’s book illustration categories you want to work within? For example one section for picture book art and one for middle grade cover art. If so, then do that.
Do you think you have two strong and distinct styles? Then maybe you want to divide up your website that way.
Do you also write as well as illustrate? Then perhaps you want two separate sections for those two distinct categories.
No matter how you choose to divide up your work, you should include an About/Bio page and a way to contact you. Your other pages are up to you, albeit keep it limited. If you have published books, then a Books page could be handy. Are you an avid sketchbook keeper and this is your strength? Then a Sketchbook page could be a plus. But remember, please make your site simple and easy to navigate. Less really is more.
5. Include Your Best Work: 10-20 pieces. The weak ones will bring them all down. Better to have fewer if you aren’t sure. The website is just like a portfolio, so think about the flow from one image to the next, how the images relate to one another. Also, if you have silhouettes vs. odd shapes vs. squares/rectangular art shapes, mix them up so that there is a nice visual flow and rhythm. See Chronicle Issue 2 for more about setting up a portfolio.
6. Do Your Research. Make a list of 10-20 current illustrators who you admire and are successful in your field. Look at their websites and get the general vibe. Discover how they divide up the work, how many pieces they include, what words they use, how long their bio is, if they use pop ups… Evaluate and learn.
7. Name Recognition, Make it Yours: To keep things less confusing, use your own name or a simplified version of your name (because maybe your name is too complex to say, but hey, I think people should get used to your real name) for your website name. If you use a cute trade name that does not include your own name, if you can, drop the cutesy name and go with your own real name. This is because your real name will appear on the books that you make, not the cute trade name you are using for your website address. And using your own name will also make it easier to find you as well. There are always exceptions of course.
8. Add social media links. That way, the publisher or art director or editor can quickly link to your more immediate and less curated work. It seems like a no-brainer, but many websites I reviewed did not include them.
9. Curate and Update. As time goes by update your website. As you grow and learn and get better, take that old stuff down, even if it hurts a little.
Click 3: Using Photos as a Resource
An example of the many steps and experiments that I do to find an interpretation of a photo resource that I’m happy with.
I love taking photos. In fact, I considered photography as my primary hobby before I started drawing in 2016. In 2015 I was casting around for a creative pursuit and photography was at the top of my list. But the mechanics of taking professionally crafted images was just not something that my brain could absorb. F-stops and apertures, I just didn’t want to figure all of that out. Even so, I do still take lots of photos that help me in my art-making practice, even though they are not necessarily works of art on their own.
Here are the ways that I use photography in my work:
1. For reference. I occasionally rely on photos as references in my work—to make sure I’ve got believable body movements and body parts in the right proportion for instance.
2. As a jumping off point. For development of a tone or a feel in a piece of artwork.
3. For inspiration and idea generation. I collect interesting images that I may refer to in the future—images that may spark an idea. I have tons of folders on Pinterest of such images. They include vintage images of all kinds, people doing silly things, images that support a memory, photos of things I’d like to draw someday. The list goes on and on…
4. As source material. Sometimes I’m having to draw a real person, or a non-fiction setting or thing. When I make an illustration of a real person, I’ll look at lots of images of that person and sketch them out so that I understand the person’s features. Then I put away the photos when I’m making the final illustration because I’ve developed my own shorthand for that person. I don’t need the photo any longer, indeed, the photo can get in the way of my own style and vision of that person in my art. If I’m staring at the photo of the person while I make the art, then the art ends up being too literal and without an emotional core.
5. To make sure that my illustrations are more honest and believable.
6. To help get me outside my own head and imagine sometime more.
Currently I’m working on a book that is filled with characters. I needed interesting families and children in this book. To make sure that I had believable looking people and to get outside of my own head, I started gathering tons of photos of families and used them as a jumping off point in the development of my characters. Below are some examples of those characters as well as some “real” people illustrations that I’ve made and just a few of the photo references. You can see that my illustrations are styled to appeal to children and include my own mark-making and illustrative techniques. They are not literal interpretations of the photos. The photo resources come from anywhere and sometimes are gathered from royalty-free stock photo sources.
Just a few of the characters that I developed using photos as inspiration. These characters, along with many, many others, will appear in my next picture book.
Illustrations of Jacques Cousteau for a children’s magazine. The far left illustration shows a young Cousteau in the hospital after he broke both of his arms in a near fatal car accident. The middle illustration shows an older Cousteau on a trip to Antarctica with children from around the world—a trip made to highlight his environmental concerns about that part of the globe. I gathered many photos to use as source material in the generation of the 12 plus illustrations for the article.
Just a few of the illustrations for an article in a children’s magazine about Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, focusing primarily on Tesla’s life and contributions. I found the chartreuse color for Tesla’s suit in a photo of his glove collection. He was a bit of a fashionista.