Confessions of an illustrator

Since I wrote about feeling insecure and doubting yourself I thought it maybe time to address how illustrators interact with other people. My view is of course mostly based on my own experiences, feedback by my creative friends and the illustrators/artists I've talked about these experiences. There are however exceptions, so don't think I'd allow myself to think ALL illustrators on this planet feel like this.

If you create art, you have to like spending time with yourself.



Some of us love to paint, draw or write. A big inspiration to write is the fact, that the stories you WOULD have wanted to read, are not out there yet. That's why you write them. Same goes for painting/drawing. The fact that you would rather write/draw/paint than....lets see, go to a big ass party or go rock-climbing or go hiking for days or be a marathon-runner. You write/draw/paint because you feel like it is the best thing to do with your life.
If you paint or draw and pursue it as a professional career it is because you really like doing that. You like making art so much, that you even do it although it can be hard and frustrating at times. In art school I had a time that I got so frustrated by my teachers and assignments, that a friend of mine said 'I don't get it. If you hate making art so much, why don't you stop!?' Fellow artists know what I mean when I told him 'I could never ever do that!!'

Most creatives live in a bubble. It can be hard to grasp why you do what you do for people outside of this bubble. Especially friends and family who have a normal day job have a hard time to understand working freelance, let alone working as a creative freelancer. Sometimes there will be days (or weeks) when things go slow. You finally have a lot of time to work on your personal projects or your website OR to tend to some other things (spring cleaning the house). And then there will be the crazy times, working several client jobs at once, calling non-stop, sending out emails non-stop, being stuck to your phone because you wait for important calls, short nights and ordering take away because you just don't feel like cooking on top of everything else. Sometimes it even means working through the weekend or holidays. Sometimes you will have to cancel a night out with friends because this commission is juicy but sadly has to be done in 2 days (in editorial it's even shorter). Sometimes friends don't understand because 'Your client just can not ask of you to work those crazy times!!? Right!?'
This is only part of it. Living a modest life, so that you don't get into trouble when a client drops you, or working a day job next to your profession are other parts people tend to forget. Not taking part in sports or activities that might endanger your hand/arms/eyes is another consequence of wrapping your life around the fact that you make art. Instead of pursuing these'dangerous activities' you do boring exercises against the inflictions of working as an illustrator.
And although this might sound horrible or weird to some and although others might not understand why you go through with all this when you could just have a normal nine to five job and enjoy holidays and nights/weekends off, you still just LOVE what you do. More than regular work times, more than weekends off, more than being outdoorsy, more than a sport you would like to pursue but is too dangerous for your hands.


(That's me being outdoorsy....)

Time and productivity

Time is a big issue, as is 'style' Which I also hope to cover in the next few weeks. But for now: Time. Making time. Having time. Spending time. Wasting... time.
Time is something everybody has in the same amounts. But today I think even more than any time before there are plenty of ways to 'waste' time. You can not really waste time, since you don't own time. Just as much as you can not make time. But these are just expressions we used to express something else. Wasting time = execute activities in a certain amount of time which are not thought of as productive. Spending time = execute activities which are seen as (socially) important. Making time = postpone or drop certain activities to do something else instead in the same time. Having time = not having any activities in a certain time.
Of course these are no official definitions, just mine. These definitions are also the reason why I stated that you can't waste time. You can however 'spend' time (execute activities in a certain amount of time) which we see as wasteful as surfing in the internet, hang out on facebook way to long, play computer games, sleeping in etc. etc. It's not as if you don't now what I mean. You just want to have a look at your facebook news feed and when you check the time it's two hours later. There are also activities which we quite enjoy and although being just a hobby, are not seen as unproductive as the examples I mentioned for wasting your time. Like reading, enjoying time with your friends or loved ones, gardening etc. This would be the category 'spending' time. I think 'having' or 'making' time are self-explanatory.

So this year I want to blog more (and not just dump some pictures, but talk about things I consider interesting), be more healthy (hehe ;) ) aaaand.... be more productive. Although for some friends I already am quite productive I always look at others and think 'Oh my, he/she did paint so many paintings this year... and what have I done!??' For a moment I can become a little discouraged, but shortly after I get motivated. (A good example for one of these moments was, when I read 'Taking' stock' on Muddy colors by David Palumbo. But in the last weeks I started to feel that I have to make some changes if I want to be more productive. One of these changes would be to spend less time on unproductive things!! Which is why I am going to have social-media-free days in which I won't visit facebook, instagram, deviantart, blogger or behance. I hope that I will be able to hang in there and to not fall back into old habits.

Since social media can be an important tool, there is also an important reason why I want to do that. I follow many artists I admire. So when I just login to check on one of my platforms, I can sometimes get overwhelmed by their work. Not only how good they are but also how much they produced in a time in which I didn't even get close to finish as many pieces as they did, not even half of what they made.... And I would beat myself up for that. Why couldn't I be just as productive as they are, not even talking about why can't I be as good as they are....
Da LuVisi wrote a great article about how his life changed for the better when he left social media. Although I don't intent on leaving it, I think I just need more discipline and stop looking at everybody else's art and start enjoying drawing again ;) or as Bob Ross would put it:



PS: For the ones who are wondering what I am up to. At the moment I am very engaged with several projects and taking part in many contests AND started to work on my new website (with some help by my lovely boyfriend ;) ). But I hope that I will soon be able to show everything here!!

Cute dolls or my shop is back

So I thought that I it has been long enough. I am still kinda freaked out by the fact that I finished my study. But it is time to get back on the tracks.
I will update my blog and facebook page more regularly from now on! It will be my early New Year's resolution.
And to immediatly break another promis. I won't have it about my final exam in this post but about my online shop!







Leslie, Jana, Abbie and Adrian :)
These four new Morlos are just a few of the ones which can be bought adopted in my shop! There are also some known faces from before the break which I took because of my final exam.

Maybe one of the will find a new home at your place?

10.000 is the number!

10.000 is my number of the day. 10.000 views since I started this blog! Just to bad that in the last couple of months I didn't write as much as I wanted to do.
But.... to sum everything up which happened in the last few months:

I finished my Masters degree and... after enjoying the summer for about a few weeks...it finally hit me: I am not a student any more!! I won't go back to academy after this summer!!
And I panicked... more or less. First I just didn't know what to do and after a while I still didn't know what to do.
Lucky for me I already had some kind of new assignment AND I had to get my administration together. When I was engaged with these things it made it easier to look for new clients, jobs etc.
But what I did do is to re-correct my master thesis and get a re-print of it.
And since I never posted a single finished illustration of it, here you go:

In the next post I will go into the details of making these illustrations and how that year was for me. But if you can't wait until then there is already a pdf version of it online.
BUT *drum roll* I am working on a brand new website which will include an animated view of my book so that you can turn pages etc. And until then I hope to have finished another bird-project I am working on just now!!

Next to that I am working on some other very nice personal and not personal pieces and projects. The personal ones I will use to participate more in various competitions! A great article by Donato about that can be found on Muddy Colors!! If you don't already follow that blog I tell you know to do so!!

And as a preview for the upcoming blog post the sketch of one of my personal projects:

Little pet parrot

Sooo.... things are sorted out. Summer vacation is knocking at my doors... This was the last year for me as a student. But more on how I finished my Master Programme in Scientific Illustration in tomorrow's post. This past few days I just enjoyed to relax, work in the garden and get some fresh ideas for new projects and illustrations :)

But now I want to show something which I worked on next to finishing my thesis:

A demo of a bird illustration: Forpus Coelestis:






And the finished illustration:

Flying forpus

Detail of the wing

Detail of the head

Sitting forpus


I showed the making of the Forpus coelestis at my Behance Portfolio review in Düsseldorf. If you are an artist living in NRW (or as I am very very close to it) I can just recommend to sign up for the big adobe event happening there next week!! You can register using this link: Adobe World Tour Registration


Tomorrow I will show my final thesis :) Stay tuned!

Long time no see

Hei guys,

I had quite a busy summer. Because of that I had to abandon my blog and some other pages for some time. But I am back now!!!

To get you back on track:

I finished the sheep illustration and went on with two rat illustrations :) One in colourpencil (which you can see right here) and one in line which still has to go through some minor corrections and will be shown in the next entry.

After that I finished an anatomy assignment which is still being digitalized and a spread about the 'Double opozing z-plastic' which still awaits correction of the surgeon we worked with.
As soon as everything is ready to be shown I will post it here :)
Next to finishing my last assignments I moved together with my boyfriend in an old house which wasn't renovated since the 50's. Now I have my own workroom with enough space for all my stuff. A single workplace for digital drawing, traditional drawing and sewing ;) Pictures the next time!! :D

After I was just done with all of that I started my final exam at the clinic for birds, reptilians, amphibians and fish in Gießen (Germany). I got to do what I wanted to do: to illustrate a publication about the arteficial insamination of birds using the example of parrots and birds of prey. So I get to draw cool birds :P

I hope to be able to update the blog soon! With the remaining assignments and maybe some final exam sketches. Stay tuned!




PS: There is a new about section on my website!!

Digestive system of the rat

This is my illustration with legend for the digestive system of the rat we had to do. First we had to diesct a rat ourselves and decide which system we would like to visualize. I decided, as you can see, in favour of the digestive system:

NEW WEBSITE!

FINALLY:


Click it!!!

Old spot, new website!!

I know, I know. I started talking about making a new one quite a while ago (haha...). But (and this but ist a big one) there where many problems I didn't think of in the beginning.

First one was: I started to design the layout for my new website shortly after I started my Master Programme Scientific Illustration. Soon I had this problem: Where should I put my scientific illustrations?/How would I fit it in my really playful webdesign (sneak peak website)?
It took a while until I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to go on with scientific illustration I would have to be a little bit more serious.
BUT then I was a little unhappy: Should I just drop the idea (and the design I already put hours and hours of drawing AND ANIMATING! in)? Where would I put my Morlos? How can I be a serious illustrator and show my love for weird creatures and animation?
Finally it came to me (with the help of my boyfriend) that it would be possible to do both!

Two websites for two different things! This is my official (for clients) portfolio website and the other one will be more for me (hrhrhr).

And another but: BUT (since it will take a long time to revisit the design and change it into a Morlo dominated world) I will open my online shop before there is the Morlo website!!!!!! So stay tuned!! There will be a new announcment very soon!

NEW II.

May I proudly present you the second change for my web presence:

My new logo!!!



Next changes will be my new website (hopefully launching about a week or so) and my super very double tripple new Morlo-Online-Shop!!

Besides that I had my evaluation talk and I am still try to work as much as possible, although it is kinda hard because everybody is heading towards vacation allready (summer vacation yeah). If you don't hear from me for a while I might just enjoy some vacation days as well :) I would really need them.

NEW I.

May I proudly present you the first change for my web presence:



My very new header!!! (as you can see, my blog is changed in its colour as well)

It will be the first of a couple of big changes! Including my new website (hopefully launching in two weeks at the latest) and my super very double tripple new Morlo-Online-Shop!!

Besides that I am working my ass of for my study (we have a BIG evaluation-talk-with-everybody-thing next week), I discovered my love for quinoa and will have to say the last and forever big good bye to a loved person for the second time this year.
Last is also the reason why I am not totally in time with all my master assignments or the other stuff (a.k.a. website ....). But things like that are not important compared to big life changes and the new ways of thinking in which these changes result.

Being sick sucks

It really does!!! At least it gives me the time to work at my website (STATUS: nearly finished!!!!! yeah!!) And it is connected to my art which is important ;-)

And for everybody out there I have this awesome video:



It is Neil Gaiman addressing the University of the Arts (Phl) Class of 2012. Enjoy!!

To get an insight

Although I am behind my study plan I am happy that I move forward. At least I finally finished the drawing of a Somso-modell. Nearly everybody knows it from school. In my school it was called Emma (it was female, the one in the drawing though is gender neutral ;-) ). It was so hard...since I have trouble with the 'big forms' it just doesn't get easier if you have to draw an already stylized plastic no-were-close-to-real-life-because-you-have-to-be-able-to-take-all-plastic-organs-out fricking puppet. But...after a lot of "you have to make something nice for you for every assignment" talk with my docents I decided to be guided by anatomy lessons and operation pictures (since body parts in formaline tend to look 'a lil' different than in real life)

But here is the result, take a look four yourself:

Furthermore I am busy to cross out stuff from my list. I will let everybody know soon when my website is being launched/the webshop opened.

Delays

Due to some serious private problems I had to stop working on my website and online shop. I am really sorry for that and hope that It will be up and running this month. But I learned that whenever you think you have everything set to start/do something life just doesn't go along.

But I am also happy to be able to show something from the workshop we had a few weeks ago:

Since we used the scapula we picked in the beginning for every technical workshop we had so far: another scapula!
Maybe I should explain why we always use the same motive. First: The scapula itself offers a lot of different difficulties: concave and convex forms, parts in the background, parts in the foreground and even some slightly transparent parts and different types of textures. Second: If you use the same motive for different technics it is very easy to compare them and find out which one you prefer for which pros.

You can compare it yourself:

I can say I enjoyed more than using the water colour technic :)

Workshop and Website

So, I was busy ....real busy...the guys in my house even thought I moved out because they never saw me in the last month....

Busy with finishing up my website...
busy with getting all the financial official stuff for my online shop done....
busy with my study...

The last two days we had a workshop arround certain water colour technics:

As preparation we made a drawing (left) of a shoulder blade (scapula) which we would paint (right) then in the method we got introduced to in the morning.

PS: The deadline for opening my online shop and starting my new website is set in april!! STAY TUNED!!!

Portrait and more

this is something I do while I study. We have the access to life drawing courses, nude models and portrait as you can see here :)

PS:
Hopefully more updates soon. I am waiting for my last stuff to arrive from the big bad tax office to be able to officially and legally open my online store :D I will announce it: BIG TIME!


PPS:
I finished the layout for my new website and just have to go through the process of programming and then it will be finished. Hopefully at the same time I can open the shop :D

Sneak Peak: Website

Here a little preview for my 'new' website layout:

It's quite similar to the old idea, just fresher and with more depth :)

I want more!

A happy new year to you all :) I hope all of you spent New Years Eve with people you love.


So, it seems from where I am now that nothing much happened last year and nothing much is moving right now.
But when I look back I am quite happy what I accomplished last year.

I finished my internship in Berlin and can look back on a lot of experience I gathered there.
My webshop got online and I made a lot of Morlos just waiting in my shelves to be sold.
I made my first website and launched it in may.
I finished my study (although with a delay)
made my first real book for it
and started my Master Degree Program in Scientific Illustration with just three other students in my class.

And that is where I am now. Not as bad as I thought in the first moment. Strange, how sometimes this stuff seems to be ages ago and you feel stuck although you are not. I bet everybody of you know the feeling. So it is good to have a break, look back and be proud about your accomplishments. Back then it maybe even seemed impossible and now they're peanuts. (hmmm.....peanuts....I am getting food, just one moment)

BUT



I want more...yes :) still....

At the moment I am working on my new website layout. Scientific Illustration is great, but I still have to get so much better and more important I have to get way faster. There are a handful of paintings waiting to be finished and even more Morlos to be made/finished/sold.....ahhh....yeah....Morlos. My online shop is still placed on hold due to German bureaucracy. But I hope it will REALLY open soon. My digital skills are getting polished or atleast I try to make them a lil shiny and I hope I can upload more of that stuff in future as well and I started a super awesome secret project what I hope will turn out great.

I hope everybody will have a great year 2012 (and NO, I don't believe our world will end then).

Good dog!

My next assignment :) to reconstruct a dog skeleton...later I will finish the dog in the visualization of the muscels and put the two pictures together. In short time I will have vacation and hopefully upload something else than my school assignments. Maybe there will be an update concerning my website as well.....hopefully.

My website...

...is up and running!!! It is still a prototype, a work in progress, but I thought it is good enough to show to the world :)
As soon as I am not in so much timetrouble I will work on it....
There are so so so much possibilities....it makes me happy just thinking about exploring them!!! (although I have to admit that me working on pure technic ends in screaming sessions a lot).

And here you go, have fun and enjoy:

www.ankatsart.com