The Rhythm of the Art Life

When I typed for lawyers, my day was mapped out for me.  Half an hour to and from, an hour for lunch and caged in a cube in between just doing as I was told.  The little time I had at home was pretty much taken up with chores and flopping exhausted on the couch.    While my art is now my fulltime "job", utilizing the time efficiently has been a struggle for me.  As any self promoting artist knows, the marketing end is very time consuming.  And I am learning how to make my art a small business, so I must devote time to that, as well.  Here's some things I've learned: 

• I do my best art with a fresh eye.  Two hours at a stretch is the max for me.  I've been hard on myself for not spending more time at a stretch, til I realized that quantity at one sitting does not make quality.
• I like media that can be stopped and restarted.  Colored pencils are so easy for this.  Also oil based printing inks.  I don't like the media dictating when I can work and when I can't and that's my main complaint about oils. 
• I need to get away.  A lot.  Now that sounds crazy, I love making art!  But shorter intervals broken up by doing something else really makes me more efficient.  In the beginning, I did all my housechores, walked Otto, got cleaned up and did my emailing and blogging BEFORE I did my art.  I cleared the decks.  I have learned that doesn't work for me.  Better for me to draw for an hour, then take a shower and walk Otto, then draw for an hour and go to the bank and library, draw for an hour and go dig up the dahlias.
• Online is good.  I actually like to be online when I work.  So I take little mini breaks while I work to respond to a post, check facebook, tweet, etc.  So much of what I do online is art related and it keeps me pumped and inspired.
• Online is bad.  Talking politics, critiquing, responding to trolls accomplishes nothing for me and hours can go by.  Eliminating.
• Online is fun.  I love my online art and animal friends and enjoy keeping up with what they are doing, guilt-free.  I'm outgoing and friendly by nature, and the social aspect of "work" is the only thing I miss.  I get that coffebreak type camaraderie with colleagues whenever I feel like it.  Fun to talk shop.
• Online combines fun with marketing.  Twitter has been very good to me!
• Housework can be done half asleep.  Yes, it is true.  Don't have to think too hard, so saving those chores for when I'm beat works well!
• Rome wasn't built in a day.  I do a little marketing every day.  I'm seeing good results.  And I'm looking with a hard eye what works and what doesn't.
• Business before pleasure.  I'm taking the time to learn how to run this as a real business.  Sounds so not artsy, right?  But it is and I'm taking advantage of opportunities to learn how to do it.  Recordkeeping is not my strong point but I am learning how to do it properly.
• Today and tomorrow influence each other.  What I do with each day is influenced by what's on my calendar down the road.  Silly to spend time marketing when I have deadlines to hit.  I don't have time now, for instance, to take any life drawing workshops, but I will after the holidays.  The rhythm of the art day is influenced by the calendar.  Go with the flow of what the priorities are.
• Being organized helps me be more creative.  I have a paper notebook where I write everything down.  I also have a calendar where I note opportunities I might want to do in the future.  Don't have to keep things in my head and can relax.
• The art is the thing.  I can truly get lost in the marketing, blogging, etc.  Deadlines loom and as I said I do my best work in 2 hour max shots.  I am strict about them.  But recognizing how I work best helps me do my best work.  Gotta go now!  Robin

I'm Robin Zebley, specializing in portraits of pets, animal art and now portraits of children.  My pet portraits site is full of info and samples.  I love comments on my blog and would love to hear from you!  If you would like to contact me by email, it's HERE.

Little bit of this, little bit of that - Portraits and Animal art

Last night I finished up a kitty memorial commission...almost.  I have just a LITTLE tiny more to do but had to let the piece rest to be able to add that tiny extra touch.  I am finding the combination of brands of colored pencils really works nicely with my style, which I think of as realistic with a splash of impressionism!  Or is it "robin-ism"?  I just do what I feel like!

Next on tap is a double dog portrait.  I'll be doing a thumbnail sketch first since I'm making modifications to the almost perfect photo that will be the base of this portrait.  Really helps to see if there's a composition problem before I commit to the large size.

Another cool thing coming up for me is that my art will be featured on a Philadelphia dog site!  I am doing a small piece of a puppy in the park for a raffle for this relatively new site.  Helps us both out.  I'll let you know the site once I'm on there and if you want, you can try for the free piece!

Yesterday Otto and I spent a ton of time outdoors and will be today too.  Just can't let these gorgeous sunny days go by without being there.  We've had so much rain that it makes you really appreciate when it's dry.  I've been shredding leaves and putting them in the old veggie garden which is penned to keep the rabbits out to become leaf mold.  Next year it won't be the garden anymore...it's gotten too dark, the trees we've planted are getting nice and shady and so I'll have to dig a new one out in a more sunshiney spot!

I've been REALLY fortunate that I've made some new internet friends who are trying to help me out by posting my links on their sites, passing out my cards, tweeting about my work, etc.  I'll be doing a whole post about them soon.  Oh..and I'm secretly doing another child's portrait!  So that's the little bit of this and little bit of that I'm up to!  Thanks so much for visiting with me (too bad we can't just sit down together for a cup of tea!) 

Thanks again for visiting my blog.  I'm animal and childrens portrait artist, Robin Zebley.  I'd love to work with you to create the portrait of your dreams!  My email is HERE.

Carol and Madison - The darks and the lights - #2 in Step by Step Demo

This is a crucial period of the portrait. I am creating my roadmap so I drive this double portrait in the right direction! First thing I must do is preserve my lightest areas so that any smudging, migrating, mistakes, etc. from darks to make sure they won't stain my paper so badly that I can't get back to light.

I detailed my drawing of the bit, and colored it in with white. Of course, it's not going to stay white, but it is an important light, and I can always go darker over the white. I also used white to "paint" all of the highlights on Carol's face.

Then, more white on the muscles and planes of Maddie's head and face. I tend to over do the white a little, because I can always erase it. Then, the roadmap to his face with the darks. Horses' heads are a mixture of curves and planes and what I find so much fun about doing equine work is how crucial capturing these details are for a good likeness! I used a prismacolor dark brown pencil with a very rounded "point" with a very, very light pressure to color in the darks as I see them.

Now his eye has a lot more darks. I overdid the white reflection in his eye to preserve them, but hardly did anything more to his eye. Maddie's eye is the focal point of this colored pencil painting, so will get the most attention. That's for much later! Right now, I'm just looking for those patterns of darkest darks and lightest lights.

So, after I thought I was done, I flipped it over, flipped over my photo, and saw that there were tweaks here and there! It always helps to do this. My eraser came back out and I refined the dark shapes I see.



Getting the lights and darks right at this stage makes the rest of the process enjoyable. Otherwise, I'm fighting my bad drawing the whole way through. It's worth it to take way more time at this phase than I want to, cause of course, I WANT to get to the fun part of adding the real color.

Now, with Carol, I haven't done as much to yet. I have resketched her body and arms, and fixed a few facial features that weren't quite right. I saw the errors of my initial drawing when I was adding the shapes of white to her face where the light hits. This method of adding the lights and darks right after I think my drawing is perfect, really helps me to see when I haven't hit it. You might notice I didn't touch her white shirt. That's because I made the decision that this giant white shape takes too much attention from the action and story I want to tell, that of Carol looking right up Maddie's nose into his beautiful eye!

Next time, I'm going to have work done on the background. I know lots of artists hate backgrounds, but background frames the subject..or subjects in this case. I am going to tell the story here that Carol and Maddie are outdoors on a beautiful spring day, but I can't let that blooming tree become the story!

Also, by doing the background next, it gives me time to take a fresh look at what I now think is the best drawing I can do on Madison. I know from experience, that I will see even more areas where I need to move something a smidge here and there.
It pays to go back and perfect to the best of my ability. It's like in knitting. If you mess up one of the first rows, you can never really get it back! Of course, I am not perfect, but getting this part as close to perfection as I can will let me relax later on because I have the basic framework in place and will be able to relax and let my style show through later. Which makes each artist's work unique!

Hey, thanks for following along! I'd appreciate if you'd direct anyone you know who might be interested to follow along with us! If you just started, this is the second step in my demonstration. Click on the banner at the top and my whole blog will appear. Click on the follow button on your right to follow. My pet portrait website is HERE I depend on word of mouth so won't you please pass on my info? Thanks again for coming, and hope to see you next time! Robin PS: please do comment and ask questions! I will be happy to answer all questions about how I work.