Illustration & Fine Art

Q. Describe the most common types of jobs you do for your clients.

A. Over the past 20 years I've produced mainly children's educational books in the science genre and have published over 30 titles. In the latter portion of my career, I've produced maybe 15 garden and herb calendars, with the most recent one being a zodiac (!) calendar. How's that for versatility?

Q. What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A. Be sure to familiarize yourself beforehand with the market pricing for the artwork you are soliciting. Ask around. Call a design studio or an art director in a similar genre and ask specific questions about fees and the parameters for charging those fees. Additionally, really familiarize yourself with the style and content of the artist to be sure that it matches up with the needs of your product. Do your research first.

Q. If you were a customer, what do you wish you knew about your trade? Any inside secrets to share?

A. What a lot of non-artists don't realize is that a career in art requires many years of dedication and discipline in the development of an artist. Too many people expect art to be cheap or free. An artist may put a few hours into the development and execution of your project but, the motor and observation skills necessary to do that job have been in the making for that artist since he or she was perhaps 3 years old.

Q. What questions should a consumer ask to hire the right service professional?

A. Be sure to know your project time frame, deadline for preliminary sketches and completed assignment before you look to hire an artist. Know your project's dimensions and specifics beforehand. Know your budget. Then ask the artist whether a) they can meet the deadline within the required time, b) can work within your budget, c) understand the project requirements. Some artists will not have the tech facilities or studio equipment to produce large scale or highly technical computer graphic design layouts. If the artist has not spelled out in his or her profile that they provide what you need for your project, be sure to ask and not assume.

Q. What important information should buyers have thought through before seeking you out?

A. A buyer looking to hire me should first know what style and content they will need for their particular project; they should have a "vision" for their project. Next, the buyer should scrutinize my work to see if it dovetails well into their vision of what they need. If these coincide, it is likely that I will gladly meet their proposal.

Q. Why does your work stand out from others who do what you do?

A. I think my work is carefully designed and I pay strict attention to the color I use in my process. Some colors don't print well and I avoid these. The best oil colors for print reproduction are the ones that are closest to printer's colors.

Q. What do you like most about your job?

A. What I like best is the satisfaction that comes when I can find a great solution for a client that also meets my own artistic needs. Finding the elegant solution for both is what keeps me excited about my job.

Q. What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A. I am most commonly asked how long (how many hours, etc.) it takes to paint a particular piece. To the art buyer, I reply, "40 years"; to the art student, the answer is "as many hours as it takes for me to be satisfied-- or until the client wants it." Your own painting style and medium will dictate how long it takes for you to create an image.

Q. What do you wish customers knew about you or your profession?

A. Illustrators tend to not fit into the stereotype of the "typical artist." In fact, most fine artists don't fit the art school stereotype either. We're hard-working individuals who have a passion for what we do. A career in art requires great discipline and work ethic, great business /marketing/ writing skills, good people and communication skills, an ability to notice market trends, an ability to incorporate new technology into their business, and a desire to reinvent themselves every so often to make their practice sustainable.

Q. How did you decide to get in your line of work?

A. Sounds cliche, but it's what I always wanted to do: be an artist. Sure, I entertained the thought of going into something that was more lucrative and reliable like being a chemist or more glamorous like being a surgeon, but art called me. It's probably like any other "calling"; nothing else will quite *do*.

Q. Tell us about a recent job you did that you are particularly proud of.

A. The painting, "The Meeting", took 9 months to paint. It has several dragons in it, a faerie, about a dozen dogs, a few ships, Dwarves, Elves, Giants, and about 50 recognizable human faces. The client wanted to have a central image for a self-publishing title and this was his idea. To develop the characters well, I sculpted "maquettes" to assist me; I could position them in any direction and light them according to the scene. Additionally, I consulted several books on draperies and crowd scenes to better understand some of the elements in the composition. I'd say this was a pivotal piece for me in a lot of ways.

Q. Do you do any sort of continuing education to stay up on the latest developments in your field?

A. Currently, I teach illustration and drawing at York College of PA and have the unique advantage of having access to not only all of the cultural goings-on at the college but of the students themselves as living, breathing examples of what is going on in illustration and culture at the moment. Additionally, I subscribe to many blogs and other web services which host my my work and offer me the opportunity to see the work that other professionals in my field are doing. And twice a year I sign up to be an exhibitor at a fantasy/ sci-fi conference somewhere in the US. Rubbing shoulders with the big guns in the industry is huge fire under one's fundamentals.

Q. If you have a complicated pricing system for your service, please give all the details here.

A. I generally follow pricing guidelines that are directly influenced by the illustration market. This takes into consideration the kind of work that I offer plus the complexity and needs of the project, time frame, etc. Fees are usually split into three parts: one part due upon contract signing, a second part due when the client is satisfied with the design idea, the last part due upon completion of the final product.

Q. If you were advising someone who wanted to get into your profession, what would you suggest?

A. Many of the other questions I'd answered on this site provide some answers for the serious student wanting to pursue the field of illustration. If you hope to become rich and famous through illustration, this is not for you. One must thrive on daily solitude and a commitment to personal and professional improvement. One must be self-disciplined and be able to dodge constant distractions on a daily basis. My advice to the newbie is to find sources of information such as books on the subject of starting your career as an illustrator, ethical guides to pricing, and blogs on the philosophy of being a creative person in the field.

Q. What is your greatest strength?

A. Perhaps the ability to be somewhat of a bulldog when it comes to solving problems. I never give up when I don't have to and try to utilize the many sources that I have at my disposal to try and figure out the answer that I need. Additionally, I like to find solutions that are unique and different that what has been done before.

Q. Write your own question and answer it.

A. Do you only take work from clients in the area in which you live?

No, I can work for any client anywhere in the world. As long as I have access to a shipping company like FedEx or UPS, I can send artwork anywhere. Often all that is needed is a digital file of an image, so sending a file over the internet is quite acceptable.