I hope you are well, summer has just ended but I have still been releasing some youtube videos that I recorded during my holidays in the mountains. I really like to share my experience through videos as well. You know it, that’s why this blog exists in the first place.
During the summer, I did numerous hikes and most times I tried to take my sketchbook and a little bit of paint to try to show on paper what I had in front of me. Plein air painting is an exercise I deeply enjoy. But when you got to carry a huge back pack for a two day’s hike,you better think minimalist!
That’s what I want to share with you today : my minimalist watercolor set for hiking and travels. In the hope that maybe it can be of inspiration to you when it happens to you too.
The minimalist watercolor set :
When you carry a big bag an when space and weight is limited you have to think minimalist. Even when it comes to watercolors. That is why I never take more than these items for outdoor paintings.
A set of 3 brushes (I’ll talk a bit more about this later)
A red col erase pencil and a graphite mechanical pencil with a 2B nib.
This minimalist watercolor set that I take for travels and hikes is roughly 50 grams which is really little. I weighted it all. The sketchbook is the biggest item to take and might be the most problematic. So far I have managed to take it with me every time, but I am tempted to try a smaller one. Do you have mini sketchbook you like that you can suggest me ?
What are my favorites brushes to take for hike and travel?
In my set I only take 3 brushes. The one above is my most recent acquisition. I treated myself to a very nice actual travel brush. It’s the kind of brush that you can fold safely into your pencil case. So it’s this very beautiful flat handcrafted brush by Leonard.
The two other are a medium size flat beveled brush and a small Winsor and Newton series 7 for details and finish.
I am very happy about the flexibility of this set. I really have everything I need to paint on location. Above are some of the painting I did during some of these hikes and outings.
You can see a bit more of these painting and some more details about the set in my Youtube video. You can also see the paint brushes in action if you’re into that :
I hope you enjoy this blog, I’d love to hear about your small sets, your minimum, what is the littlest you take when you have no space for art supplies?
I am super proud to show you these very new stickers that I added to my Etsy shop : Girl’s stickers. And not just girly stickers, the idea behind those stickers is to show the wild nature and passion through feminine figures. Nature as you might know a very dear subject of mine. I always love to depict it at it best may it be through illustration or through outdoor paintings. I tried with this series to combine a bit of the lineless style I do for outdoor watercolor painting and my regular, colored inked illustrations.
It was a very nice project to work on. Your kind response to this series pushes me to continue the series for future girls!
Watercolor stickers from original artworks
The original artworks are also for sale for some of these. But, at the time when I write this post, two of them are already sold and on their way to their new home. Thank you so much! I was on a cloud of happiness while packing it. It is a true confirmation that lately I have been getting in the right direction with my art and with my watercolor illustrations.
Fire girl original Artwork.
The original artworks were hand painted with watercolor. It is a series that I started during the summer on a whim and kept doing for fun. I am so happy that it turned out in these watercolor stickers to feed a little my Etsy shop.
On my side I’ll happily stick them on my sketchbook. I deeply enjoy cover my sketchbook with all sort of stickers and these will have a spot for sur on my next one.
I am planning to add much more things to my shop in the upcoming weeks. Especially original artworks and with Inktober, that is IMtober coming up. I am planning to sell most of my original artworks from that challenge as well so keep an eye to my etsy shop.
A few days ago I went on a mini-hike with Mefisheye. Since we started our work-holiday we take more time for ourselves and especially to go out sketching in plein air.
The sun mixed with some cloud gave a very beautiful light
For outdoor watercolor painting I often use my homemade watercolor palette. I really like to use my colors for this kind of painting, as for illustrations, but I like it because a lot of the colors I have are really fitted for the outdoor.
I also use a mechanical pencil for my base sketch, a big flat brush for the base of the paint and a smaller angled brush for detailing.
Let’s paint!
I start with a very light and simple sketch. I try to focus mainly on getting the big shapes and getting my perspective right for the barns.
Using my big flat brush I tried to work with the wet on wet technique and do the background of the piece : the trees and the grass in front of the barns.
I then tried to define my tree shapes, but I admit I was not as successful as I hoped. I noticed I had some difficulties in rendering the trees. Since then I have tried to study them some more and even if I’m not exactly where I want to be yet, I’m on the way to better myself!
And here is the final painting, I tried to have stronger shapes in the end but the whole thing is a little messed up. However I am very happy about how the barns turned out and the over all composition of the painting.
I am also super happy about that new color of mine “Garden Green”. I have been using it profusely for this painting and it’s just the perfect shade for that kind of summer plein air painting.
Mefisheye’s sketchbook and mine after our painting session!
I hope you’ll take time for yourself and even paint a little! Leave me a comment to share your thoughts!
See you soon! And if you want more outdoor painting content, check out my youtube video I made during another hike :
Bonjour! And welcome to this new blog post on how to quote your work as an illustrator, and especially how I quote. I hope my experience will help you in finding the right price or, if you would like to commission an illustrator, know how pricing work.
Pricing an illustration and putting a price on you art is always very difficult, mostly because us artists may put our esteem lower than what we think we are worth.
What is my worth as an illustrator?
I am not too sure this question is the right one to ask. Instead of “I am worth x money” you should ask yourself :
How much do I need to live as a freelance illustrator?
As a freelance illustrator you are a professional of your craft. You have taxes to pay, a house to rent, art supplies to buy and food to put in your plate. The first step will be to define how much you need to live every month. And once you have it we will be able to determine how much you need to be paid.
Let’s take me as an exemple. I live quite simply and am lucky to have a partner to pay my bill with! So let’s count, take a paper with you and write along with me (note that I rounded up some fees since some varies each month)
House : 400€
Electricity : 50€
Food : 200€
Internet : 35€
Insurances : 70€
Art supplies : 20€
Restaurants and outings : 40€
Holiday savings : 50€
Safety Savings : 100€
I try to put some money on the side each month for my holidays and for the safety net! It is important to keep a safety net with a bit of money, let’s say you computer broke and you need one ASAP because you are in the middle of a book to illustrate. Well the money you put on the side is here for that. It’s also here for the month you get less commissions, you’ll be able to have that money to still be able to live comfortably and not accept every project that come up at a low price (but we’ll talk about this in a later post).
So now I determined I need 965€ each month to live correctly, you might have more spending than I do, you might need less. I still think it’s very important to know how much you need and I highly encourage you to try to find how much you need! You will feel much more at ease with what you need to earn.
How can I define my minimum hourly rate to live as an illustrator?
Now we need to define the minimum hourly rate. So each month let’s round up and say you need 1000€, you now need to know the number of work days. It’s obviously not 30 since you need weekends to rest (yes yes you do! please take some rest) so let’s take away the weekends. You’ll also have “admin days” that are around 2 days a week to answer emails, do quotes and a bit of social media and finding new clients. It leaves us with only 3 days per week for drawing. Let’s say there is 4 weeks in a month :
30 days a month – ( 2 days weekends X 4 ) – ( 2 admin days X 4 ) = 14 work days
Yes only 14 actual work days! Let’s do 7 hours a day, I feel like it’s harder for longer period of time even if I happen to often do days with 8 or 9 hours. It makes 98h of work each month.
1000€ / 98 hours = 10.20 €/hours
so this is my minimum without taxes!
Because yes being an professional artist in my country also mean paying taxes but I think it’s everywhere the same. I pay around 30% taxes that I need to add up to that number and also note that depending on the money transfer platform you use with you client you will also have fees for it. I count between 5% and 10% for the transfer fees. Never under estimate those! They can be quite the bad surprise.
So I round up my ultra minimum wage at 15€/hour.
What is my worth as an illustrator?
We all know now that price depend on demand. As you advance in your career you can ask for more because more and more clients comes to you. When you gain experience you can up your prices little by little and get more confortable. If you are in high demand, people will be ready to pay to get your art in their books. It is a bit like sports, good athletes are paid more because they are capable of winning because they trained hard. You too, you trained hard to become a talented illustrator, and clients are coming to you for it.
This being highly subjective I can’t really advise you anything. What I can tell you is that 15€/hour is a really low minimum for a wage, but hey, I like to live simply (I hardly ever buy clothes for exemple) ! Entry level illustrators goes between 20 to 30€ an hour, and prices goes up and up and up from there!
How to quote my work as an illustrator?
Now you know what you need to earn and what you’re worth, now let’s talk about how long do you take to make an illustration. Here it highly depends on your style, and your speed. What I recommend to you, is for a while, time yourself as you work on a few illustrations. Determine on average how much time you take to do an illustration. You will have your time base. Do this for every style your propose in your portfolio and then count like this :
Hourly rate X time per illustration = Your illustration price
Note that in the timing you count per illustration, you can add a little bit for mail exchange and some corrections on the illustrations.
I usually like to pack very light. This day we hiked for around 5 hours so every extra weight is unwelcome. For outdoor painting in Neouvielle national park I took the following :
This park is very beautiful, during the busiest days of summer it’s all packed with visitors and tourists that come to enjoy the lakes and the view. So I suggested that we go early in the season to avoid the crowd.
And oh dear did we get rewarded. At the beginning of our hike there was a dense fog. Fog is alright when the path is well marked, wich is the case here, and not only is it alright but it is fabulous! I took some pictures for later reference and I can’t help but share some with you.
We hiked up for a good 3 hours, stopping often to take pictures and film a little. I made a youtube video out of that trip, you should totally check it out for a more live version!
At the top it was breathtaking, the clouds gave us an amazing scenery, but I wanted something simpler to paint. It would have looked nice, but I don’t feel to confortable painting clouds right now. I should definitely do some studies and try to be better at it.
Actually sketching on location!
Back at the lake we found a nice spot to sit in the grass. In the park I especially like the rocks/trees formations. The landscape is pretty arid, there is a lot of big granitic rocks and pines have a curious pleasure to thrive in the middle of it! It always looks quite beautiful and I decided to paint one of these.
Bonjour! You have your children book script ready and you need to commission an illustrator for your children book?
You probably know your children book like the back of your and but the illustrator, just like me, will needs to get to know it too! Both to do a quote and to see if the project subject is of their liking.
Get your email ready with the following:
What information to send to an illustrator to commission them?
1/ A summary of your book
No need to send the full book to the illustrator. First to keep the text to yourself as safety. You will share the full text with the illustrator once you both agreed to work together. So until then just two or three sentences about your book is more than enough to understand the subject of your book.
2/ How many illustrations will there be in your book ?
To know accurately the price a book, the illustrator must evaluate the length of work that will be needed to complete the book.10 illustrations will be less expensive than 30 illustrations. So it is quite important to think ahead how to cut your book into pages. What pages will need an illustration? What will be the size of the illustration on that page?
Sleep tiny dreamer / Shanita Allen
Notice that depending on the age targeted by your book you will need more or less sentences on each spreads. Usually for very young kids, 5 and less, one sentence is enough per page. For older kids learning to read you can stay at one sentence but as they grow you can go to 2 to 3 sentences until 10 years old or so. Too much text on a page can be difficult for young reader.
A lot of space must be left to the illustration to keep the experience enjoyable.
3/ What art style are you looking for?
I’m thinking since you’re sending a mail to a specific illustrator you know their portfolio and so what kind of illustration style you want. But some illustrators like me have various art style in their portfolio. Don’t hesitate to send them a picture with the style that you liked most from their portfolio so they can know what you want.
Ronnie The Helicopter / Dave Hoppmann
Sleep tiny dreamer / Shanita Allen
Soda pop drop / Mallory Howell
The style of the illustration can also influence the price of the picture book creation. When you commission the illustrator for your children book, you can request a quote for each style.
4/ What is your agenda for your children book project?
You probably thought out your planning, when do you want to get the book out? When do you want to start the promotion?
The illustrator will need to know. First to see if they are available at that time and if the timeline is manageable.
For exemple for a 32 pages book like Sleep tiny dreamer I take around 3 months to complete the book. So if the timeline is too short I won’t be able to take the project. Each illustrator has its own rhythm so better ask them!
5/ What will be the format of your children book?
So many are the possibilities! It could be a 15 x 15 cm square book or a bigger 25 x 31 cm. In the end you are the one deciding!
I always advice my clients to go to a library, pick up a book they like and turn it into their hands to see if they like that size. It’s very important to know this information from the beginning because the illustrator will work with templates that will fit the book planned.
Ronnie The Helicopter / Dave Hoppmann
6/ How are you going to distribute the book?
So many possibilities here as well. If we are talking about the unconventional way of self publishing like we did before on this blog. Because you know me, I deeply enjoy self publishing!
Some of the books I realized for self published authors
Send your mail now!
Now you’ve gathered all the informations you can send your email to the illustrator. It’s a very good way to start a conversation with the illustrator. The illustrator will be able to know your project and start considering it. The more you know about your project, the more serious you will look and let me tell you the illustrator will love it! I know I love a well organised author!
I hope this blog post helped you and if you have more questions about how to collaborate with an illustrator, comment below and I’ll do my best to answer !
And if you are looking for an illustrator send me a mail with your project:
Bonjour! I’ve been missing a few weeks in this blog, for a few reasons. The first one being that I have been overly drowned under work. The second one is that I have been a little overwhelmed by this corona situation and the quarantine here in France. It’s time to take a breath of fresh air.
The quarantine is here to last and I saw that it was hard to keep to the house more than 7 days in a row. I tried, it was terrible for my mental health. Even if I really keep busy with personal art client work, I am missing the fresh air.
What have I been doing lately?
During the last month I have been focusing on my client projets. These days I am working on two books. They are two follow up stories from book I have already illustrated. The first one is the following story of Ronnie the Helicopter. I showed this book to you recently in this blog article and now I’m finishing up the illustrations. And at the same time I am working on Shanita Allen‘s next book. Do you remember the article about “Sleep tiny dreamer“? Well it’s the following book to this one. I’m still gathering a lot of materials on this book since Shanita agreed to me talking n this blog about our collaboration. New articles about children book making should come up in the next weeks or so.
I have also been actively working on my comic Radiant, we are now at the 21th episode. Not all available to read yet out of the Patreon but soon it will be! I have two to three episodes early on my patreon compared to the publications on Webtoon.
Not to mention character design class I give at ECV two days a week. All that work has been more and more overwhelming this past month with th worrisome environment we are in. I’ve been quite panicky at times and quite depressed too. All is usually calmed down by taking a breath of fresh air. But what to do when you cannot?
I need a breath of fresh air!
So last week after a pretty severe case of burn out and I can’t do it anymore. You know when your head is in such a fog that you just don’t want anything more than watch reality shows and roll ?
I hate this feeling, I am at a point in my life were I want to be more proactive and more positive in my actions. Even it’s a little, just opening my sketchbook and not dwell too much on my state of mind would be best. Because even if it’s quite easy for me, I’ve noticed that I cannot let myself go to self pity.
It’s not agreeable for me, who feels sadder and sadder as the day passes, but also for the people around me that have to take care of the lump of a girl that I am becoming…
So a few days ago, I’ve decided to try to take things differently. It’s not easy to be positive. But I believe I can convince myself to be in a better mood. I can also help keep my mood up by some little efforts.
Take care of yourself
Since taking a breath of fresh air is hard in these time, I’m trying a few things to keep my mood and morals !
First of all I’ve accepted to get help from Mefisheye for my comic Radiant. He is doing all the color now and I’m taking care of the drawing only. What a breather ! It takes a lot of work out of my shoulders.
Next Ive decided to take more time in my sketchbook and let myself explore, not work on any project or have a purpose when drawing and just draw, or paint whatever comes to my mind in that instant.
I’ve also been indulging myself in a lot more cooking that usual, I love to make the weekends more specials since we can’t go on pic niques or explore the nearby towns. We have been lucky to find yeast, it’s a hard to find item lately, and I tried to make Bbang bread and it was just delicious. It’s one of my favorite bun recipe and with all the sun we have it’s just perfect to heat the dought.
One thing that I have not yet implemented is reading, I do read a lot usually but I’ve been reading less and less since the begining of the quarantine. I’ve picked up a new book in French called “Fleur de Dragon” by Jerôme Noirez, I’m pretty sure I’ll read it in no time!
The last thing I want to work more on is actually taking breaks outside, even tiny even very close from home, in France we are allowed 1 hour walks or jogging every day if we stay into a small radius of our home. I’ve been really avoiding it in the spirit of keeping safe but I guess twice a week would be good at least to keep the head sane and the vitamine D!
What do you do to keep sane in these hard times ? What is your breath of fresh air?
Bonjour! How are you? Have you had time for a bit of reading lately? If not let me introduce to you another children book illustration I realized recently : Ronnie the helicopter.
Ronnie is the character of David Hoppmann who so wished to share his love and his knowledge of helicopters with the young and curious. I was very happy to have to create this cute little helicopter. Ronnie is full of life. In this story we learn a bit about how helicopters work and I myself learned a lot.
A digital children book illustration
I illustrated this book digitally. Since a lot of the helicopter drawing required a bit of precision I felt like it was more suited for this children book. It also allowed me to give to Ronnie his signature red color that seems to really be enjoyed by the children. David had a poll around his neighbor’s kid and they all choose for a red Ronnie! And I agree with them, Ronnie looks very good in red.
Ronnie looks extra cute in red
Illustrating an helicopter was a rather challenging subject for me. Illustrating Ronnie allowed me to experiment and use a technique I have been wanting to use for a while. To have more precise and bolder illustration I decided to integrate 3D models in the process. Let me show you how the illustration process goes for this illustration method :
I start with a rough storyboard (or rough sketch) of my illustration to see where are the elements
I do the 3D elements following the storyboard on a software called Sketchup.
I do a more precise sketch helping myself of the 3D elements
I paint the illustration
This children book is also a self published book. David Hoppmann the author has already started distributing it on amazon and it got a very good welcome so far.
A must-have for the young aviation enthusiast (or any kid!) with a great message about self acceptance. I love the colorful illustrations!
I hope you too have enjoy this New children book I illustrated. For a bit of a news, David and I are already working on the next book! So a new adventure of Ronnie will come to life in the future! In the meantime you can also check out my other books in my book section.
Now you have a portfolio full of very nice illustrations that you love and that you are confident showing. Now Get commissioned by clients and get your art noticed. There is various ways to get commissioned by clients and even more exist that I don’t talk about here. Here I just want to talk about what I know and my experience.
I admit I am not the best at talking about myself as many other artists. But as a freelancer you need to find clients. You need to be both an artist and a commercial agent. Thing I was never taught or even thought about the commercial side of things when I decided to become an artist. But as my experience grew, I realized how important it was.
One of my latest painting that I’m really happy about!
First step, be confident, appreciate your art, find your strength and be nice to yourself. Now :
Show your work, get commissioned by clients
You’ve done your best and you have put your best work into your portfolio. It’s time to show it to the world. There is actually a full book about that called Show your work by Austin Kleon. It is a good read, I highly recommend it.
Social medias
Even if I feel like it’s the less likely for you to find clients to commission you. There is still a possibility to be discovered through social medias.
Follow my news on Instagram @isaarne.art
I am mostly using Instagram because I’ve always loved the very image oriented platform. The platform though has many flows. The main being that your are lost in the mass of other artists that try to make it there. I feel like the point is not to “make it” on Instagram but rather to be there. Use it as a secondary way to show your work, show your personality, show who you are and how you do and think things. It’s some kind of a blog but even more visual. You can share little snippets and glimpses of artworks. Talk about things you can’t on a blog, like what do you think about my new found love of cacti? People love that and even if your following isn’t big, the one that do will appreciate and create a stronger bond with you. Maybe they love cacti too!
Twitter does exactly the same thing in a different way that I am not really sure I understand its ways. It’s more text based, I am an image person. But maybe you do and maybe you don’t like Instagram. Find your own place that will allow you to interact directly with people. Maybe among those will there be a future client. Facebook groups are also a good way to meet authors and promote your art.
Just don’t count too much on social medias they are too volatile and fleeting. It’s only a part of the way.
Events and networking
I’m shy…
I’m very shy, but I’ve seen the benefits of going to locals events. I still need to work a lot on my courage to really make it a thing. I’ve been to local events and recently I tabled at a convention . Events are the best way to network. You meet a lot of people and exchange face to face. There is nothing better to start a good relationship with a potential clients. You can even get commissioned by a client on the spot!
I liked this illustration so much I made it as a business card
Go out there and get yourself known. Get a nice illustration on a business card and talk to people.
You might also like to meet with your other artist colleagues. Even if they are not potential clients it might really be interesting to meet them. First benefit would be to know who is around in your city and create links with them. I go to an even every month called “Drink and draw” as it’s name hints it, it is a low stress, casual event that reunites the artists of Bordeaux. The goals isn’t networking really but it is also part of the game. You never know where client might come from. Friends in the trade that know your style can sometimes redirected their client to you if they are busy or if the work asked is more into your style than their. Never underestimate the power of networking and knowing people.
Reach out to potential clients
What about going to find the client itself! Here there is a tons of ways to do so, both online and in real life. If you are planning on finding editors you can always try to reach out to them. Publishers are a very good way to find work as a children book illustrator.
Show your work to editors.
Here it is mostly like networking. The best way is of course to meet in person. You can also send mails to art directors and collections responsible. The advice I can give you for these is DO YOUR WORK. I mean don’t go head first and send tons of emails. Before you send an email, try finding out a bit more about the editing house or the collection you would like to illustrate in:
What is their style?
What kind of stories do they publish?
Do I fit in that kind of work?
Editors will look if you fit in their editorial line. Also keep sending emails. Try sending mails often, not every weeks but every three months or two months showing new work and renewing your good hopes. Editors and art directors are always very busy people and they might not answer you. But if they keep seeing you and like your work they will contact you.
Find your niche and get commissioned by clients from this niche
Your niche is things you like and do. It is a part of your universe. It can take a while to find though and it’s only one of the ways to find clients. But it’s a very good one. I’d advise you, just like your style, to take the time to think about what it could be. For exemple I like watercolor, drawing cute things, telling stories and talking directly to authors. So I do children books that incorporate those elements. So when I do my research for new clients I try to reach out to people that love the same things as me. It will be easier to create a bond and transform a connection into a client.
Find an agent
Art agents
Agents are in fact the commercial agents you are supposed to be if you are alone. This means they get to do all the research work for you minus a commission they take for their work. If you’ve read the amount of work that is needed to promote yourself and get new clients, you might agree to a little fee off your paycheck. Because the work of commercial agent is quite tedious and needs to be done! The advantages is that agents have a repertoire of possible clients to commission you. And since it both in yours and their interest that you get commissioned by clients it is a win-win situation. Finding an agent is basically the same work as finding an editor. You need to check what kind of artist they like to represent and show them your portfolio.
A website working as an agent : Reedsy
I now want to talk to you about an agent like service that I use a lot to find client. Reedsyis a website that works just like agent. They work to promote their website and attract authors that they put in relation with you. Their specialty is self published authors.
My profile on Reedsy
Reedsy built a very efficient website, very nice to work with for the confort of both the artists and the authors. I’ve been working with them for a few years now and I’m really enjoying the process. For exemple the collaboration for Sleep tiny dreamer started through Reedsy. They of course take a little fee along the way. Since they created such a safe environment, take care of all the promo and all the financial technicalities I feel like it’s well deserved.(I promess I am not sponsored. I’ve just been experiencing the platform for a few years and it’s the only platform of that kind that I accept and to work with)
All they require is a good portfolio strongly oriented toward the type of work you would like to do. If you want to do children books on Reedsy you have to have at least one children book already made in you portfolio. For reference you can look at my profile there and see how it looks to potential new clients :
I hope you know have some ideas on how to get commissioned by clients and find new clients. Don’t hesitate to comment and tell me about your ways or your experiences and also if this post helped!
What a beautiful day, I’m turning 30 and I feel quite good about this year, as I talked in other posts I have a lot of plans for this year and I really feel like my illustration career is growing smoothly, and I’m really starting to feel like I’m in the right direction with my art.
I want to celebrate this beautiful year that passed and that is to come by offering a 30% discount to my etsy shop! You can use the code :
HAPPY30ME
Follow this link to visit my shop and enjoy the promotion and a little bit of joy with me today! The code will work until the 22th of February only so don’t miss out.
yay!
So with that said, I’m going to eat a bit more of cake!
