Ensuring I’ve got a non-negotiable private playground for ideas, thoughts, and feelings is critical to make better work.
Author: Matt Shanks
The tools of the trade
For an illustrator, the tools of the trade go beyond brushes, paper, and paint. The mind and the body also need the same, if not better, care and attention to deliver better quality work for longer.
Afraid to waste the good stuff
Would we make more art if we weren’t afraid of ruining the lovely paper, or using up the expensive paint or damaging our nice brushes?
Done is better than perfect
It’s only when something is done that you can get feedback. And it’s only through feedback that we improve.
Truth-seeking
The art I love most reveals something about us or the world that has been there the whole time, but we’ve been too focussed to see it.
The importance of investing in everyday things
A few years ago, I spent too much money on plates and bowls crafted by a local Melbourne potter. A potter I’d seen at markets for years, her work getting better and better with every throw. Plates and bowls. Such ordinary objects. Objects that are so easy to acquire for any price, at any time,… Continue reading The importance of investing in everyday things
Learning through mimicry
It’s surprising what your fingers will do, automatically, when you’ve spent some time copying the writers you admire, word-for-word.
A team that sits together, ships together
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from building software it’s that the designers and engineers need to sit together. They need to talk together, design together, build together, test together, iterate together. In every software project I’ve ever worked on, when this happens, so does magic. The work is more creative, more efficient, more beautiful… Continue reading A team that sits together, ships together
Work needs Play
The best work comes from Play
Credentials aren’t that important for most things
An uncertified surgeon is illegal but it’s probably true that no one has ever died by looking at artwork produced by an uncredentialed artist.