No one sets out to have a favourite food, we find it along the way. The same thing happens with the style of art we gravitate toward, too.
Author: Matt Shanks
What are awards for?
Who won the 1976 Olympic Summer Games gold medal for trapshooting? Don’t know? Neither do I. Which makes me wonder, what are awards for, anyway?
Are algorithms driving the art we make?
How do we know why we make the work we make? Is it driven by our need to understand ourselves by the algorithm so we get the validation we so crave?
Those thankless nights
If the publishing deals dried up today, I’d still be drawing, painting, and writing, just for me, just like I did before, published and paid, or not.
Destination unknown
Maybe, sometimes, we need to fling something at a canvas with no intention or plan, just to see what happens; respond to what’s right in front us.
Getting noticed
How do you get noticed by publishers? How do you break-in to kids’ books? It’s easy, make work, often. Eventually, it’ll be so good it can’t be ignored.
The starving artist: a culture, not a law
Changing the law needs lawyers. Changing a culture doesn’t need lawyers, we just need everybody to agree, and that’s hard.
Bit by bit
Becoming an artist is possible, drawing-by-drawing, day-by-day, bit-by-bit. Just because you’ve never done it before, doesn’t mean you can’t.
One thing for yourself
How do you get the energy to do anything creative after a long, boring, soul-destroying day at work?
How to: Broadcast your studio for regional and remote Australia
I’ve recently offered the opportunity for schools in regional and remote Australia to come into my studio on a live workday. The aim is to give some 1:1, intimate illustrator time to those who are often at a geographical disadvantage where it’s too expensive for schools to pay for people like me to visit them.… Continue reading How to: Broadcast your studio for regional and remote Australia