Even if they say they do, most people don’t want original.
Author: Matt Shanks
First, we make the clay
First drafts aren’t final drafts. They aren’t even close. The first draft for a writer is nothing but a big hunk of clay, waiting to be shaped, the only problem is, writers have to do the digging.
Do I want to make a living from my art?
Everyone wonders whether I will ever make art ‘full-time’ but no one asks whether that’s even possible, and what I’m willing to change to make it happen.
Fill the cutting room floor
Could writers and illustrators take a lesson from filmmakers who shoot much more footage than they need so that only the best bits will make it?
How to: read poetry
If you’re curious about poetry, but don’t know where to start, here’s one method, the one that worked for me.
Children’s books and intergenerational knowledge transfer
Are picture books the last remaining object, disconnected from the internet, where two generations can share and discuss an idea together?
What am i doing differently?
Let’s face it, these days, it’s easy to be the same. To conform. To take a nice, comfy seat high up on the bell curve of what’s ‘on trend’. If I want to buy some new clothes, it’s easy for me to pull up a Pinterest board and see, in an instant, what the world… Continue reading What am i doing differently?
Adding signs of life to settings
Backgrounds give the illustrator a rich opportunity to tell stories using only pictures. It’s almost always what a child that notices first.
The sky isn’t blue
Once an artist has found the formula to capture reality, we get to move beyond it, and capture what imagine it could be, like when we were kids.
Pictures are for kids, right?
In an increasingly visual, connected world, why does visual literacy play second fiddle to words? Why is the path to literacy paved in language?