Click rates, followers, engagements, opens, subscribers, unsubscribes, likes, laughs, loves.

We’re living in a quantitative world. No matter which social media platform you’re using, the numbers supposedly don’t lie. It’s how we measure our success. Every one of these platforms offers ‘analytics’. A way to track your success and effectiveness of what you’re posting. The problem is, the numbers they’re tracking (and giving us) are the ones important to their own success, not the success of the individual. After all, the assumption is that we all want to scale and grow everything, right? Just as a company would.

So, like I did, you spend your life trying to optimise; trying to bump up the numbers that they give you to play with. It goes a bit like this: Last time I posted a photo of my cat, I got ten extra followers, that’s more than any followers from any other post. So, now I post more pictures of cats. Right?

Well, yes, that logic is excellent if your goal is to increase followers or, as the businesses say, “To scale your business and become an influencer”, to “Build an audience”. But what if ‘scale’ isn’t your goal? Where are the dashboards and metrics that provide insight into the quality of the audience?

To be honest, I’m over it. I’m really tired of ‘building my audience’. I’ve spent the last five months not posting to Instagram at all. And, as I suspected, my follower count is dropping at a relatively steady rate. It’s Instagram’s way of saying, “Hey you! Don’t lose your followers! Come here! Keep posting. We need you!”

These platforms we use reward behaviour that they want us to perform, and as a by-product, subconsciously encourage us away from posting stuff that, quite possibly, is the real stuff people want to see; stuff that creates a raw and realistic picture of what life is really like. It might not necessarily be aspirational or dreamy. It’s probably the stuff that doesn’t make you feel ‘hashtag blessed’, or, worse yet, be algorithmically successful.

When I surveyed my mailing list, what was the number one thing people wanted to see? The mistakes I made. The crap work. The work that tells every other person that I’m a human that does 4000 versions of something I hate to find the 1 version of something that ends up in a picture book. In other words, they wanted to see the work that I feel too embarrassed to show and the work that will make my Instagram feed look like a car crash.

Dance to the (algo)rhythm

I know what kind of posts Facebook rewards. I know what kind of posts Instagram rewards. I know what makes those little lines on all my dashboards tick upward letting me know that I’m doing a ‘good job’. Keep it all consistent. Keep it on-brand. Post regularly. Make sure people can glance at your feed and get an instant idea of what they’re signing up for. And I can play their game; these platforms aren’t that sophisticated. But now I’m thinking their game sucks, and it’s time to try something new.

Dancing to a different rhythm

I’ve recently been asking myself what’s truly important to me. What will bring me and my art practice the most significant rewards? I’m questioning whether the data that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram value as businesses are actually what I care about.

As it turns out, it’s not.

Ever since I started this crazy picture book journey, I’ve been interested in one main thing – making a positive impact in the world. So, with this lens, I’m now experimenting with setting my own metrics.

Exhibit A – My mailing list.

First, we shape the tools, and then the tools shape us.

I use MailChimp to send out a quarterly newsletter to those who like to hear from me about what I’ve been up to once every three months. And, like most people, I want to know whether the effort I put into them is worth it.

It usually takes me a few weeks, working an hour or two a week, to put one of these together. I try to keep the content of them relevant to what I think my audience wants to know. It’s highly visual and quite personal. Because it’s not a social feed, the rules are slightly different. The algorithms aren’t serving content, I am.

I’m one of those people who loves feedback. When I send out a newsletter into the big wide world I’m the guy who sits in the dashboard refreshing it every few minutes to see who’s opening it, what are they clicking on, when are they clicking on it. Here’s what Mailchimp thinks is important to me:

1. Open rate
2. Click rate (per unique open)
3. Audience change
4. Forwards
5. Last clicked

The list goes on.

So, when I first started, I had no idea what these numbers meant. On their own, they aren’t that useful. Then, after a while, I saw a trend. It looked like people click on listicles the most (articles that start with phrases like “10 tips for…”). Next most popular, images of art that aren’t mine. My open rate is higher on Tuesday mornings than it is on Thursday afternoons. My click rate is higher if I send out curated content I’ve found on the internet as opposed to links to my own stuff.

Huh. Interesting. But useful?

If I want to play the game that Mailchimp wants me to play, then great. I can change what and when I send emails out, and those numbers will definitely go up. But, at what cost? Do I end up becoming a ‘good curator of other people’s content’ for people who aren’t interested in me anyway? Is that what will help me become a better artist or teacher?

I know I’m taking a simplified and pessimistic view of this data. But bear with me a moment.

It comes back to what I really want to know; when I switch off the dashboards and insights and numbers and ask myself what I really want the answer becomes clear. What I want to know is whether I’m increasing my connection with my audience. I want to know how my content is making people feel. Do people care about what I’m telling them? Am I adding enough value into someone’s life to even bother doing this? And what value is it adding to mine?

So, I made a fresh start. I decided to make up my own set of metrics. Ones that I think give me a more explicit indication of whether what I’m doing is fulfilling the goals I want to achieve. These are metrics that no ‘service’ offer. It’s up to me to track them. So here they are:

1. Does anyone bother to reply? And if so, who?
2. How did it make them feel? Angry? Sad? Happy?
3. How does it make ME feel to receive each response.

When you start to consider these metrics before you create content, it’s surprising what sort of content it unlocks. Instead of posting highly visual photos of other people’s work (e.g. ten best social media artists to follow), I start to think about telling personal stories so people can get to know me better. Instead of posting pictures of cats, I think about telling people about the impact that their financial support is making in my life, and the lives of others through the charities I support.

It’s different. It’s not how Mailchimp or any e-marketing textbook would frame ‘success’, but it makes me feel really good.

Numbers Shnumbers

Whether Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or are doing it purposefully or not, the algorithms they’re using to serve content are rewarding behaviour that, in the end, gives *them* as much reward as possible – and that’s scale. The number of eyeballs on the platform is what’s important to them. And, just like billboards placed on highly used motorways, it means they can reach more people with advertising and therefore charge more money for that space.

No matter how sure I am about this decision to change what content I share in the world, I still have fear. I fear I’m about to ‘cannibalise’ my social media accounts. I’ve spent a good chunk of time building a pretty modest following, but I’m about to start posting things that probably won’t make the maximum number of people hit the like button or the follow button.

But I know that when I do feel that intense pressure that these platforms will put on me to influence what I post, I’ll return to this article and read me to myself. Hopefully, that’ll be enough because I’m not measuring success by analytics dashboards anymore.

I’m a self-taught professional artist. I’ve only just recently started saying that to myself, and it feels really good. I’m proud of it. I managed my way into an industry by taking a different path; one that’s far less trodden but more accessible than ever.

But.

I haven’t done ‘official’ training, and that still worries me. I often wonder what it would be like to go to Art School. It sounds romantic. And I know I’m a romantic at heart. How much would it amp up my current professional practice? I’d also be able to say, “I went to Art School.” That sounds so cool. Traditional. Legitimate. But it also looks really expensive. So I continue to ask myself, what would I learn there that I can’t use the internet for right now? Here’s what I’ve been thinking.

Art school for improving technical skills

Becoming a better draftsman can only really happen with practice. I know this intellectually. I draw a circle and it’s a bit wobbly. So, I’ll draw another; it comes out slightly better. If I draw one-thousand circles, the thousandth one will be pretty damn circular. The same principle of repetition and honing your hand-eye coordination goes for everything from circle drawing to drawing complex urban architecture or fluid figure representation with line and colour. Do I need an art school for this? Probably not. I just need to prioritise this practice in my daily life. It’s a war with Netflix, and I won’t let Netflix win.

Art school for “finding my voice”

Finding my voice. Now there’s another matter. Can art school help with this? What do I need to ‘find my voice’ anyway? Surely my voice is a combination of self-awareness and rigorous repetition. Finding my voice isn’t about technical execution, it’s about looking inward. It’s about slowing down and finding out what’s important to me. Asking myself big moral questions about my own place in the world and how those thoughts and feelings can manifest themselves in the physical form. These things seem to be at the core of an art practice. How does my bag of bones, bacteria, and brain interact with and relate to the complex ecosystem in which I live? How does the result of that exploration make me feel? What does it make me think? What do I want to tell others about? Does an art school curriculum help with that? I’m not convinced it does. I dare say that life (aka age), reserved time for introspection and critical reflection/meditation can provide a pretty well-rounded replacement. It has so far. I am where I am because of it.

Art school for community and critique

Of course, art school also offers a community. A group of peers, teachers and mentors who would provide me with feedback and insight to ‘progress’ toward finding ‘truth’ in my work. This sounds kind of useful. I value feedback more than anything, especially feedback delivered with a discerning and empathetic voice. But is the collective voice of the few who run the Art School better than the voices of 3.2 billion people that I can access for free on the internet? The law of averages suggests that 3.2 billion people would get pretty close to giving me decent third-party insight into my work.

If I’m searching for community, is it possible to find a mentor, a group of fellow artists through an organisation like SCBWI at much smaller fees and greater control than picking an art school? I’m inclined to think so because I’ve done this. My community is building. The collaboration I have with my agent, wife, peers and publishers is a rich environment of expert input. I can feel it making my work better, and it’s providing a fire underneath me to explore new and interesting ideas all the time. That’s what art school is supposed to do, right?

Art school for availability and access to ‘resources’

I find it very difficult to imagine art school being able to provide a set of reading or visual references that I can’t find online. In Melbourne, there are several weekly life drawing classes, and they’re $15 per class, and include a beverage if you’re so inclined. There’s no long-term commitment. It’s pay as you go. The last one I went to had 30 people in it. I made friends and found some critics. It was fun and useful, way cheaper, and more flexible than any art school I’ve seen who offers this as part of their service.

The ease of access to books and suggested reading lists from other artists is longer and deeper than I will ever have the opportunity to explore in my entire life. Perhaps art school offers a level of curation that would help me focus? But if I know myself well, if I understand the questions I’m looking to answer, I can direct myself to discover the answers and find a more profound truth just as quickly (if not quicker) than art school could supposedly unlock. It would indeed be cheaper. But is it $20,000 faster? I doubt it.

Art school for professional connections

Professional connections are probably another thing that art school would be good for. But then again, LinkedIn is pretty useful for that too. And besides that, I’m already working. Since my journey as a professional artist began, I’ve met so many other publishers and practising artists. There are industry events that don’t require you to be a member of any art school. You just pay to attend. And again, the fees are much smaller than any art school, and if you’re having a lean month, you don’t need to go. You can spend time drawing circles instead.

If I needed to access artists who aren’t on LinkedIn or don’t attend industry events, then they’re just an email away. Yes, many of them are too busy with their art practice to reply to my email, that’s true. But I’ve found incredible success by making sure my emails are focussed with razor-sharp questions, specific to the person I’m asking, that take no longer than 5 minutes to answer and are awash with gratitude.

With direct access to thousands of artists across the internet, even if only half of them replied, that still puts my access into the hundreds. In fact, I’ve tried this, and I’ve found so many of them to be exceedingly generous with their time, so the hit rate is still better than 50%.

So, Art School?

So I sit back having externalised my thoughts to realise that, in fact, perhaps Art School is still a tradition that I want to be a part of. As I said, it’s romantic, and there’s a history behind the brand names like VCA that still linger in my mind as having deep industry value. But in the end, when I’m clear about what I want to get out of Art School, the rational part of me can’t seem to justify it. At least, not now anyway. Maybe I’ll end up with one of those honorary degrees one day. That’d be cool.

For all of the problems that a more globalised world has created, there’s one thing that’s clear in my mind – there’s never been a better time to be a self-taught artist. In fact, there may no longer be any value in distinguishing between self-taught and, well, whatever the other one is.

Having completed my first five-metre mural on glass, I wanted to share this little how-to guide to help other artist and illustrators shortcut the process if they ever want to try this themselves. At the time, I found it very difficult to piece together disparate pieces of information across the internet on how to do this to a professional level, but in the end, it turned out OK. So, here it is.

Drawing skills

This guide doesn’t cover drawing skills. I’m assuming that if you’re trying this, you’re at least confident in your drawing style. No matter how specific I can be about the application of paint on glass, nothing will make up for a wonky-looking drawing. How do you get better at drawing? Well, draw. Lots.

Materials

High-quality acrylic paint. Not too stiff, not too flowy. I tried a few and settled on Matisse Acrylic Flow. Large brushes and small brushes, paint pots, paint palette, drop sheet, music, a comfy pillow, pencils, glass pencils, windex, some rags, large sheets of paper, some plywood to practice on, posca markers, a four-inch razor for removal and trimming.

Step 1: The idea

Every successful project starts with the idea. No matter how good your technical ability is, if you don’t have an idea with clear intent, your project will be a house of cards. For the Mary Martin window, I started by sketching at a small scale. In fact, precisely 1:25 scale. I made a template of the window panes using InDesign (but you can use any software) and printed them out so they’d fit on an A3 piece of paper. I had the freedom to focus on the concept and composition at a size I was familiar with first.

Where do ideas come from? Well, I’ve got the post for you.

Step 2: Scaling up

Having only ever painted for picture books, blowing up my artwork to something like 5m long is a bit intimidating, so I knew the only way to do it was to practice. I know my ‘style’ intimately now so I know when something looks ‘right’, and when it doesn’t.

I bought a couple of large plywood sheets from Bunnings (1m x 2m) for about $10 each. Then, armed with a few dull old 2B pencils, a regular eraser and the idea, I started to sketch big. I didn’t try to replicate the whole mural, that’s far too intimidating, and it would’ve taken ages for me to get some feedback for my efforts. That’s the most important thing at this stage, finding the fastest path to getting feedback so you can learn quickly; it’s a chance for me to assess progress against what I was trying to achieve.

I focused one or two characters first and tried to replicate them as accurately as possible. The basic idea behind this approach was to train my muscle memory to adapt to the scale. I needed to “feel” what a good circle was like. Exactly how much should I be moving my wrist in the process? (The answer is not much). Things like eye-placement, body position and facial expression are core components of my characters, so I focussed on getting these correct first. I worked close, then stepped back a metre or two to see how it looked at a distance that people would typically pass by it.

Step 3: Acrylics

Colour mixing

Before this mural, I had never painted with acrylics. I went to the art store and selected a bare minimum of paints. I was familiar with working with a split-primary palette from watercolour, so I picked the same colours. How did I know they were the same colours? I ignored the sexy names they give them like, “Sunset Yellow” and just made sure the pigment numbers matched up. More on pigment numbers and how to choose colours.

I used my plywood sketches and followed the colour mixing principles I’d developed for watercolour to start to mix familiar colours. Skin tone, Hair etc. Because I use water in watercolour to make things lighter, I had to get become familiar with adding white in acrylic to make things lighter. Hot tip: By LOADS of white.

Applying acrylic paint on different surfaces

Painting on plywood and painting on glass are two VERY different things. Plywood is rougher and more absorbent than glass so as I was training myself on Plywood I started to worry that I didn’t have the physical strength to paint something that was five metres long. After a session or two on the ply, my shoulder started to ache. However, I persisted with getting a feel for mixing and applying acrylics to these two pieces of ply. I focussed on blending colours on the ply to make smooth gradients. I was trying to mimic watercolour washes, albeit with difficulty.

I began to understand overpainting and underpainting techniques and drying times depending on how warm the weather was. How much paint to use and mix on the palette, how much coverage I would get, and how transparent and opaque colours interacted with each other. I found the amount of information that seeped into my brain in 2 four-hour sessions was incredible.

Painting acrylics on glass

Once I started to become partially comfortable with the application of acrylics on plywood, I was ready to move to the glass. I thought about ways in which I could get my hands on some cheap glass (cheap glass seems to be an oxymoron), and in the end, the easiest, most affordable, and the most convenient way was to use my home windows. With the permission of my partner of course.

Thanks to a few YouTube clips and some home practice, here are a few things to know before you start painting on glass:

• The direction of light is critical. You need to understand which side of the glass is getting the most light. Shop windows are generally quite dark indoors which means that when you paint on them and walk past it on the street, you see far less streaking in your paint application. But, like Mary Martin’s window display, sometimes there is lighting just inside the window to light up the display. If the light inside is stronger than the light coming from outside, you get HORRIBLE streaking.
• Lay down white first, as a base coat. Acrylic paint doesn’t stick to glass particularly well. The easiest way to have hassle-free painting and avoid weird streaking as I’ve described above is to lay down a plain white coat of basic house paint and let it dry. If the window you’re painting has more interior light than exterior light (as described above), you’ll need at least two coats for the streakiness to not show.
• You use far less paint on glass than other surfaces. This is pretty self- explanatory of course, but compared to plywood, my paint went further when I painted on glass.
• Trimming means you can paint loose. Acrylic on glass has a unique ability to be ‘cutaway’. By this, I mean if you get a shape or stroke wrong, you can take a scalpel or razor and trim the mistake off. The paint peels off easily, like sunburnt skin. Discovering this took SO much pressure off.

Working to a time-limit

For the Mary Martin mural, I had a hard time limit. Two days. 10am – 6pm. And, having never done this before, I had no idea whether it was too much time or too little time. So, I made sure the final concept was adaptable. This is where painting like an oil painter helps.

I’ve heard this best described as painting like a camera lens sees the world. The idea is to avoid focussing on one character or part of the drawing and getting it to completion but rather work across the whole drawing early. Block in big shapes and then, as you go, you spend more and more time adding levels of detail across the entire painting. The camera lens analogy is a good one. It’s like starting off with an unfocused image. You can see large blurry shapes and colours and values. Then, as you tweak the lens, you slowly bring the image in to focus.

Painting in this way means that if you run short on time, you’re not left with one or two characters finished and the rest of the canvas untouched. It means that everything is somewhat coloured in and what’s probably missing if you run out time are particular details around clothing or hair, but you can get away with not having these if time is an issue.

Typography

I have to admit that my partner came to the rescue. While I was busy painting our home windows, Mel’s graphic design skills came to the fore. We designed the typography layout together on the computer, then printed it out, tiled, across 6 or so pages. This gave us something to trace directly on to glass.

By this time I had cracked the ‘how to paint on glass’ mystery, so I was able to guide her with my ‘expert’ eye for how to use white house paint on glass. This touch of beautiful typography really lifted the whole design.

Logistics

Painting on location is always fraught with uncertainty. I’ve done enough sketching on location to be aware of things like water sources, clean up facilities and so on. Here’s a list of the things we had to consider for the Mary Martin mural.

• Wash up spaces: With five metres of painting, there would need to be a lot of wash up. I needed, at minimum, a sink with running water.
• Exact sizes: Doing all of this prep work at 1:25 scale is not particularly useful. Given that the window is the bookshop’s primary chance to lure people into the store with their beautiful displays of exciting books, I needed to go in a number of times to get exact measurements of how high the mural good be without getting in the way of the book displays.
• Parking/Cost of parking: Getting to and from the venue is always something to consider. With a lot of painting supplies, we needed easy access to the car at all times during the day. Fortunately for us, the car park at Southgate was excellent both in cost and location.
• Lunch breaks: When I paint, I lose myself. I get in a flow state, and I can go for 12 hours without remembering to eat; that’s only when I’m at home alone. Painting in public is even more exciting because you’re having conversations with people, inspiring little kids to paint and draw themselves, and signing books. Taking lunch seems like an inconvenience, but it’s SO important to be able to sustain your energy. If there aren’t any cafes or shops near to the site, don’t forget to pack lunch and a thermos of tea.
• Safety barriers: We were painting in a mall, so barriers were provided for us, but it’s important to have something to demarcate your space. Not only do you need it for public safety, but it’s just WAY more comfortable to paint when you’ve got some space that you know people won’t invade. If they had their choice, people would come right up to the glass to have a chat. Can you imagine just finishing a piece only to have a member of the public accidentally lean on it or smudge it!
• Marketing/Colouring in activities: Painting a mural for a bookshop is more than about ‘just painting a mural’. Bookshops are a kind of heartbeat in our community. They bring people of all ages together – hunters looking for their next literary adventure. Having an artist-in-residence is a special thing for a lot of people, and so if there’s anything you can do to make that experience more special, I believe it’s your responsibility as an artist to do that. For Mary Martin, I made some bespoke colouring sheets and bought a pile of crayons for the kids to use. I wanted them to make their own art as so many often want to do when they see an adult painting. It’s such a natural experience for humans to do this and I figure if I’m lucky enough to have found the confidence to share it, then it should benefit as many people as possible, not just ‘the client.’

The final result

It was such a success! The bookshop loved it, the public loved it and, well, I was a little bit proud of it myself. I am also HUGELY thankful to my ever-supporting wife Melissa who not only helped with the painting but also documented the 2 days so beautifully with this lovely collection of photos.

As an artist, it’s easy to think you’re selling art, right? That thing you spent hours or months slaving away at. That final piece that someone will hang on their wall in their home and call their own? The layers of paint, expertly placed just so. It’s taken years of experience to get to this point. The point when you can call yourself an artist?

But I’m not sure that artists are selling only the final piece. See, I’m starting to think that there are two types of buyers. I don’t know what to call them but here’s what characterises the difference.

Two types of buyers

The first buyer is the one who’s buying the commodity. The thing that looks nice. The thing that matches their rug, or their couch, or their child’s space-themed nursery. They’re the sort of buyer who is happy to pay you for it, but, if they can get it cheaper elsewhere, they will. They’re the type of buyer who feels that, should Target or K-Mart steal your work from Instagram and mass-produce it, there’s no difference. It still matches their rug.

The second type of buyer is the one who purchases the story. Sure, they like the final piece. It probably still matches their rug, or couch, or their child’s space-themed nursery. But, they’re the sort of buyer for whom originality matters. Where mass-production somehow devalues the piece. These buyers are willing to pay more (although every buyer is still price-sensitive). And while it may seem that, even to the buyer themselves, they are buying the art, what they’re actually buying is more than that. They’re purchasing a license to tell your story.

Buying stories

When both buyers hang your art above their couch, the surface-level experience is mostly the same. Friends come over for a dinner party and applaud both buyers on their stylish curation and expert taste in interior design, “Wow, you’ve got such great taste,” they say. But it’s at this point where the similarities stop; the buyer must now respond to their friends’ gushing kindness.

The first buyer responds with gratitude and then overwhelming excitement for the deal they got. “Can you believe I got this from K-Mart for just $15?” They say. “Some artist is trying to sell these on Instagram for like $300!” And, it follows that their friends are stunned by the bargain and heap congratulations on this buyer for their bargain-hunting prowess.

The second buyer, however, responds quite differently. They paid the $300 price tag, direct from the artist, and they still feel as though they have a deal. That’s because they’ve bought something quite different. Yes, they’ve still got the final piece. But, instead of focussing on the cost, they spend 15 minutes sharing a story of making a connection. They purchased an original directly from the artist, they say. They browsed the artist’s site for months as they saved to buy this specific piece. They emailed the artist back and forth and built a personal relationship with them. They might even call them ‘an artist friend they know’ now. They talk about how this piece was created en-plein air on the artist’s recent travels to Croatia. They followed the progress of the painting on Instagram. They know that it, in fact, took over 300 hours of work, 3 months to complete, and while the artist was doing so, they were incredibly nervous about how it was progressing. There’s online evidence to share with their friends.

The story of the second buyer is rich. It’s full of emotion, human connection, struggle and achievement. It’s as unique as the painting itself. Their friends are on tenterhooks; they pick up their phones and follow the artist on their social media channel of choice. Through association, they feel they know you already. Because of the story that the second buyer has purchased, the piece maintains an exquisite central presence in their home for many years. When the couch is no longer in fashion, it’s not the painting that goes, but the new couch is selected to match the painting. The story gets told and re-told. Again and again, as new friends and connections are made. The artist gains more attention and admiration. One friend contacts the artist directly, “You did this for my friend, I’d like something similar too.” Which is code for, “Can I have a story like that?”

Meanwhile, as time passes, the first buyer tires of the painted reproduction they bought from K-Mart. Once out of fashion, it loses its value. The story of the ‘bargain buy’ is one that everyone has experienced, and since the reproduction was reduced not long after it was purchased (because technology continues to make it possible to make more of them for less), now $15 seems expensive. When the first buyer looks upon their piece, they don’t feel elation or deep emotional connection. The feeling changes to one of negativity and ‘being screwed over yet again’. Art is fickle, the first buyer thinks. The mass-produced reproduction is left out for hard-rubbish, bitterly disposed of. It’s replaced with something else of equal or lesser value but at least it’s on trend, and still probably a bargain.

David and Goliath

As an artist, you can feel powerless when you’re facing the beasts of scale and mass-production of chain stores who can produce or reproduce popular art at a cost at which you cannot compete. But that’s only if you’re viewing your own art through the same lens as buyer one, just a painting. You’re comparing apples with apples.

But see, when you make your art, it’s not about apples vs apples. You’ve got something incomparable – the story behind your art. The process, the pain, the hardship, the excitement. There are buyers out there who value these things. Yes, they’re buying your final piece, but they’re also purchasing your story. They’re purchasing connection. And, in a world where we’re all starting to feel increasingly disconnected, the value of this connection that we make through art is becoming increasingly sought after. People are buying followers, why wouldn’t they also be buying relationships with artists?

Are you selling art or stories?

In the end, this comes down to how you’re selling your art. And how you’re selling your art comes down to what you think you’re selling. Are you selling your story? The story of how the work came to be? Are you putting in the work to show people your process? Are you giving them an inside look into a world that feels so unattainable for so many; people who feel they can’t produce what you can?

If not, are you surprised to learn that buyers will choose the cheap K-Mart reproduction over the single image you upload? If you’re not sharing the story, all you’ve got is an image that has no context or background. No story. If the image is everything, K-Mart will do.

So, which buyer do you want and what are you doing about it?

I have a confession to make – I’ve never suffered from creative block. What’s my secret? I think it’s acknowledging that creative block doesn’t exist. “What?!” I hear you say. Please, bear with me.

One of my favourite thinkers is Seth Godin. He’s been running a blog for years and posts Every. Single. Day. They aren’t long posts, in fact, they’re super short and snappy, but the ideas within them are deeply profound. Well, at least to me. It’s fair to say he’s been a significant influence on the way I approach my artistic work. To say he’s ‘changed my life’ is probably not overstating it.

In 2011, he posted an article called, “Talkers’ Block.” It’s a humorous look at why people seem to accept the notion of Writer’s Block with ease, but no one ever seems to be lost for words when they’re speaking.

He writes:

The reason we don’t get talker’s block is that we’re in the habit of talking without a lot of concern for whether or not our inane blather will come back to haunt us. Talk is cheap. Talk is ephemeral. Talk can be easily denied. […] Writer’s block isn’t hard to cure. Just write poorly. Continue to write poorly, in public, until you can write better.

At about the same time, I was reading Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland which was making me reflect very deeply on why I ever stopped making art after high-school.

Whether it’s fate or just my habit of reading widely, the ideas from a marketer and two artists came together, and 2014 became a formative year for me. I wasn’t blocked from making art at all; it was just two stupid things: I de-prioritised art over other things, and I was full of fear of making work I was embarrassed by.

Art won’t make itself. You have to take the leap and make it real. You need to put actual strokes to actual canvas or real pencils on real paper. And yes, it’s scary. And it’s hard because our brains are wired for laziness. At the basic level of survival, if we’re safe from sabre-tooth tigers, we can rest easy. It’s much easier to sit in front of Netflix and just think about how you know you could easily make that great painting or drawing at any time. It’ll happen one day.

Fear makes its own distracting habitat

A few years ago, my evenings looked a little like this. I used to sit on the couch and watch some TV series that I was thoroughly enjoying at the time. This activity, whilst mind-numbing, wouldn’t occupy all my brain space. While I was watching, my attention would drift, and I was able to dream up an image, or a character, or a landscape that I could be painting instead. At that time, thinking about it was enough. It satisfied me. I knew I could actually DO it if I really wanted to. But there’s only an hour or so at night after work and dinner and then it’s bed-time. The last thing I wanted to do was get all my art supplies out. By the time I did that, then there’d only be 30 mins left before bed and that wasn’t nearly enough time to make art.

There’s no creative block hiding in the cupboard

Then, one day, by reading Art and Fear and Seth Godin’s blog in close succession, I was inspired to act. I actively decided to change a habit.

On Sunday night, I got my art supplies out. Just a notebook and a pencil and eraser. It took all of 5 minutes (not the 30 minutes I imagined it would). I put these art supplies right by the couch where I knew I sat each night after dinner. On Monday, I used them while having the TV on in the background. I drew horrible, terrible things. Things I will never show anyone. After half an hour, I looked at the page and it was a mess. I wanted to erase the whole damn thing. Instead, I flipped the page and started again. The second page was better. Things began to resemble a little of what I could see in my head. It was still terrible, but less terrible.

Then it was bedtime.

The next night, after dinner, I casually flicked through the notebook again. I looked over my previous work. Most of it was still rubbish, but there was something in a particular drawing I did that gave me the motivation to refine it a bit. So, I started drawing a better version of it. In fact, I drew three better versions of it. Each one better than the previous. By the end of that one hour, I had something compelling enough to want to colour it in. But, it was bedtime again.

On night number three, I dug out my watercolour set. I was given it for a Christmas present two years earlier. I was so ‘fearful’ of producing bad work it sat idle in a draw for all that time. But not this night. I had a drawing I was happy with, so I started to colour it in. The result? I completely stuffed up the whole thing. I mean, a complete disaster. I wanted to throw the entire thing out, along with all my art supplies. In the bin, forever. Anyway, by that time it was time to go to bed again.

Wearing armour for overcoming fear

This went on for weeks. I did a little bit, hated most of it, but found something small in everything I did each time. Whether that was a particular gesture, body position, colour choice. There was always something that made it motivating to continue.

See, what no one tells you is that an art practice is generative. The more you do it, the more you begin to learn to see things to improve. That gives you more motivation to improve those things and the snowball gets larger and larger until, well, you begin to identify as an artist. It took me three years of this practice, a 3-book deal with a publisher, and some industry recognition before I started to think, “Hmm, maybe I am an artist?” Only now am I starting to truly feel comfortable and value my own work in this way. And, it’s still not good enough. I’ve still got a long way to go.

Creative block is a mythical beast

There’s no mystical ‘blocking’ force out there. The universe isn’t out to stop you making stuff. It turns out that Seth is dead right – It’s quite simply fear. Fear to be found out for the imposter that you believe to be but that no one else recognises.

In the end, the only difference between an artist and someone who isn’t an artist is that the artist does the work, even when that work is terrible and it feels as though there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. Note to self: there’s always light, just show up every day and do the work to find it.

What speaks to me in Richard’s work is its apparent simplicity. I’m a minimalist at heart, I’m always looking to reduce complexity in anything I do; in life, work and art. So, the rawness and energy that he achieves with smart use of colour and a simple palette knife have me addicted. Like with most simplicity, it’s what you don’t see that counts. Years of practice, an expert in colour. I’m sure he’s spent years and years and years painting, then refining, then painting again. It’s only this tireless life’s work that can result in what we’re seeing him produce lately.

A chance introduction to Richard’s work

My first experience of Richard Musgrave-Evans’ work was while I was on my artist residency in Adelaide in 2017. In my mission to find the most hipster coffee shop that Adelaide had to offer, all signs pointed to Tall Henry. So, off I went, strolling in unfamiliar suburbs on my way to great coffee. It wasn’t until I could smell the beans being roasted that my eye caught sight of a bright orange and pink painting. It was clearly an Australian sunset, the afternoon light hitting red cliffs and making them blaze against a blue and purple sky. I had just returned from a driving holiday to Uluru so the painting brought back immediate memories. This piece was sitting in the Worth Gallery, next door to Tell Henry. I remember standing in front of that gallery (closed at the time) for a good 20 minutes drinking in all the details of the smudge and smear of expertly placed paint. Who is this? How much is this piece? When is the gallery open? These questions ran through my head but having not been caffeinated yet, I pulled myself away.

I returned day after day to the Worth Gallery to look at the piece and investigate its subtleties. Day after day, the gallery wasn’t open. Was the gallery even functioning anymore?

Anyway, with seemingly no one around to open this gallery I considered the piece out of my reach. I continued my residency and promptly flew back to Melbourne to continue ‘life as normal’.

A piece that wouldn’t leave

Over the course of the summer, I thought about this painting time and time again. Who was that person? How would I find them? My illustration schedule was too tight to permit me to investigate it more intentionally and so I chalked it up to a fleeting experience.

Re-discovering Richard

I can’t remember how I came across Richard again. Perhaps it was Instagram? An algorithm? I think I was feeling disappointed in not being able to find any artist that was representing our beautiful Australian desertscapes in a contemporary way. There was plenty of indigenous art, or more representational and colour-accurate work but nothing ‘fun’. And so, I stumbled across this guy called Richard Musgrave-Evans. It wasn’t the same piece I saw in the Worth Gallery window, but there was something interesting about it. As I dug in more and more, I realised that this was, in fact, the same guy! Is that fate? Great algorithm-ing? Who knows. It really doesn’t matter.

Inspiration and a drive to explore

Richard has a brilliant social media presence. He’s regularly engaging on Instagram and his YouTube videos, whilst crudely created, are full of rich advice and demonstration. They’re a gift to the world.

The one thing that I’ve always loved about watercolour over other mediums like acrylics or oils is how convenient watercolour is. It’s easy to clean, not messy, and very transportable. But Richard’s restrained colour palette and direct use of a palette knife for applying paints give a traditionally messy medium (oil paints) much higher accessibility and convenience. Watching him work was like a B12 shot to get me painting. You mean I don’t need turps and linseed oil and crazy fumey chemicals to get into this medium?

Because of this, I’ve been sinking any spare time and money I have into exploring the possibilities of painting with a palette knife because of Richard. I can feel it changing the way I think about colour and an approach to ‘painting’; an activity I’ve never really felt comfortable with, despite my abilities in book illustration.

I strongly encourage you to take a look at Richard’s work. Follow him on your social channels because he’s giving SO much to all of us. Even if you don’t like his style, or don’t identify with the way he paints, there’s something to learn in watching him, even if it’s just how peaceful it is to eat damper and drink tea in the dying light of the Australian Outback.

The world of children’s publishing is a constant surprise to me. Never in a million years would I have imagined I would ever experience some things that only writing and illustrating for children has given to me in my short career so far. I’m starting to lose track of the ways in which each and every experience has enriched my life. And now, another feather has been added to this cap. Vision Australia is now offering Eric the Postie to kids with impaired vision through their incredible initiative, The Feelix Library, and I got to record the reading!

Vision Australia’s Feelix Book Kits

Registered members of Vision Australia’s Feelix Library can now borrow a copy of Eric the Postie. What do kids with impaired vision do with picture books you ask? Well, the wonderful folks at Vision Australia have worked that all out. Each picture book is supplied as a “kit”. Each kit includes a copy of Eric the Postie (with braille translation included), and some related sensory experiences that are themed around the book.

The fun part for me was having the opportunity to read Eric the Postie in Vision Australia’s custom-designed recording studio. You know, those double-sided glass rooms with microphones and headphones and all the check check check, one, two, one two stuff? Brilliant. Like the Beatles except, well, not as cool.

The ‘performance’ is burned to CD and included in the kit so families can listen to a reading, experience the tactility of the book, read along with the translated braille, and ultimately enjoy a multi-sensory experience when interacting with the touch/feel components of the kit.

If this wasn’t enough to get excited about, they also asked me to read and *gulp* sing, two other nursery rhyme books of mine – Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. The staff were expert in making me feel comfortable in this confronting scenario and I won’t be auditioning for The Voice any time soon. But, it’s an experience that will stay with me for a long time yet, and better still, we plan to add a few more books in the future, as well as do a live story time at the Vision Australia offices.

Just. Wow.

Why should I paint? Why should I draw? What gives me the right to ‘waste time’ on either? It’s not productive. No one is buying it. I could be doing something valuable. It’s taking up space in the house. I can’t get rid of this stuff. No one is buying it.

What happened to us? When did we become so goal-focussed? We outsource our lives to give us more time. More time to make more money. More time to be more ‘productive’ – whatever that means. We’re in a culture that measures success by reach, followers, income, revenue, profit, time, clickers, friends. Numbers are easy. There are formulas to follow. Algorithms to game. If you play by those rules, you can win. Easy.

What’s really scary? Actual risk. Personal risk. I find it interesting that insurance companies don’t have a policy for you if you try to put your heart into the world and it doesn’t work out. Or you reveal your soul, and it’s mocked. Or you discover a weakness you have that shakes you and your identity to your core. Why isn’t this insured? Why aren’t VCs and investors looking to double-down on someone’s identity, mental health, courage, resilience?

Numbers protect us. They give us a value that we can pretend is a reflection of how successful or productive we are. How much we’re worth. Ridiculous phrases like “High-Net-Worth” individuals exist. For goodness sake.

But there’s another currency. One that only those who trade in it really understand. VCs won’t invest in it. Insurance companies won’t insure against its loss. No, it’s not Bitcoin. It doesn’t work on numbers. It can’t be objectively calculated or assessed for risk. No compensation can match a loss in this currency. It’s the currency of the soul.

When you work in a world of quantitative assessment, it’s difficult to prioritise things against a different set of outcomes. Outcomes that run so deeply that no one else understands them. Outcomes that aren’t objectively quantifiable. What sort of person am I? What is my moral code? What are my strengths and weaknesses? Who am I? There have been attempts by science to codify these things. But it’s not objective. It can’t be. This parallel world of qualitative outcomes is wholly subjective, and the only assessment that matters is one’s own. It’s about investing time in yourself, through making art. Art is one of the most important ways to discover who you really are.

So, make things. Things that fill your soul and mind with warmth. When you do, you’ll know what it’s like to be an artist. Once you get that glimpse, it’s a very difficult thing to turn away from. The returns in this market are joyous and overwhelming if you’re willing and courageous enough to play. They are found in the process. An activity where the objective view of third parties doesn’t matter, even though it’s difficult to ignore. People may still pass condescending remarks, or tell you that it doesn’t look like anything to them, or they don’t get the point of it. But that IS the point. Because art is about the artist. The individual. It’s the one activity that helps you make sense of the world. The act of creating is itself a step toward becoming a fuller person. One who is more in touch with their own weaknesses, fears, strengths, and who one really is.

You can’t game self-discovery through art. There are no rules that apply to more than one person. All we need to do is ignore the numbers and explore. Play, for play’s sake, what comes out will be art. And the market, for once, is in your favour.

I’ve never really identified with being a ‘literary’ person. And yes, I’m aware of the irony given I’m an author/illustrator. I’ve always identified with being a more visual person rather than a wordsmith. As a kid, I remember drawing a lot, but I don’t remember reading or writing very much.

To me, the term ‘literary’ feels stuffy and pompous. It evokes images of snifters of brandy, houndstooth jackets with elbow patches, and old men smoking pipes while saying things like, “Indeed. I do agree.” Things that are too literary are things like poetry (Oh god, poetry!) or ‘classic’ novels like War and Peace, or anything written by Charles Dickens; those books that people say, “You simply must read if you’re serious about English or language.”

It’s only in recent years that I’ve discovered the beauty and joy of language. Not just to describe, but it helps me remember. It helps me sort out my thoughts and it helps me escape. I love to read other people’s language for the latter, and I’ve begun a conscious effort to write my own words for the former.

Since I’ve begun to read (thanks to my wife), I’ve found this overwhelming urge to play with my own words. To see how words can complement pictures. Sometimes drawing and colouring fails to capture a time and place. When pictures fail, I turn to words, and it turns out that it’s incredibly fun. I call it word-sketching.

What is a word-sketch?

A word-sketch is a bit like a poem, but I don’t use the word ‘poem’ because I find that I put too much pressure on myself to produce ‘poetry.’ A poem evokes complete-ness. A work of art. It becomes ‘literary’. And works of art are scary because they mean that I’m supposed to have tried to do something, and I’m supposed to have done it well. In contrast, “word-sketching” is simply an attempt to capture the feeling of a time and place at that time and place. There’s no pressure. It’s not meant for publication or sharing. It’s merely a method of writing that makes me more aware of my surroundings. It helps me slow down.

When I travel, I always take a sketchbook. I love to capture the buildings and spaces I see. I prefer it to photography. It’s a way to add or remove bits from a picture of a place based on the way I feel. Sure, I walk away with fewer images, but the ones I create run deep – a memory burned in the brain. Photographic accuracy isn’t the goal of a visual sketch, and it’s important to me that I keep it that way.

Think of a word-sketch like a visual sketch. But instead of using drawing skills (colour, line, and shape), it uses words, grammar, and punctuation instead. While a visual sketch can help me describe the colour and shape of things, a word sketch helps me ‘feel’ a place. It’s full of references to things I did — things that happened that day and what’s happening at that moment. It works like a cryptic diary entry. An external reader should feel something, but they probably would not see or understand all the references I use. Some of it might sound like mumbo jumbo, and some of it might sound utterly beautiful. Everyone who reads it will probably take something different away. And that’s OK, because it’s not for anyone else, it’s for me.

There are no rules with word-sketching (because I made it up) but it typically doesn’t follow a well-known poetic structure, those confusing literary terms like, “Dactylic pentameter”. It’s a free form of writing where the idea is to capture the essence of a place. Just describe what you see/hear/feel. Literary types probably call it “En Plein Air Free Verse.” See how fancy words can ruin ideas?

There’s no defined length to a word-sketch but, you always seem to know when you’ve finished one. You just sort of, run out of things to say and feel happy having gone through the process.

An example

Here’s one from my recent trip to Greece:

Orange, aniseed, bergamot, cloves,
Whilst bougainvillaea climb, basil and jasmine twists and turns.
A sweet aroma, a fragrance fills the air…
and my mind.
Coffee at dusk, the smell of burnt sugar, and
is that jasmine again?
Oregano and the bittersweet spearmint mingle, fold and swirl.
It’s a heady mix, this Sifnos place.
One that’s hard not to fall for,
Into.

And just in case you think you need to be on holiday to do this sort of thing, here’s another from this morning. I wrote it when I was sitting on the train and this lady who looked as though she took Cruella De Ville for fashion inspiration sat across from me having just purchased a set of cheap ring jewellery:

The Lady of Lovisa
She untwisted twist ties
Awkwardly, with chopstick fingers.
Costume jewellery.
Bling.
Rings.
She arranged her accoutrements
Subtle
and Precise.
A ring or two for a finger,
a finger for every purpose.
With glamour came confidence
a bargain price, $4.99.

Why is word-sketching important?

1. It expands vocabulary: Word-sketching stretches my vocabulary. It makes me think hard (and quick) about the specific words I want to use to capture a feeling or a moment. Quite often, I surprise myself. As I’m a visual person, I tend to find it easier to describe what I see in shape and colour. I know that I can ‘paint warm’ by using yellow, or paint ‘cool and calm’ by using blue. But there’s also a difference in using the words ‘cool’ or ‘calm’ to precisely construct a feeling using words.
2. It opens me up to describing all senses: I’m suddenly opened up to a whole other realm of senses when I word-sketch. It’s quite difficult to capture how something smells or tastes if you’re visual-sketching a moment, but with words, those descriptions are at your fingertips.
3. It helps me remember: I often find I use events that happened during the day to try to describe the things I might be feeling or noticing at the time I’m writing. One example of this: “Strawberry lemonade cast on cubist landscape.”

   I had noticed that the sunset gave all the white buildings a very pink light. Earlier that day, we had a cocktail by the beach called a “Strawberry Lemonade” that was also a very translucent pink so I recorded that little moment, but in the context of the sunset I was trying to describe. No one else will understand the reference without the backstory, but I didn’t write it for anyone else.

Most importantly, I can feel that word-sketching is helping me become a more complete artist. I’m learning how the components of written language (words, punctuation, grammar) behave and feel like my more intuitive art of visual expression. In the end, I want to be the best picture book creator, story-teller and artist I can be, and word-sketching is a brilliant, low-pressure tool to use.

Brief instructions for how to word-sketch

If word-sketching sounds like fun to you and you’d like to give it a go, I’ve tried to document the process I go through. It’s still very new to me, so chances are this will change as I evolve myself and learn better ways to express my true process. But here’s where it stands right now.

1. Grab a small book (or a piece of paper) and a pen
2. Find a place to sit. This might be somewhere idyllic like a Greek Island beach, or it could be outside your corner store or even on a train on your daily commute.
3. Take about one minute, and just watch. Really try to pay attention to what’s going on around you. Listen and smell. Don’t write anything yet. Just think. What can you hear? What can you see? Is there a breeze? Is it cold or hot? What are people wearing? What does the sky remind you of?
4. After a minute or so, start jotting down the things that strike you. Try to be as efficient as you can with words. Instead of “I sit on the hot pavement, the sweat trickles down my leg,” try “Hot asphalt, sweat seeps from tingling skin.” By focusing on the essential elements and removing all the bits in between, it leaves a reader to fill in some gaps. For a reader (you), that’s fun.
5. Do this for a few minutes and see what happens. Do you end up creating a narrative? Does it come to a logical end? Do you run out of ideas and get sick of it? All of these are OK endpoints. The idea is to make sure you don’t edit. Just let the pen roll. No crossing out. Whatever you end up with will tell a story of some sort. You’ll remember sitting there, writing it and it’ll help you remember.

In a world where there’s a service vying for every second of our attention, word-sketching is an intentionally analogue way to simply notice what’s going on around you; the richness of the world we live in and how even the most ordinary thing can be beautiful.

If you do a sketch in this way, I’d love to hear how you found the process. Also, if you have any tips to help refine my instructions, I’d love to hear it.

I don’t know if anyone even listens to albums anymore. Music is a necessity when I’m painting or drawing and whilst I like the idea of things like “artist radio station”, nothing beats 45-70 minutes with the same artist who has painstakingly explored their soul and curated a sequence of songs that take you somewhere. Here’s a few recommendations for you if you’re looking for something to listen to.

Gurrumul – Djarimirri

Wow. That’s pretty much it. This album is my personal soundtrack to Queen Celine and it’s a stunner. It’s deeply, sensually Australian. You can almost feel the heartbeat of an ancient country across the whole album. If you’re a fan of Michael Nyman or Phillip Glass, this ones for you. It goes best with doing broad, sweeping washes of watercolour where you’re simply trying to capture the timelessness of the sun going down and rising again each day. 9/10

The Shins – Heartworms

The Shins deliver another brilliant album with Heartworms. If I find myself procrastinating, I’ll turn to this one, dance around a bit and then channel that energy into getting some work done. I’ve seen The Shins live multiple times now and they never fail to disappoint. I catch myself singing all different songs from this album and all times of the day. They’re fun and sticky. So much so that perhaps it could’ve been called “Earworms” and no one would question why. There’s also a brilliant second release of these songs that have been re-intepreted by the band themselves. It’s called Worm of the Heart and it’s no less impressive. 8.5/10

Arcade fire – Everything now

I’m a long time Arcade Fire fan, but this album just hasn’t been very sticky in the studio. I’ll listen to it once or twice and then a little while later I realise the music has stopped and I haven’t missed it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a great album, but it hasn’t been on high rotation in the studio, especially compared to the others of late. 6/10

Khruangbin – The universe smiles upon you

Producing art is the easiest way for me to slip into a flow state. Once I get going time goes all elastic and the rest of the world melts away. I’m discovering that artists like Khruangbin help with this. This album has been on repeat since I started Koala Bare over 12 months ago. Playing a genre of music that was born from the US Military’s occupation of Vietnam, Khruangbin makes tunes that have flavours of the east, supported by sideplate of classic american rock. I HIGHLY recommend giving them a listen but be sure to be in a safe place in case you end up in a state of hypnosis. 8/10