Art by Arlene Montoya
How do you juggle parenting with an illustration career? Does it matter if you’re not in New York City? Are you too old to pivot to a career in art? This week, Jake Parker, Lee White, and Will Terry tackle these questions and include advice from Art Directors working at major publishing houses.
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SHOW LINKS
INTRO
Working in education can be rough — the university system can feel like a huge ship, that takes time to move around or navigate. Change can take a long time. You also can’t balance full time illustration work with teaching effectively, and if you aren’t currently working then you are outdated.
The same sort of thing has happened at SVSLearn as we have grown, it takes us some time to plan and create a course, and the more people you bring into an organization, the slower it moves and the more communication that needs to happen as a result.
Will is on the move! He is between homes right now so pardon his audio quality.
ONLINE SHOPS
Jake has an online shop from which he has been selling since 2004. This year, he has been using Shopify, and he includes a few new products every year. It has never been a core focus for him but a side hustle. Now he wants to make some key products specifically for the store.
He sees people with instagram accounts that are solely dedicated to their online shops, with artwork that is always going to become a product of some sort. Jake’s Instagram has about 500,000 followers. Should he fill his feed with shop stuff? Or should he make a separate instagram account just for his shop, with exclusive things that are only on that account?
Lee suggests that splitting his audience could muddy the waters and make things needlessly complicated. Will suggests that if Jake’s art style were to deviate entirely from his regular stuff, he should make a different account for it, but his main stuff should stay consolidated.
Levi uses two accounts, his main account has all of his general work, but Club Levitzo has exclusive drops for original artworks so that people can set alerts and snatch up prints and work as soon as possible.
The big issue is the algorithm. Jake considers the idea that having two accounts could make it easier to show up in someone’s feed.
We still don’t understand how social media really works even though we have a big follower base! It’s better to use your social media as a conversation tool rather than as a portfolio. Engage with people and the algorithm will boost you! Jake’s “what are you drawing today” post got him a lot of engagement and his next post was boosted by the algorithm as a result.
AM I MENTALLY READY TO TAKE ON A PROJECT?
How do you balance parenting and an art career? Will has never had three kids at home while working before. His baby son would sleep when he was working, and it was relatively easy to manage both things together.
Jake has been working at home for ten years now, and his wife has been leading the parenting but he has also helped as often as he could. It’s a full time job. You have to focus on them a lot and spend a lot of time helping them.
Sarah and Tannie both juggle illustration with parenting. They’re both great illustrators. It gets better as your kids get older and start going to school. Set your expectations for the amount of time you have now. If you can get half an hour today on a project, then that’s a good thing. If you have a partner or a spouse, discuss with them some way of balancing their time and yours so that you can take a portion of each day to focus on your work. Once you’ve opened up when your kids are in school, you can spend more time on your art. It’s hard, and it can be difficult to find a way to balance these things.
It’s a slow burn getting into the industry. While your kids are in the home, before they go to school, start with slow deadlines and get projects that give you a lot of leeway, so that when they age into school you can hit the ground running with a client list.
Maybe focus on R&D when your kids are younger. Kids can be so demanding that they need all your focus, so spend more time on research and learning before you jump into a career.
Will doesn’t know anyone with a thriving illustration career who didn’t first have to go through some struggle, either financially or time-wise. He doesn’t know anyone who has come from a wealthy background who could focus all of their time on art. A lot of those people play video games a lot! Don’t worry about what other people’s advantages are, when you have to struggle to do your art, you often have a higher chance of succeeding.
A lot of the very successful people Jake knows either don’t have kids, or have a spouse who is able to take care of all the household tasks so that they can focus on their craft.
William’s wife would work while he focused on his craft, and when his art began to make money, she quit her job and started having kids. Sometimes the struggle can be difficult but you need to wait it out and eventually it will come. The struggle is real, and every successful person needs to go through something like that.
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DOES MY LOCATION AFFECT MY ART?
Does it matter where I live? Do I need to move to a major city to make it in the industry?
Will didn’t know the answer so he asked some of his art directors and editors and got some responses back.
Jan says that with digital technology, geographical location is not as big a concern when it comes to working with big US publishers. Even traditional art can be mailed, and communication can be done via email. You should be aware of what is selling in the country in which you want to publish your work. Your location might affect your art, but often positively because publishers want your unique voice. It’s totally fine to be far away, the digital world is small.
Nicole says that geographical location doesn’t matter at all any more, and that portfolio is the most important. It’s also easier to get noticed these days without an agent if your work is on Behance, Instagram, or Pinterest.
Cultural differences sometimes come through in art work. A kitchen in India could look different to a kitchen in the USA. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter so long as schedules are followed.
Utah is no more remote than India when concerning New York City publishers. If you’re not in the city, it’s all the same. Jake lived a train ride away from Downtown Manhattan and while it was nice to be able to travel to the city for meetings, it wasn’t really necessary. If you want to work in New York publishing, it can be nice to have someone who works near the city but it doesn’t matter ultimately. If you work is good, you’re easy to work with and hit your deadlines, then you will have no problem getting work.
How do you make your portfolio look like it fits a US or European market? Lee’s work often looks like it works for Europe. It depends on what you’re wanting to go into. If you want to work in Hollywood or the animation industry then you should try and live near LA or Burbank because you can meet people and network much easier.
Your portfolio should match your job 100%. Make your portfolio look like the job that you want. If it’s animation, make an animation portfolio. If it’s publishing, make a publishing portfolio. Very few jobs are looking for a generalist these days. Once you have that job, you can spend some time exploring and trying different things.
CAREER CHANGES
Is it harder for older people to get work? People’s late teens and early 20’s tend to brand what people think. Older folks can have a dated style as a result. Make sure your work is relatively current — you don’t have to be trendy, but somewhat current.
There’s a level of wisdom that you need when you tackle a story. It can come with age often. A lot of beginning illustrators can get tunnel vision on unimportant things, whereas older illustrators tend to be more focused on essential elements.
Age can give you so much more experience, and can probably make you a better student as well, which should help you know how long it would take to learn something. It’s completely reasonable for a 39 year old to switch to illustration if they have a good contemporary style and are a bit savvy about cutting through the noise and everything online that is unnecessary. If you can build yourself a good curriculum then you can get yourself into the place you need to be quickly.
When you go to a museum, all of the paintings you see are late-stage work, mostly made in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. The best of all time often made their work later in their lives.
Sometimes though, it can be difficult if you have never drawn anything to transitioning to becoming an illustrator later in life. It’s possible but it is very hard.
Talent is difficult to quantify. The best students will get work, and some of them have it and will become great. But some just don’t have it. And some work really hard and either they can get to that level or not. Some of the ones that don’t grow don’t accept advice, and don’t look at what is successful. Whereas the ones who make it even though they don’t have a ton of natural talent often are looking at what is successful and studying trends and styles and are sponges to new information.
Sometimes if a person has a strong enough voice, they don’t need to rely purely on amazing art to succeed. Look at everything you are offering and see how you can maximise what you have.
If you’re middle aged, try and look at what you can make rather than what you have already. Look at finding a good mentor and good feedback.
LINKS
Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44
Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt
Lee White: leewhiteillustration.com. Instagram: @leewhiteillo
Daniel Tu: danieltu.co.
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