Hey everyone! We had a great time last Friday, were still figuring everything out but we hope you all enjoyed it!
In case you weren't here for Friday's meeting here is the very important recap:
-We introduced the Cintiq Labs on the 1st floor of AMF, as that is our new meeting location! If you want to come in other than just for meetings below is the labs schedule, during any of those times you can check out a stylus and draw to your hearts desire.
-We've compiled the Statistics of what you are all interested in, and here they are in a lovely pie.
- We also handed out sketch cards that people could draw on for our first competition to what will be the ISC's mascot! Do what every you want to, it can be a sketch a painting a crayon drawing... please don't draw with your blood. But it just needs to fit in the Mascot entry form square!
You can submit one of two ways
one by turning in the Sketch card next week at the ISC meeting or
by submitting it here on the fb page, or tumblr page digitally under the name Mascot entry and your name!
Please remember to have your name on it somewhere as we want to give you guys the credit!!
Next week after the meeting the ISC leaders will gather all the submissions and whittle it down to our top 5 favorites, then you the members will vote for who will be the ISC Mascot!!!
The winner will then be painted and designed by
Wes Talbott!!!
And the coolest thing of all is that we have plans to paint it on the giant mural space on the school grounds, so your design could possibly be seen by the whole school!!
GOOD LUCK EVERYBODY and remember to have fun with it!!!
-Okay now on to the main event of the evening where the leaders talked FOREVER about the importance of having a web presence in this day and age, especially if you want work :D. So we went through five different possible websites where you can put your work up; blogger, deviantart, tumblr, wordpress, and Squarespace with a few extras here and there.
Here is a great place to put up sketches and work that can be look at by many people all over the world, Blogger has a great use in tracking who looks up your blogspot and where they are from. People can comment on your work here and it's easy to set up a blogger. Many artist in all different working industries use Blogger to put up their work. Blogger is also a great place to build a community and interact with many other artist. He then talked about the totally awesome Blog called Muddy Colors, but will get into more detail about them when we put up the link of the week. Artist that use Blogger are:
Wes talked about
Deviant art and the
DA portfolio;
Deviantart is an online community showcasing various forms of user-made artwork.
This place is completely dedicated to artist, and although you might have to wade through many not so amazing artist many fantastic professionals use DA as well. It's very easy to upload work here, it tracks your statics very well, and you can watch many artist that inspire you. DA can also be a great place to find jobs and interact with those that work in the field you eventually want to work in. Some of the amazing artist that are on DA are as follows:
Bobby Chiu and Kei Acedera
Wes then went into how awesome the DA portfolio is. It is super simple and looks very professional so if you don't have a website yet to be your professional portfolio website I highly recommend this!
The pros of using tumblr is that it spreads like wildfire. You can customize it to your own liking, and there is no advertising on your page! Tumblr is a great place and share your work and others very easily. Some of the great advantages of Tumblr is that it can be seen by anyone and your images can be spread through the tumblr community like wildfire, which is awesome! Tumblr is a great place to explore for inspiration as well, many artist use Tumblr here is a list of them:
Wordpress is great for making a simple professional portfolio website, you can also put up a resume and make some slight customizations. It's easy to use and you can have a website up an running within hours of signing up for it.
Squarespace A website- and blog-publishing service that allows users to select a CC license for their sites and displays a license button and metadata automatically.
Squarespace is the only website we talked about that cost money to run. It's for when your ready to graduate and put on the big pants. It's not required to have a website like this but it's nice because this publishing service is completely customizable and and fit any brand or style of artist!
The last little tidbits of information for you lovely folks is the importance of signing up with
LinkedIN.
LinkedIN is a great way to start networking with the companies and industries you are interested in working in as an artist. Once you sign up you can upload a resume and list what you are interested in, then you start the Networking process. The more ways you can find to talk to people in the industry that you are interested in the better, and the more experience you will have even before graduating! I highly suggest you get a LinkedIN and updated it as much as possible!
Going along with the whole networking topic there are a couple of tips I have for having an online presence and getting work.
1. Connect with communities that you are passionate about, from movies to greeting cards if you have an interests or passions it's good to find people with similar likes to share you knowledge as a group.
2. Find and talk to professionals that do the work that you want to do. I've found that if you are polite and sincere most professionals will talk to you, mind you they are busy so it may take them some time to get back to you.
3. Don't be a DRAMA BOMB! You're online image is accessible to almost everyone these days if you like complaining or being dramatic online try to make sure it's locked down so that professionals don't see this. They avoid people they think are going to cause drama or be mopey, and yes they will make assumptions even if it's only one comment.
4. DO GREAT WORK AND BE GREAT TO WORK WITH! This is going to be my mantra to you guys because having a great portfolio is only half the battle to securing a job, your personality is just as important!
The last website we are going to talk about it one everybody knows... oh yes, the dreaded FACEBOOK!!!
Facebook can be a controversial place to put your work as their copyright laws are a little iffy. Honestly it is up to you to make the decision if you want to put your work up on Facebook or make a facebook page dedicated to your artwork. All I know is that I have seen plenty of successful artist put their work up on FB and get work because of it!
For example:
Alright my chickadees I hope this was enough information for you all! Don't worry their will be more to come! So until next time,
Do great work and be great to work with!
G'night!
