Review - Emily Jeffords' Making Art Work 2021

It's been a wild ride navigating the waters of COVID and my evolving career as an artist for the past 2 (going on 3) years.  2020 was a rough year for many artists who relied on convention income, including myself.  The crushing pressure of this situation made it more evident to me as an artist that I needed to get my online marketing game up!

After 2020, I desperately wanted more direction for how I could organize my scattered business and become more regimented about my online marketing practices.  Rather than go for a personalized mentorship, I opted for something I felt was more affordable for my budget, but still covered my needs for fundamental and advanced marketing info - Emily Jeffords' art marketing class, Making Art Work.

Making Art Work aims to educate artists on the fundamentals of marketing, while encouraging them to plan for their success and sustainability.  This class is self-directed with live Q&A sessions held weekly to supplement each module.

This review only covers my experience as a 2021 student, so keep that in mind for the purposes of this review, as things may change in future courses.

Disclaimer: This is not a paid review and was written without any incentives being offered to me.

The TL;DR

Emily Jeffords' Making Art Work offers an info-packed review of the basics of marketing primarily geared towards fine artists, with actionable advice, introductions to various income streams through guest experts, and suggested paths for building future marketing strategies.  This class relies on Facebook, which may cut non-FB users out unless they're willing to join up to the platform.

If you are hoping to learn more about licensing, wholesale, etc. this course only scratches the surface of these topics so you may want to seek further education from individual courses dedicated to these topics.  Aside from a few inefficient apps used for extracurricular communication, the class material presented through Kajabi was easy to follow and allows for tracking of your progress.

For more advanced entrepreneurs, this course offers a great review of the fundamentals with actionable strategies for assessing your business and best practices for planning for the future.

Things to Know:

• Cost: $1000 (after an email coupon) + Approx. $30 for the peer group add-on
• How Long is this Course?  12 weeks
• Apps Utilized: Telegram, Voxer, Facebook, Zoom
• Access to modules is not forever, but only for 2 years after sign-up.  A method to mass download all of the module worksheets was made available at the end of the course.
• Class was previously held annually and seems to have changed to an every other year schedule

Free Preview Material:  Emily offers a free sampling of her teaching methods via a week-long Share the Work event which is usually held shortly before Making Art Work launches, so keep an eye out for it so you can see if you like her methods!  Going through the Share the Work material convinced me to join MAW.  You can read about my experience with Share the Work here.

Who is this class for?

This class is mainly aimed at creative entrepreneurs who wish to sell their work through galleries, wholesale, merch, licensing, their own educational material, and other avenues.  While I am not primarily a Fine Artist, I still found the material relevant for assessing strategies for my own art biz, which currently focuses on independently selling my illustrative merch directly to my fans and through crowdfunding.

Emily's course very much also takes the approach that an artist should be striving for sustainability through diversification, rather than killing themselves to focus solely on the sales of paintings.  So if you're looking primarily for instruction on working directly with galleries, for example, a more in-depth course on building relationships with galleries may be more to your liking.  However, if you're seeking a breakdown of the basics and strategies for diversification and refining your marketing techniques, this class has you covered and does cover the basics of licensing, wholesale, gallery sales, etc by bringing in guest experts for each topic for short introductory segments.

A glimpse at what the Making Art Work modules were in 2021. The mix of basic & advanced marketing techniques sold me on this class.  I needed a refresher, as well as guidance for how to evolve!

FIRST IMPRESSION: Proko's Figure Drawing Fundamentals Course NSFW

I've been a huge fan of ProkoTV's figure drawing videos on YouTube ever since I first watched his amazingly helpful "Draw a Head at Any Angle" tutorial, which I still look back on for reference to this day!

For those who don't know him, ProkoTV is hosted by artist, Stan Prokopenko, a talented figurative artist who teaches at the Watts Atelier of the Arts.

I enjoy the way Stan's videos appeal to my visually-minded nature with comparative examples and his very lighthearted and entertaining teaching style.  Rather than focus on the science of anatomy, his videos teach how to break the body down into simple shapes and emphasize expression over 'correctness'.  If you've read Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing: Design and Invention, Stan's methods are very similar.

Lately, all of my portfolio reviewers have pointed to the same thing that keeps holding my work back - anatomy.  Sure, I know how to draw a human figure, for the most part.  But my anatomy is missing that special something, that secret ingredient!

I notice that when I start adding detail, some of the energy and life drains right out of my figures.  My rendition of the joints of the figure also lack definition and understanding, leaving my figures feeling too smooth and ultimately unconvincing.

You might be asking why would someone who's not a beginner want to purchase a 'fundamentals' course?  Now, I've read and looked at many an anatomy book in my day in college and for my own study, but I find that I just can't remember anatomy.  No amount of drawing the skeleton and muscles and labeling the parts really helps me retain how to draw the figure.

My brain needs spatial geometric understanding and hands on training (being the kinesthestic learner that I am), which makes the structure of Proko's course appealing with its simplistic approach and many, many extra examples for tactile learners like me.  Also, as an artist, I am never done learning.  There is too much to know about anatomy to ever be done learning!

And so it was I decided to invest in Stan's Figure Drawing Fundamentals course for $79, including two pose photo packs (one male and one female) at $10 a piece (spending a total of $100).  These packs are a great value considering they include 300 poses in each one.  The poses are very well-lit and professionally photographed.  Once purchased, the pose pack download page includes a convenient link for you to download your choice of a .zip containing high res or lower res versions of the photos, for those of us studying with tablets which benefit from smaller file sizes.

Though Stan offers his figure drawing videos for free on YouTube, his course includes the longer premium content versions of his lessons.  For example, his first lesson on gesture is only 9 minutes for the free version, while the premium content version is 27 minutes.

Here's a look at the download page for just ONE of the lessons (of which you an view the full lesson list here).  I am impressed by the sheer amount of demos available to help students wrap their brain around how to apply the technique to various poses.

Also included are critiques of student homework, which is useful for learning not only what is correct, but what is incorrect along with the common mistakes that most people make in their figure drawing techniques.  As icing on the cake, Proko also brings in other experts, such as Marshall Vandruff and Glenn Vilpuu.

Under each video is a download link, allowing you to store the videos for your own reference or carry them with you for study on the go.  This is priceless and encourages me to invest knowing that even if for some terrible reason Stan's site goes down that I will still have access to my lessons.  Once you pay for premium content, you are granted unlimited access to your poses and lessons for the foreseeable future.

I've only just started this course and am looking forward to seeing how this affects my work!  I'll be sharing my progress and studies here with you, as well as a follow-up review of the overall course when I am finished with it.  So far, I am very impressed by the thought and care put into providing such well-priced and detailed learning resources for artists and I expect to learn a lot from this course!

Till then, go watch some ProkoTV and tell me what you think!

REVIEW: Noah Bradley's The Art of Freelancing

During random  internet exploration of the fabulous critique site, WiPNation, I stumbled across a blog post featuring an article about Noah Bradley's Art of Freelancing.  I was instantly intrigued by the prospect of learning 'what the art schools didn't teach' and decided to give Noah's video a try after seeing a positive review at ArtOrder and listening to the free preview of the first 30 minutes posted on the site.

I was sold in that first 30 minutes with Noah's very up front approach to the hard truths of what freelancing really is.  It is oftentimes hard work, sleepless nights, and low pay, but most importantly one CAN make a living as a freelancer, if one is persistent!  Noah addresses commonly asked questions from novice freelancers, including but not limited to:

- How much do I charge?

- Where do I look for clients?

- What's in a contract?

- Where do I look for work?

- How does a portfolio review work?

There are a lot of questions answered that are useful for both beginners and advanced freelancers as well. Some of the discussions in this video that really impressed me were the more hazy aspects of the industry Noah addressed such as:

- What is the mindset of the Art Director?

- Is there such a thing as starting commissions too early?

- Why aren't you getting work?
- What is a freelancer's financial situation really like?

Many of these advanced discussions really forced me to turn my gaze inwards to my own work and be honest with myself as to where I need to improve and what strategies I need to employ for exactly how I can do so. I've also realized from this video some of the mistakes I have made as a developing freelancer.

For instance, I believe now after viewing this video that I started commissions far too early in my career.  I spent a lot of time making a quick buck over at DeviantART in my junior years when I should have been working hard on pieces I could put in my portfolio.  The internet never forgets your prices and the quality of that 'younger' work and it's taken me some years to get away from my amateur commission pieces, which only served to spread my reputation as someone willing to work for less and produce amateur work.

If I could start over, I would not have started taking personal commissions until my work was more refined so that I could have started at a more respectable level of perceived worth (which would have, in turn, helped me in asking more for my work currently, since I had become so used to asking for so little when I was younger).

But if there's anything to be learned from Noah's video, it's the message of hope that, while it may be challenging, freelancing is not impossible!  Especially not when we have the internet and easily accessible resources to share with one another.  As a plus, Noah's video comes with a link to a resource page where he shares recommended art communities, useful books, and more!  This site is to be constantly updated with new resources suggested by Noah and others, making it a useful collaborative learning tool that I will certainly be contributing to and referring to in the future.

Overall, I highly recommend this video for anyone serious about doing freelance art for a living.  Noah Bradley is a Scifi/Fantasy illustrator and concept artist, so there is a stronger focus on these aspects in the video, but there is something for every freelancer to take away from this video.  It may seem pricey at $57, but consider it an investment in your future career! I did and I am fully satisfied that this video is going to help me get to the places I want to be because it helped to fill so many gaps in my own experience that I didn't even know I had.

Brilliant video, brilliant artist, and brilliant learning tool!  I hope to see others doing more like this in the future to help de-mystify the mysteries of being a Creative Professional.