Note: Some of these tips are things I’ve tried and know work, but many more of them are things I’ve only seen other popular artists use. I’m posting this here as a something I can refer back to, but I think hopefully some of my readers will find this useful as well.

Popularity: You know those people, it seems like everyone knows who they are; they get lots of page hits, comments, feedback, and general communication. They seem to be elevated in your community because of that, and a lot of times people see it as quite an enviable position. Well, I’m going to tell you the ’secret’ to being popular, though it’s not so much a secret as common sense.

First, it’s important to define popularity. It’s really nothing more than everyone knows who you are. A lot of people, myself included, have made the mistake of thinking that your popularity is proportional to your talent, but that’s just not true. Your popularity and your talent are mutually exclusive. They have no bearing on each other at all. I’ve seen some phenomenally talented artists get next to no online recognition, and some dreadful artists get scores of fans.

With that out of the way, here’s what you do. Make sure you follow these steps in order:

• Give people a reason to look at you. First, look at some popular people/sites you know. Consider why you watch them. Probably because they’re either entertaining or educating. All the sites I look at fall under these two categories - and this is key to getting repeat visitors. If people realize you’re either interesting or knowledgeable, they’ll keep coming back. With that in mind:
  • Make a site with meaningful content.

  This is easy to explain - make a site worth reading, or a gallery worth looking at. I know I said up there that popularity and talent are mutually exclusive, but there are limits to how far you can get with marketing (which I’ll discuss in a bit.) So definitely practice until you feel like you have some truly valuable and worth sharing!

  • Find your passion and become an expert in it. It’s simple to say, but tough to do. However, the fact is, the more you know, the more you can teach other people. This goes for comedy too - one of the things I’ve learned through my blog writings is comedic writing is just as hard, if not harder, to do as a tutorial or serious discussion on art.
  • Be unique. This is surprisingly tough, but it always helps to be able to offer something know other site does, be it through your art, comics, or writings. Try to think of something no one has done before, and be the first to do it.
• Put yourself out there. It sounds easy, and really it is, but it can be hugely time intensive, and the immediate rewards for all your work aren’t very high, which is why most people don’t do it. But it does pay off in the long run. This is exactly why the rather mediocre Shrek the Third is set to break $300 million at the box office - not because it’s great (it’s not as good as the first two) but because you couldn’t turn around without seeing Shrek and Donkey’s faces everywhere. On the other hand, this is why most people have never even heard of The Iron Giant despite it being a fabulous movie - I’d be surprised if the marketing budget for that film was over $5.

  So how do you put your face out there?

  • To start: Be consistent. I’ve known people with dozens of net aliases; they go by one name in this gallery, another in that gallery, use this name in that blog, etc. That’s only going to hurt you in the long run, simple because people won’t know straight off the bat if ‘redwing37′ is the same person as ’scurvypuppy.’ And if they have to exert any energy to find out, they probably won’t. Remember: people surf the net for enjoyment, not so they can be confused and frustrated!

    I go by ‘maggock’ everywhere. Why? Well, it’s been attached to my identity for 6-7 years, but more importantly, when you google that name, I’m practically the only thing that comes up in the results. If I had picked a name like ‘johndoe’ I’d fighting with all the other ‘johndoe’s for search engine popularity rights. So when you pick your online handle, try to find something unique, and use the same name everywhere.

  • Find a forum focusing on your expertise, passion, etc. and become active in it. Let’s say you already lurk in a forum you enjoy. You know all the major players there; some guys really do seem much more popular than others. But no one even knows who you are. Why? Because you’re lurking! You’re only going to become known to people if you interact with them in the forum. You’re expending a lot of time and thought reading many threads, so if you have something to say, make sure you’re saying it.

    On that note, also make sure what you’re saying is useful (or at least humorous.) People don’t pay much attention to ‘IAWTC’ comments. Make sure you’re adding intellegent comments to the discussion.

  • Comment on other galleries and blogs. Got a blog you like? A gallery? Any place that allows you to post comments easily? This is rather like the forum tip - post often, and post intellegently, and people will eventually pay attention to you. I remember when I was more active on gfxartist.com, I posted a great deal of meaningful comments, and in exchange, other members would vote and comment on my pieces, so they frequently made it into the Top Ten, and I even held the number 1 spot for a few days (even though I was far from the best artist on the gallery.) People DO pay attention to comments, especially helpful and/or smart ones, and they’ll be much more likely to remember your name.
  • Wherever you comment, make sure you have a link back to your site. It’s great that you’re commenting, but if all you attach to your comment is a name, people probably aren’t going to be able to find your site. So add a signature to your comments, but keep it simple. Big flashy signatures usually only confuse and/or annoy.
  • Post often, post early, post everywhere. This is far from the only place I update Inner Space; I also update on a personal blog and 2 other galleries, and I’m looking into more places even as I type this. The more places you post, the more of an audience you’ll have, and the more people will recognize your name - as long as you’re using the same name everywhere. Also, be certain that all your galleries link to each other, so your visitors can surf across each one if they wish.
  • Advertise. If you’re doing a comic like I am, list your comic in as many directories as you can, be sure to hit at least the most popular ones like thewebcomiclist.com, onlinecomics.net, and belfry.com. I get most of my hits from those sites, and many of my repeat visitors found me through them. You can also try monetary advertising through a couple of those sites as well; I tried that, and found I got a satisfactory boost in traffic from it.

The very last thing I can think of is: be nice. Being rude, mean, or a drama queen might get you more hits, but in the long run it’s damaging to your reputation, and most of the hits you’ll get will be from drama-mongers, not fans.

One time long ago, a rich man decided he wanted a nice picture of a fish to hang on his wall. So he went to the most famous artist in all the land and asked him, “Will you paint me the most beautiful picture of a fish in the world?”

The artist calmly put down his brush and said, “Come with me for a moment.” And led the man over to a large closet on the other side of the room. The artist opened the door and out fell thousands of pieces of paper with fish painted on them.

The moral of the story is what goes into the end product is HARDLY where the entire effort goes. You are not paying that artist for any one piece he or she has done. You are paying that artist for the years s/he spent honing his/her craft to bring it to the point where people want to buy it.

When we buy any service, be it from a lawyer, a plumber, an accountant, a tax consultant, or even yes, an artist, we’re buying not only that service, but the years of experience, practice, and education that comes with them. That’s why people with more experience, practice, and education can command higher prices.

So remember this story when you buy or sell artwork!

I’m always looking for ways to improve my art, and these are a few things I’ve done in the past to help me. Be warned though, just like there’s no magic bullet for weight loss, there’s also not one for instant art improvement. A lot of the things I describe can take a while to do, depending on how skilled you are, but every one of these exercises should help you in improving your technical ability.

And for you caroonists out there thinking all this real life stuff won’t help you, think again! I believe every artist needs to be good at drawing the stuff they can see before they start trying fantasy and cartoons. Practicing with real life objects gives you a better understanding of those objects, and thus, better equips you to understand imaginary objects as well.

• Copying with grids: This is a simple, but sometimes tedious exercise. Find a photo you like (it can be any photo, copyrighted or not, but be cautious about distributing any copies you produce of a copyrighted image) and draw a grid of 1/2 inch wide squares over the area you wish to copy. Then get a piece of paper and *lightly, in pencil* draw a grid of 1 inch squares over that. Those dimensions I gave can be finagled with a bit if you have a smaller or larger photo, or if you want to produce a larger or smaller artwork.

  Now for the fun part: copy each square of information from the photo to the larger corresponding box on your paper. What, doesn’t that sound like fun? Okay, perhaps it’s not the most entertaining thing in the world, but this exercise really focuses on putting your mind in that artistic ‘zone’, the zone where you can interpret shapes as they truly appear. It’s funny, but your brain has certain preconceptions about how many things should look. So, when you go to copy an eye, you may think ‘okay, it should be almond shaped, with a circle for an iris, and a smaller circle in that for a pupil, and maybe some eyelashes’ - despite the fact that I’ve never ever seen an eye that should be drawn that way! But when you break a piece down into little unrecognizable shapes, you suddenly think ‘whoa, unfamiliar territory! I better take a close look at these shapes so I can copy them correctly.’ In essence, you’re turning off those pre-conceptions about how things should look, and are now looking at how things really appear.

  When you’re finished, you can erase any visible gridlines and voila! You have a nice copy of your photo. If you’re a raw beginner, I’m betting that’s the most impressive thing you’ve ever done (that’s how it was for me!) And hopefully, if you were paying attention, you noticed how you got into the artistic zone, and it’ll be easier for you to get there the next time around.

• Copying upside-down: This is another exercise you can use to get yourself into that artistic zone I described earlier. Simply find a piece of line art you like (again, be cautious about distributing the final product, due to possible copyright violations) and turn it upside down. Now, copy it!

  Since you are working upside down, your brain stops thinking about how things are supposed to look, so instead you can just concentrate on replicating the shapes you see as closely as possible. It’s much like working with grids, as I described above, except now you’re making things unrecognizable by turning them upside down.

  When you finish, you should have something that looks remarkably like the piece you were copying.

• Spheres, pyramids, and cylinders: After you feel like you can get into that artistic zone at will, you should move on to still lifes. But really simple still lifes to start; perhaps a couple of white eggs or a blank coffee mug. The key here is to find simple shapes. If you can, also use a couple of lamps and experiment with lighting, so you can really learn to understand how light affects these simple objects.

  Now that you’ve got your still life all set up, sketch! Sketch lots, produce a few finished pieces if you want too. Start in black and white, and once you feel confident in that, move on to color. When you feel confident with studio lighting, move outdoors and really study how the atmosphere affects the lighting, especially on those white eggs.

• More complex still lifes: Hopefully at this point you’ve used up at least 50-100 sheets of paper on those eggs. If you’re feeling good about it, try some more complex still lifes. Add some cloth or glass for added complexity, or, if you hardboiled the eggs, start peeling them and draw the peels for an interesting texture. There really is no limit to what you can draw in a still life, so add anything that you think might be a good challenge for your developing skills.

  Be sure to assemble and draw as many still lifes as you think you can stomach. The more you do, the better you’ll be!

• Figure drawing: This is an area that can be difficult, and also an area everyone can use practice in, no matter what your skill level. If you’ve never done figure drawing before, I definitely recommend checking out local art societies and clubs, and seeing if they offer a figure drawing class. Not only should you be able to practice in those classes, you should be able to learn many different techniques for capturing the human form, and how to do so quickly. You can also see if there are local art colleges and school where you might be able to take individual classes.

  If you have some experience in figure drawing, again, check out local art societies and clubs to see if they have open figure drawing nights. Colleges sometimes have these as well. These are the best places to find willing models!

  If you can’t find any place that has figure drawing sessions, try these tips:

  • Go to your local pool or the beach - there are always tons of sunbathers who lie still for quite some time. You can also get some interesting sketches out of swimmers and kids. In the winter, see if there’s an indoor pool in your area.
  • Try sketching people in public places such as a bus or subway, a library, or the mall. Be discreet about the sketching though!
  • If you have a lot of artist friends in the area, pool together and buy an hour or two with a professional model. Models generally charge $25-50 an hour, and you can ask for one in places like Craigslist.
• Study the elements of art: This deserves an article on its own, but I’ll make due for now with a link. It’s a bit of reading but it’s also very important to understand these elements so you can manipulate them well. After you’re done reading that, try replicating some of the exercises shown there to help you get a more thorough understanding.
• Copy from a master: Last but not least, copy from a master. Essentially, find a painting by a master that you admire and copy it as closely as possible, while paying attention to what they did and learning why they did it. This may seem to not be very helpful, but I’ve found you can learn a lot of things from copying people who really knew how to do it.

Yes, the dreaded artblock. Usually, it just starts as an innocuous little worm of doubt; you feel like you haven’t done something quite right with a piece. But before you know it, it can grow and grow until it seems like everything you draw or paint looks wrong, before you’ve even put a few strokes on the canvas! Art block, to me, is a little different from having that gloomy self-doubting attitude (although art block can and usually does come with that attitude). You can still feel pretty good about your past works and have a good attitude about your art, but still, nothing comes out.

It’s important to explore where you feel your creative spark comes from when you’re trying to banish art block. Do you think you get your inspiration from some sort of spiritual or mystical outside source, like a muse? Do you feel like you have no control over that source? If so, that can be a problem. That puts you in the mindset that you’re nothing more than a passive channel through which this creativity flows, and when that mystical someone turns off the faucet, you have nothing of your own to give. Which isn’t true! While sometimes I do feel like I am being driven to paint a piece by someone other than ‘me’ I try very hard not to depend on that all the time. After all, I do have my own two hands, my eyes, and brain, so I should be able to create without the aid of a muse… right? A muse is also a good excuse to say ‘I just don’t feel inspired right now.’ And while that may be true, it doesn’t mean your technical skill and years of practice have fled.

That said, a lot of my art blocks seem to come from negative thinking. As I draw, I start to think ‘this looks wrong’ or ‘why can’t I get this to look right’ and it can devolve all the way down to ‘I can’t draw at all.’ And that’s nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. Think it, and it will become true. If you can catch yourself right at the beginning of that thought train and replace those thoughts with ones like ‘this looks pretty good,’ ‘I handled that bit quite well,’ and ‘I can draw’ sometimes those little pushes can be enough to steer you away from an art block. You can also take a little break, take a walk, or draw something else less important - doodling with no clear intent is a good exercise.

So to recap:

• Muses are one good source of inspiration, but depend on yourself above all for that creative spark. It IS in you, trust me!
• Nip those negative thoughts in the bud, and replace them with positive ones.
• Take a break from the piece that’s frustrating you for a while.

I feel like this post so far has been about preventing art block, so I’m going to address being in the middle of an art block next, and how to push out of it more quickly.

So there you art, sitting with a blank piece of paper. Is there an image in your head that you want to draw, but you just can’t get it out? In addition to thinking positive like I detailed above, try doing these other things:

• Flesh out what you want to draw in your head as thoroughly as possible. Think about how the scene is laid out, how the composition works, how the characters will be positioned, right down to their fingers and toes (if you have characters in the piece, that is.) If it helps, listen to some inspirational music while you do this.
• Do some thumbnail sketches. Don’t start with anything big and fancy, just fill up little 2-4 inch high boxes with the vague elements of what you want. Do as many as it takes to make you feel like you have a good grasp of the piece.
• Do some studies of individual elements that you want in the piece - from real life if possible. Also do color studies, composition studies. The goal of this step is to get your artistic mode to kick in so your technical skill and talent will start to flow freely once again.
• Put yourself under a deadline. This only works if you really believe you need to get the art done by the deadline. It’s really not for everyone. I tend to only work well with this when I really do have an actual deadline.

These steps also work well for me if I’m in the middle of a piece that I lost my nerve on.

But what if you have no ideas in your head, nothing you feel like drawing at all? Well, give these steps a go; they might help you find that creative spark one again:

• Look at other art. Especially artists whose work you find inspirational. You could go to the library and check out books on the old masters and newer artists as well, or you can look around on the Internet (which is the best place to find quality fantasy and sci-fi work, if you know where to look. I recommeng both CGTalk and the GFXArtist elite galleries; that’s where I go when I’m feeling uninspired.
• Look through your old sketchbook. If you keep a sketchbook, look through it! Even if you keep all your old digital files, have a go through those too. Oftentimes when I’m looking through my older work, I’ll find an unfinished piece that had a great thing going, but it was something I just wasn’t prepared to paint yet. You can give those old ideas another shot and see if you can make them work this time.
• Listen to some uplifting, inspirational music. This is the same idea as looking at other art; I actually prefer listening to music because it’s an entirely different art form, and thus the inspiration isn’t quite as obvious.
• Doodle without thinking That’s right, just get out a pen an start scribbling! One of the things I noticed when I was younger was I placed way too much value on my art supplies - heck, they were expensive and I didn’t want to mess them up. But remember, those supplies are there to be used. It’s much more a waste to have them sit there, unpainted or undrawn on, than to have them be used in a piece of art (even if it’s something you don’t particularly like.) If you’re very worried about wasting expensive art supplies, go get some cheap ones. Computer paper is just as good for drawing as Bristol is, and any old pen will work. When you doodle, try not to think of anything in particular that you want to draw - just put lines on the paper and see what comes of them.
• Try something in a new media or style. Sometimes my art block comes from simply being bored with my current media. If that’s the case, the solution is easy - I try something different. Watercolor, gouache, acrylic, oils, termpera, ink, pencil, scratchboard, digital: there’s many, many different media out there and it’s fun to try them all.

This is what I personally do when I’m art blocked - I hope these tips can help others as well.

Artistic skill is a lot like a plant: they need both rain and sun to thrive (I’m speaking metaphorically in concern to the artistic talent, of course.) If it rains all the time, the plant will be drowned out. If it’s sunny all the time, the plant will wither and die. Skill won’t drown in rain or wither and die in the sun, but it still won’t thrive with too much of either.

What am I talking about with the rain and sun? I’m actually talking about attitude, with the sun being equated to a good attitude, and the rain being equated to a self-doubting, or more gloomy attitude.

If you have a good attitude about your art all the time, you become complacent and your art stagnates - if you feel good about something already you’ll have no desire to improve on it! I’ve seen it happen with a few artists - they work on their art, build a small crowd of fans, and (I’m guessing) they think ‘this is pretty good! I’m going to keep doing this.’ This is all right if that’s your goal with art, but if you’re focused on improvement, that’s a bad attitude to have. And I don’t want to imply that feeling good about your art is a bad thing - far from it! But feeling good about your art to point where you think you need to learn nothing else is a very very bad thing.

A good way to pull your head out of the clouds is to simply go to gfxartist.com or cgtalk.com and look at the ‘best of’ galleries they have there… seriously, I’ve never really had this problem so I don’t rightly know how to address it. But I have a feeling if you put a more critical eye to your art, and ask for (and a ready to accept) a bit of harsh criticism on your art, you’ll be going down the road to accepting a more realistic view of your art.

On the other end of the spectrum is the rain, the gloomy self-doubting attitude of ‘will I ever be good enough? My art is so bad!’ And this is the kicker - I guarantee EVERY excellent artist goes through periods of self-doubt like these. You simply cannot improve in your art if you don’t doubt its worth or skill every now and then; this is the impetus that leads an artist on the road of artistic improvement.

The difference between these excellent artists and okay ones is they don’t let the periods of rain bog them down for very long. An artist shouldn’t wallow in these bad feelings, they should pick themselves up and examine what’s making them feel that way, and then make the necessary changes to help improve themselves and their art.

I find many more artists have problems with too much of the rainy attitude as opposed to the sunny attitude. But how does one get out of that rainy attitude? Personally, I think it’s all about your mindset. When I have one of those gloomy attitudes roll in, my thoughts at first mostly revolve around how much my art sucks and how I’m going nowhere with it. It’s easy to get into a downward spiral with these thoughts, and once you’re way down there, it gets harder and harder to go back up. The best way to manage these thoughts is to examine them logically and rationally. Figure out what parts of your artwork you don’t like, and make steps to improve those parts. Stop thinking ‘my art sucks’ and start thinking ‘my art is pretty good, but it could be a little better.’ Even if you don’t believe it. If you think that all the time though, the key is that you WILL start believing it. But you have to keep that thought in your head completely, and not secretly think more destructive thoughts.

If you find yourself unable to do the things above, it might be time to step away from the pencil for a while, and do something that occupies you fully, and preferably something that makes you feel accomplished and good about yourself. I like to clean, exercise, work on my website, etc. After you’ve done that for as long as you need, hopefully you’ll be refreshed and ready to change your mindset about other things, like art.

So really, it all boils down to, too much of anything can stagnate your art. Hopefully this makes some sense. :>