The Future of Art Shows

As many of you know, Covid was a wrecking ball for art shows. Some of my favorite, regular shows that I participated in yearly were closed down for two years, some even three. Most art shows are city events and the government kept harsh restrictions in place on these types of events the longest. It was a difficult time for many artists including myself.

Art shows are a tremendous amount of work. Weeks are spent prepping for the show, most shows require travel, so packing the van full of art and driving to the destination, then a day is spent setting up your booth, then running the show for 2-3 days, then tearing down the booth and finally driving home. It was a labor of love and I enjoyed many aspects of the trade. Watching customers walk into my booth with a look of surprise on their face, since that weren’t used to seeing the silly in fine art form, I would then wait patiently for their smile to slowly spread across their face which usually turned into soft chuckles, fun conversations and more often than not they became new customers. I miss those times.

Obviously, I was forced to step aside from art shows during that time. I filled my time by attempting to sell my artwork on Etsy and also working part-time as a photographer for hire. It wasn’t all bad since I had been traveling and doing art shows for over twenty years at that point. It provided a mandatory but welcome break. But where does that leave me now?

I sold my art show van, the majority of my art booth set up along with my canvas printer after the Covid disaster. Not that I needed to, it was just all of those things were getting long in the tooth and it felt like the right time to part ways. So at this point it time, I am undecided if I will return to doing art shows. My main focus now is finding a printer who can reproduce my work to the same standards which I did. My plan is to reopen my online store and get back to offering my art on canvas for customers once I find the right printer.

After that I will consider if it is worth retuning to art shows.

Online Store Status

I wanted to give an update on my online store. Yes, I took it down some time ago because I sold my canvas printer. My printer was about 15 years old and served me very well. One of the aspects of printing your own art is that canvas printings need to be sealed. This requires some sort of an outdoor spray booth in your garage. Well due to some personal changes in my life, it was going to be difficult to continue having that necessary space in the garage outside of my home studio.

Recently, I have been getting plenty of inquiries about my art on canvas. I am in the process of sending out some of my art to several printers to see what kind of quality canvas print service they can offer me. Once I find the right printer, I will reopen my store and begin offering my art on canvas once again. I appreciate your understanding and patience in the matter.

To further understand everything that went into this decision, I suggest you read my next blog post on the “Future of Art Shows”.

Review: Drawing on iPad

I’ve had my iPad Pro for about a year now, so I’d thought I would share my experience of drawing on it with the Procreate app and the Apple Pencil (2nd generation). First off, I didn’t necessarily upgrade my iPad in order to begin drawing on it. My iPad was about 8 years old and it was getting pretty slow to use for credit card transactions and bookkeeping. Many of my illustrator friends use iPad Pro and Procreate for sketching, so I thought I would go for the pro model and bundle it with my need for business transactions along with digital sketching.

The Apple Pencil and the iPad Pro deliver a very authentic drawing experience. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the experience was better than I anticipated. Stroking the tip of the pencil across the screen has a natural feel to it with no lag or offset. It responds well to the amount of pressure used, although pressing too hard will cause temporary screen distortion. Overall, I think most users will find the experience of drawing tactile and satisfying. In fact, I often find myself with a craving to get the iPad out and draw.

Procreate is a fine drawing app. It can be quite powerful if you are willing to put the time into learning all the tools and processes the app offers. For me, I keep it simple, using just a few brushes to draw with, the cut and paste feature and resizing tool. My work does not really require much else, but it is nice to know the tools are available if needed. Those tools may become more necessary in the future, when I find myself traveling and away from the full-power of my desktop.

The app itself is laid out well. Quick adjustments like brush size, opacity, color and undo are available on the main screen. While fine tuning individual brushes can be made deeper inside the main brush menu. This helps you get the stroke just right for your particular style of drawing. Procreate offers a wide variety of brushes out of the box, while also offering the ability to build custom brushes. My needs have been met with just a couple tweaks to the standard brush settings.

My biggest complaint with Procreate comes immediately after changing brushes. Frequently, the brush fails to work right after a switch. You set the tip on the screen and begin to draw or erase but it will not respond. You have to lift the tip off the screen and place it back down to get it working again. This glitch has been there since the beginning and has continued through the app updates. I have searched for solutions online, but have not found any yet. It does not do this every single time you switch brushes, but it does it more often than not, which interrupts the flow of drawing.

The sketches you see in this blog post were all created in Procreate. It can be difficult to see the difference between a traditional pencil sketch that was scanned into the computer versus a Procreate sketch. When I complete a sketch in Procreate, I will use the share feature to airdrop the image to my iMac where I will continue working on it in Corel Painter. This process is obviously much faster than scanning a pencil sketch and cleaning it up to prep it for digital paint.

So far I have not taken anything to final art within Procreate, but I am working on developing that process. It will be useful when I’m traveling. For now, it is faster to finish my sketches on my Cintiq using Corel Painter and personal custom brushes. On a final note, Procreate will record your drawings which you can export and edit within any video editing software. The videos look great and are a fun way to share your work.

The “Booth” Shot

2019 Booth Photo for Joey Welsh Illustration

Never underestimate the power of the “Booth” shot. It may be the most critical component of any art show application. It can make or break your chances of getting accepted into the very best art shows.

One of the most exciting aspects of being an independent artist and applying for the best shows around the country is not knowing what shows will hand you an invitation each year. Many of my customers don’t realize that there is a jury process to get into reputable art shows. These shows will require artists to submit an application describing their creative process, submitting an artist’s statement about the objective of their work, photos of their art and a photo of their booth as it will be displayed at the show. Aka, the “Booth” shot.

More often than not, at least for me when applying to the higher-end shows, the reply is a rejection. For example, I applied to the Utah Arts Festival four years in a row before finally being accepted on the fifth attempt. When I did the show in 2016, it turned out to be the best show of my career, so it was worth the wait. But the rejections are still hard to take, no matter when you receive them. They never come with any explanations as shows are not required to give reasons for declining your application. Which leaves little direction for improvement.

For me, I believe the whimsical nature of my work softens my chances of getting accepted into many shows because it does not convey the high-end, contemporary vibe that many art shows promoters wish to emit. I also believe many jurors forget that it’s okay to have fun, affordable art mixed in with the serious, expensive art for the patrons strolling through the show. The art world is subjective, so I can only speculate on the reasons why I don’t get offered a spot at more shows. I’m just grateful for the successful opportunities that I’ve had.

Last year I made some changes to my booth to create a greater impression on my customers that I hope will also extend to the show juries. First, I made the booth taller so that I can display more artwork. Second, I implemented a set of shelves to display my books more prominently, because this is the only way I can let juries know that I also write & illustrate books in addition to my art. Lastly, I had to create more storage space within the booth since I have so many images that I try to keep in stock at shows. I’ll let you know how my strategy works in 2019.

Potty Humor

I’m always getting requests for bathroom art. Hmmm? So I got to work on a few ideas and came up with the quick sketch on the right. When I was in high school, my friends and I always got a kick of one teacher who took the “no-hands” approach to draining the lizard. In fact, we often wondered how it was even possible to do this without getting pee on your pants. Anyway, I think that distant memory became the inspiration for this piece so here’s the breakdown.

Most men will recognize the flamboyant yellow frog on the right. He is charismatic while urinating. He will tap his feet, slap his hands on the wall, whistle, perhaps even sing, all while gazing down admiringly at his little fellow. He is proud and will do this without the slightest bit of self-consciousness. He doesn’t care who is next to him or who is watching, he is free to pee wherever he might be.

The blue frog on the left is your average guy. He is there to take care of business and is wise enough to select an end urinal. Although he does not get stage fright in a crowded bathroom, he knows enough to distract himself by reading the wall graffiti to keep his mind occupied and his bladder relaxed.

But the poor green frog in the middle. He had the unfortunate circumstance of walking into the john when the only unoccupied urinal was the one in the middle. Expert only. Reluctantly, he took the open spot as nature’s call cannot be ignored. But he finds the close personal proximity of strangers difficult to overcome at such a private time. It might make more sense to zip it up and head to the stall.

15 Years at Fiesta

When I saw the green star next to my name in the program for the 30th Annual Rio Grande Balloon show, I discovered it meant my fifteenth consecutive year participating in the show. My disbelieving brain had me check my records, and yep, in 2004 I did my first Balloon Fiesta show on the second of the two weekends.

Over the years, this show has become one of my favorite ones to do. The promoters are first rate. The quality of art is very high. The balloons ascending each morning is always a joyous sight. But most importantly, the customer interaction at this show never fails to remind me why I became an artist in the first place.

One of my fondest memories of this show came in 2006. It was the year my first book, The Gekkleberry Tree, was published and for sale at the show. For the first time, I had a real-life, actual line of customers waiting to make a purchase at my booth. Maybe it was due to the fact that I was a nervous first-time author trying to sign books and that delayed the purchase process or maybe it was a genuine marker of creative success.

In addition, I’ve had some memorable experiences in New Mexico outside of the art festivals. As an avid mountain biker, I always bring my bike on this annual two-week trip and go exploring on my days off. There are some beautiful trails in ABQ, Gallup and Tijeras. I’ve had the opportunity to take my kids and extended family onto the field and gaze up in wonder at the mass ascension. I got the chance to be interviewed on the local news about my hot-air balloon storybook, The Magnificent Race, in 2015. But my favorite adventure, was our family trip to the rattlesnake museum in Old Town ABQ. What can I say, I’m a reptile fan.

Each year I try to debut as much new artwork as possible at this show. My customer base in ABQ is keenly aware of what is new and what is not, so I do my best to populate my booth with new and exciting images.

This year, customers were surprised to see I have been exploring concepts with animals outside of the reptile kingdom. This year I had crabs playing golf on the beach, a family of owls in a treehouse and a momma tarantula trying to keep track of her many babies. I look forward to getting back to work on new ideas I will bring to the 2019 show.

Caricature Workshop

I left my signed copy of Tom Richmond's caricature book, "The Mad Art of Caricature" in a hotel room back in October of 2017. Sadly, no one was unable to locate the book after exchanging a number of phone calls and emails with the Hilton staff. My suspicion is the maid had a secret desire to learn caricature and kept it for herself. Fortunately, Tom was teaching a caricature workshop in nearby LA come January and he was generous enough to include a signed copy of his book with the tuition. So I signed up and made the drive from Phoenix to attend his three-day workshop. 

I will make it known that I have little experience in caricature. This art form naturally appeals to my whimsical nature, but drawing faces has always been a struggle for me. My goal in attending this workshop was to develop a process for approaching anyone's face and being able to caricature it, which I achieved.

The workshop takes place over three days, starting Friday after lunch and ending Sunday afternoon. During that time, we did lots and lots of caricatures in 5-10 minute increments, taking references from a book of citizen photos that Tom provided or searching celebrities online. Since Tom's background is in live caricature, making confident and decisive lines on the paper is what he emphasizes. These short drills help build your decision-making skills and stop you from overworking a face.

While we worked, Tom shared stories from his days as a live caricature artist at the amusement parks and also went into depth on some of his projects for Mad magazine. It was insightful to hear about his process and the amount of time he spends on an illustration, which is far less than us mere mortal illustrators might think, especially considering the amount of details he puts in each drawing. Tom also did a live caricature demo of one of the students while the rest of us observed. 

He also walked around the room, giving individual attention to each student throughout the workshop. This gave the students a chance to have their work critiqued and ask questions. Early on, Tom had us focus on the fundamental aspect of creating a t-shape to form the eyes and nose. With enough practice, this becomes muscle memory and it really helped me create stronger roadmaps for my caricatures.

Some say that Tom's book on caricature is the best ever been written on the subject. I would agree and his book is a great companion to follow up with after the class. It allows you to dig into more detail from the workshop's lessons. I feel the combination of his class and his book are really all one needs to develop real caricature skills, besides plenty of practice. 

One of the first things I mentioned to my wife prior to signing up for the class was how much value I thought Tom was offering between the class, the book, signed artwork, etc, making it a no brainer to attend. But, I think all of us in the class were most blown-away by the illustration of the entire class in caricature. (See below) Tom gave each of us a signed, full-color poster which makes for an awesome keepsake. Although caricature is only something I enjoy doing for friends and family at this time, I think this class would behoove anyone pursuing caricature for financial gain. Link to his workshop schedule. 

In a final note, I also took Jason Seiler's caricature class online at Schoolism.com prior to this workshop. I took the version where Jason gives video critiques of class assignments. That was also a great learning experience. However, I had zero caricature experience when I took that class. If I could to it over again, I would recommend Tom's class first, especially if you are new to caricature. It gives you the tools to begin developing your caricature process, something I was lacking when I took Jason's class.