In this post I share with you my experience in participating in this year's Make Art That Sells Illustrating for Children's Books course.

This series of posts is meant to enlighten artists about colors when digitizing their artworks.

I didn't dream of becoming an artist, I've always been one. It’s just a matter of getting better at it.

Watercolor paper can make or break your artwork. Using the best paper also makes our life much easier.

The path to change is often obscure but if you are attentive enough, it will come to you willingly. You just need to allow it. I like the idea of change and my fondess of autumn symbolizes that. "Change is Good" | Watercolor and digital collage | 2019 Shake Our Core In my dream last night, there was an earthquake, which happens rarely in South Africa—or rather less discernible compared to my birthplace, the Philippines. I realized quickly that I was dreaming but let the story

The better question would be, how would you illustrate a story that could capture the attention and imagination of a child...

What do you do when uninspired or just really out of your system? What if it’s a rainy day or on a tight deadline and no idea is coming? Blue and Blah As a creative who is also always present in social media, it seems as though you are in constant cloud nine churning creative thoughts and brilliant ideas. In reality there are days that are just blue and simply blah. Nothing is coming and you know that the clock is ticking. Deadlines do not help at all. It sounds very indulgen

What I cannot reconcile when making art is the middleground between realism and abstraction. Although the initial idea of an artwork is a stylized rendition, I still end up adding more details. That I find quite difficult to change or is it more natural to paint more realistically? Each time I become nitty-gritty, I stop but the end result felt half-baked. How do I challenge myself to be more loose in my style? No Straight Lines Recently, I started painting directly on the pa

Why is it so hard to make your own logo? Logo-making is not my thing. I know people who eat, breathe, and shit logos for a living. Perhaps I am not minimalistic enough to make symbols. So when it was time to build my branding as an artist, which means I would need a logo to support that, it took me ages and several sheets of paper to come up with a logo that would best represent me. The good thing about a logo is that it can evolve just like art. Je Ne Sais Quois Also there i

Before joining Make Art That Sells , I worried about becoming a commercial artist. What does it mean to make work that is commercial and yet not lose my uniqueness in all of it? The Magic of Color Grading Just nearly a decade ago I used to be a colorist, for moving pictures and not the hair salon kind, and it’s a love-hate relationship. While I enjoyed the craft and the prestige of being a so-called magician in the dark room because that time not all of my clients knew how I

Sure you can download free or paid mock-up images in several websites but what if you see the same image you used on Instagram or any social media? Obviously the odds of seeing that could be one in a thousand but it is possible. Here is a tutorial on how you can make mock-ups from sourced images as well as your own mock-up for your artwork. "Monstera" by Michelle Carlos | Gouache and Acrylic | 2018 Part 1: Sourced image So you don’t have time and budget to assemble a photo st

For this week’s blog, I thought of giving a tutorial on how to remove in Photoshop the background of a scanned image of your artwork. My Background My professional training was in post production as a colorist and digital film restorer. My job was to improve the colors of a moving picture like movies, TV ads, music videos, etc... using sophisticated software programs and dedicated hardware tools that would remind you of a space craft console—kind of Photoshop but in steroids—

Please excuse the profanity but as an artist you get crapped at a lot of times before you can make great shit and earn shitloads of money—if you’re lucky. The Shitty Wisdom of a King At a summer street festival in Stuttgart I met an architect who introduced himself as “Lion.” I wasn’t quite sure if he was referring to his star sign or he wants to be called the king of the jungle. Anyway, he had too much Wulle in a cup so I hardly expected a darling of a conversation. However

Reflections on the uncertainties of having a career in art ... go ahead and follow your neglected dreams. It’s scary out there on your own Freelance work, while it’s very ideal in many levels, is difficult and time consuming. You literally need to start from scratch especially when you haven’t much experience putting up your own business. That is why most of us work behind the desk 8 hours a day, 5 days a week or longer under the same company for the rest of our lives. Though

It’s so easy to accept painting commissions even if it is not your style when you need to earn. Tragically, being an artist is synonymous to being poor. But you need not be a beggar nor be a peddler of your artworks on the street. You also cannot be an absolute idealist and live off your principles as an artist. If you want to make money from your art, no matter how daunting, perhaps it's time to rethink your goals as an artist as well as a business-minded person. No Charity

If you are like me who is only starting to explore this medium, you probably have several questions about and hesitations on which brand or variant to purchase. Let’s investigate the difference between the so-called artist and designers’ grade gouache paints and why it pays to get the right tools. Can you tell the difference between the two images? In a Quandary When you go to your favorite art store to grab a box of paints, you often see on the labels these words: artists, s

Children are innately creative. Up to a certain age, they live in dreamland and everything they do is make believe. With all their whimsical and radical ideas, how can we be creative just like kids? Abstract artwork by Adam, 3 years old Small Wonders A community experienced a huge improvement on their public infrastructures as well as their lifestyle as a consequence of a city planning project that included children’s radical creative inputs. During a TEDTalk, Mara Mintzer p

How to find creative inspiration everywhere. A lucid dream As the nurses from the recovery ward repeatedly called my name, I woke up, still half-sedated, and was repeatedly muttering “pink zebras.” I remembered replying I saw pink zebras having a tea party in my dream. "Mrs. Zee's Tea Party" | 594 x 841 mm | Gouache and Watercolor | 2018 A week later and completely sober, I rushed to the art store and searched for the perfect pink that would go well for my hostess, Mrs. Zee

How colors drive my artistic direction and how challenging it is to find the right palette to go with the artwork but basic color theory and mixing might just solve this problem. The Color of Blood In any artwork, I always begin with or end up adding red , my favorite color. It felt incomplete without it. Red is ubiquitous in my wardrobe, make-up, home and obviously in my paintings. I even wore red on my wedding. But who doesn’t love this color? It is a strong color—the repre