This article is Part Two in a series of tutorial articles explaining linear perspective from a visual, non-technical approach. By visual, I mean drawing from direct observation and the imagination…
Successful freelancing is a matter of finding the right clients in the right places for the right reasons. Every client you take on affects your business either positively or negatively,…
PART ONE This is the first of a series of tutorial articles dealing with linear perspective. Read Part Two here. I'm taking a visual approach and focusing on drawing from…
Successful soloism is about 80% mindset and 20% mechanics. I’ve learned from experience that you can get the mechanics right, but still not be thinking right. Much of what holds…
Light and Dark Value is the term used to describe lightness and darkness of color in design and art. Our ability to see anything is due to contrasts — differences…
On his Dear Design Student blog on Medium, Mike Monteiro, design director at Mule Design, author and speaker, discusses designers and their ethics. He addresses the relationship between doing good…
While I think that designers in general should be able to draw well enough to communicate their ideas, (Von Glitska @Vonster tweeted that those who can’t draw end up plagiarizing…
I’ll get to it when I’m ready. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of planning to get something done and then putting it off until it became absolutely necessary to…
I want to preface this by saying that as you learn and apply design principles, and gain experience with organizing elements within a design space, you should start seeing things…
Creative freelancers invest time and effort carefully crafting brands for their clients. In regard to their own brands, they often come up short. Creatives should pay as much attention to…
Older people provide a varied facial landscape to draw. In many ways, it's easier to describe the external contours when there are more landmarks. But structure is still important. Whether…
So you have a brand-new shiny client that you're excited to be working with. You're looking forward to helping them achieve their goals. They've accepted your project proposal and you're…
In this Sketchbook Session I demonstrate my approach to drawing a hand. I start by sketching the general structure and overall shape, and pay attention to proportion, position and direction…
Building a business requires connection with people: prospective clients, colleagues, mentors, customers, and sometimes even family members. When we connect, we share information, ideas and inspiration. We problem-solve. We listen…
Are you ever unsure how to create a color scheme? Do you tend to use color directly from the tube because you don’t know what to mix it with to…
Art and design students focus on developing their portfolios during the final terms of their education. The portfolio is the most important tool when entering the professional world, and will…
Color is fundamental to life. We not only see color, we experience it. To apply color appropriately in art and design, you need foundational knowledge about how we see color,…
Because pretty much everything runs on design and other forms of visual communication, the role of the visual communicator (designer, illustrator, photographer) is more in demand than ever, and also…
One of my latest illustrations is a portrait of Albert Pujols, who plays first base for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim MLB team. I referenced a photo I captured…
I'm currently reading Cal Newport's Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success In A Distracted World, in which the author makes the case for engaging in serious, uninterrupted times of extreme focus…
Whether drawing from photographic reference or from life, we can easily adopt what I call a line-by-line approach to drawing. We look at our subject, observe, draw a line or two,…
You can get more out of a creative review than just a go-ahead to move to the next phase of the project. In coming together with your client to assess…
If you want to be successful, you need to be influential. Influence can be positive or negative, and everyone has influence. The key for success as creative freelancers is to…
There are two ways color is mixed to make new colors. One is commonly known as admixing. The other is optical mixing, also known as optical fusion or perceptual mixing.…