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Give Yourself a Break
The last couple of days I’ve been feeling really off. I’ve been tired, irritable, so and did I mention tired? I’m sick again for the 3rd time in 2 months (The first two sicks maybe should be considered 1 because I didn’t fully recover on the first antibiotics). In any case I’m not here to complain about my sickness but more to talk about what happens when I get sick.
When I’m sick I generally try to work through it. I have 2 kids and I have to take care of them if I’m sick and often I do the same thing when working on my art. This leads to me being sicker in the end and I actually get worse because I don’t take that break.
A bit ago I was worried about doing a book review. Part of the problem was that I don’t understand the full logistics of doing book reviews, and the other part is being sick is making everything harder. It may be that book reviews aren’t my thing and I will look at that again with a clear head. I also don’t HAVE to do a book review right now. It’s not in anyway necessary. I wanted that to be a regular part of my blog, but no one is depending so much on my book reviewing skills that it’s a necessity for me to finish this one review.
There are times in life where you will have to work through being sick. If you don’t have a strictly enforced deadline then give yourself a break! Only you know when you are sick enough to take that break. Many publishers and workplaces will give you a break if you let them know what’s happening.
If you are pre-published or working on your next book project then know you can and maybe should take a break if you are really sick. If you have a family emergency you are allowed to take time off. In many cases you will get more done and be under so much less stress if you give yourself a break!
Be nice to yourself my friends!
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Support Me on Patreon!
I hope you are enjoying Smart Dummies this year. I love helping out other people and I hope you are learning a lot, or at least getting a lot done this month. Smart dummies is not an easy event, so be nice to yourself and celebrate what you are able to complete.
Today is my birthday! What better way to celebrate than to update all my reward tiers and give presents to all my patrons on Patreon? I feel like I’m winning my birthday already: https://www.patreon.com/SmartDummies I don’t have presents on Kofi, but you’ll have my love if you can only make a one time donation there. https://ko-fi.com/daniduck!
It is not free for me to run this blog and the events do take a lot of my time. If you have the money, please consider helping me out. I will be working to giving you lots more value for your donations. Check out the new tiers and know that I’m open to suggestions!
TIERS
Smart Member
$1 or more per monthBasic Membership Includes
+ Monthly Art Process Videos
+ Monthly Challenges to help encourage creativity in your writing and art
+ Your name listed in a special post before Smart Dummies and Spring into Writing!
Smart Fiver
$5 or more per monthAll of the previous tier benefits plus:
+ Your questions answered on a short video every month.*
+ Extra entry on all Patreon giveaways and contests.
+ Your name listed in a future Smart Dummies/Writing Challenge Booklet.
*You ask me 1 question a month and I’ll give you a video answer of your question on Patreon. Access will be given to everyone in this level and above.
Smart 10s
$10 or more per monthAll of the previous tier benefits plus:
+ 1 Hour Chat with me and other Smart 10s every month.
+ Exclusive Smart 10s only content.
Want to make a one time donation? https://ko-fi.com/daniduck (This will not give you access to patron rewards, but I will love you forever. Even if you don’t donate.) Feel free to contact me about other ways to donate!
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Fun Art Videos!
I have a fun inking video that I made today. I need to go back in and edit it a bit. 5 minutes of me having the save dialog open isn’t that much fun to watch. I will be adding sound and hopefully narrate this as well. Hopefully I can get this up for you soon! For now here are a few instructional Youtube channels that will help you with your art!
SVS Learn — Home of the 3-point perspective podcast (video version). This podcast tells you everything you need to know about Children’s illustration! Will Terry, Jake Parker and Lee white host. Their excellent Youtube channels are also below https://www.youtube.com/user/SVSLearn/videos
Will Terry — Kidlit Illustrator with a huge collection of videos about the craft and business of kidlit books! https://www.youtube.com/user/willterryart
Jake Parker — Creator of Inktober and Illustrator https://www.youtube.com/user/jakeparker44/videos
Lee White — Kidlit illustrator and Fine Artist https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa8I_myjn8osVaEPsS7eq1Q/videos
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Rachel Armington — Her videos are watercolor, food and crafts! She just posted a video about making clay models for illustration! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ7Eosyn2nYbNbkokKrmPcw/videos
Chris Hong Art — Some fun illustration techniques and lots of pretty art. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGHCzXORMIUiBZmNHr1ovjw/videos
Sheldene Fine Art — This is a nice channel that has all kinds of different techniques you can try for your own art. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_KkCbQ6ZlN0dGnT1GLdz7A/videos
Have a Youtube channel you’d like to share? Please post the name in the comments below. I’ll be sure to share the channel in a future Smart Dummies post!
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A Little Warm-Up
My schedule for this month has completely gone out the door. There will be more of a schedule for the full Smart Dummies event. Starting Sunday I’ll be posting a schedule for everything we are working on this month. If you want to get your dummy done in a month you can follow the Smart Dummies Regular schedule on page 4 of your planner.
Let’s start warming-up our drawing skills by making some shape doodles. Just pick a shape (circles, triangles, square, oval ect.) Give the shape eyes, noses and mouths. You can just start with faces, but weird bodies are okay too.
If you can get a design for your main character designed before you start Smart Dummies you’ll be off to a great start. Fill up pages 7-9 with some doodling and try to figure out what you want your character(s) to look like. If you feel like moving on in your booklet or skipping around then do so! Creating a dummy is not a one size fits all situation.
You want to be able to draw your same character over and over again. Once you figure out what you want to draw, then draw that character over and over again. You may want to try different poses, but not until you are comfortable with your character.
Check out your library (and your personal picture book collection if you have one). look for books that have simple drawings. I’ll list some here so you can see how easy you can go.
Ed Emberly’s books have simple characters created with simple shapes or thumbprints. He has a whole set of drawing books that show how to draw anything using simple shapes. If you can find any of these books at your library do pick them up! His website is http://www.edemberley.com there you can see some of his work and get a few tutorials. You can also do an internet search to find out more!
Shel Silverstein has a lovely collection of picture books. Many of them just with line drawings. One of the most simple of these is The Missing Piece which features a Pac-Man like character as the main character.
Aree Chung’s “Mixed: A Colorful Story“ is another story that’s made with simple shapes and flat coloring.
