My Journey, The Beginning

My Journey, The Beginning

I believe in practicing what you preach. 

One of the things I have been telling my students a lot lately is that they need to tell their story, and get out there work out in the world. It is how people will better connect with their art. So, this is my story–my journey as an artist and an illustrator. My hope is that this will help others that have chosen the same path. I hope to inspire, and I hope to help others not make the same mistakes I have made on my journey. There have been plenty. 

I received inspiration for this from a few places. The first was realizing that my education did a great deal in teaching me how to draw and illustrate, but did little in the way of showing me how to get work. The second was during my studies at Low Residency MFA Illustration Program at the Hartford Art School, Hartford University with Murray Tinkelman. The other is the book Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon, which is a great read with simple, but not easy, advice for any visual artist. I will speak on each in future posts.

In addition to regularly posting my current work I will be posting a weekly conversation on a subject around becoming a visual artist. Some of this will be from my class discussions and others will be from people that have inspired and helped me along the way.

I am not where I want to be as an illustrator. I have been doing small jobs here and there, but I have not gotten the amount of work I want. So, this will also be a journey of discovery for me as I try new things and keep plugging along.

I hope you enjoy the trip.

If you are interested in an incredible MFA illustration program, I highly recommend the One at the Hartford Art School. You can find it here: https://hartfordillustration.com

If you want to read Show Your Work! you can purchase it here: https://www.amazon.com/Show-Your-Work-Austin-Kleon/dp/076117897X

Or, you can find out more about Austin Kleon here:  https://austinkleon.com

Illustrator Unveils Daring New Direction in Art Work

Artist, Illustrator, Barclay Tucker unveiled his latest work earlier today to applause and wonder. The boldness and reaction to his latest body of art literally broke the Internet. Mike Dente head IT guy at Lyndon State College was alarmed. “All of the servers in a small region of the North East Kingdom were overloaded by the demand to see this new work. It shut the system down.”

Tucker said of this new work, “I had been doing the bow tie thing for a long time. It was getting trite. I needed to find something artistically challenging.” He mentions that in creating this new look he went back to the art he was creating in the early seventies. “I realized that was who I really was as an artist. There was a rawness and an innocence that I had lost.” Even with the rejuvenating work Tucker says “process of making these illustrations is exhausting. I spend days agonizing over each stroke, every color, but it is worth it.”

The Editor of the papers said that they could use these for such topical issues as getting a new traffic light in town to articles about global warming. “Their versatility is amazing.”

Tucker’s reaction to the popularity of this new work was humble and appreciative, “I am excited about the response, I had considered moving on to neck ties, but I felt there wasn’t a market for it. This type of illustration is universal. It speaks to the issues of today. I have The Caledonia Record and LSC’s Critic beating on my door to use these illustrations in their editorials.“

If you have any questions or want to purchase prints of his work please contact the artist via e-mail.