Happy Holidays!

 

Happy Holidays from Barclay-Studio!

I realize that this has been a difficult year. One of the things I have been reminded of is the importance of gratitude and how it can help get us through anything. I recognize there are many who have had it much worse than me, but my finding something to be grateful for and sharing it with others daily has helped me get through the possibility of loosing my job and other difficulties at work.

New Stuff Available: Dance of the Elephants

I have posted a new item for sale on my website and my Zazzle Store.

This is a delightful series of illustrations depicting an awkward elephant dancing gracefully across your mug or your wall.

The Mug can be found at my Zazzle Store.

A 3.5 x 17 limited edition print can be purchased here.

My Journey: A benefit of Personal Projects, Having Fun in Hard Times

Within one week I was to take years of course development and put them online. On top of this I started homeschooling my children, I continued to try to get illustration work, and my books published, received more rejections and I, with so many others, are doing our best to navigate a world pandemic.

That can all be rather overwhelming.

I have many things I do to stay calm in situations like this. I pray a lot. I am slowing down and spending more time with my family. I try to help others by reaching out to others to lift them up.

I also make time to work on personal projects. One of the benefits of working on personal projects is they are stress relieving. There is no purpose for these illustrations, other than to have fun and explore the challenge of fitting things into a square. When I finish each one I just feel happy.

Releasing stress and finding joy is just one of the benefits of working on personal projects regularly.

A Balancing Act

One of the biggest challenges I have faced in my attempts to get more illustration work is finding balance between teaching, administrative responsibilities, and my art. I find spending time on building my illustration business the first thing to go, because the other aspects of my job are more pressing. I have many roles and the demands for those are increasing without the release of any other responsibilities. 

As such, I needed to do some serious reflection and make some decisions on how to accomplish my desire to get more illustration work. 

First, I applied for a sabbatical. This removed the administrative responsibilities that were so overwhelming and many of my other work demands. It allowed me to focus on illustrating.

Second, as an illustrator, I need to balance my time between creating and marketing. I have a tendency to focus more on the art work and hope that people will find me. Although this approach had brought in a small amount of work over the years, my-self-promotion efforts needed to increase and be more purposeful.

This involved planning. I now plan out my weeks. When will I work on illustration, and when will I work on contacting potential clients and other self-promotion efforts? Daily, I look over my plan and make adjustments based on what has come up. This has helped immensely in progressing toward more illustration work. I still have a great deal of work to do, but I am making progress. 

An example of a weeks planning

I realize this approach is not for everyone, but it has helped me. Some form of organization and planning is needed. I offer this as one solution and it is evolving and changing as I continue to work.

Now I am in the process of being patient until I see the results of my efforts over the last year or so. I will share my sure fire way to develop patience in two weeks.

The Vermont Animation Festival

I just finished the illustration and poster design for the Vermont Animation Festival. It was an honor and a joy to be able to work on this project. I got to work with some of my favorite people and come up with something fun.

For more information you can visit the Vermont Animation Festival web site.

Beautie for Valentines Day

Happy Valentines day from Barclay-Studio!

I am still grateful for the opportunity to design this and other bow ties for Beauties Ltd. of Vermont. I had an infinity scarf made for my wife with this pattern on it as well. We match today.

Reworking a past personal project and other thoughts on productivity

I have set some goals again to do more art work. Overall, I have been good about making time to draw on a daily basis. The next step is to complete more illustrations. This is proving to be more difficult as my day gets away from me often because of other responsibilities. I find that scheduling an hour or so a day to work is really helpful.

Today I started to rework one of the “A is for Alliteration” illustrations as it was just not working. This one is for the letter B. The first time I worked on it, it was too rushed. Now I am spending time making sure I am happy with how I am depicting different characters. Trying to get the positioning of the elephant with the bagpipes was proving to be rather difficult. The best way to solve it is through multiple sketches. Trying different things.

89-93 of 100 Blue Logos

Here is the last variation of the bowler hat blue logo. I then started looking at options with an elephant icon and finally created odd juxtapositions of ideas like a pineapple with blue.

New Illustration for “North”

For the Northern Vermont University Visual Arts 2018 Faculty Art Exhibit “North” I exhibited a number of illustrations that I created over the past few years. I also spent time creating a new illustration for my “A is for Alliteration” book that related to the the theme of North.

This one is titled “N is for a nearsighted Napoleonic navy nabob navigating nervous narwals not so nicely through narrows near numbats nibbling nachos, nine nefarious newt ninjas, and naïve nerdy naked mole-rats wedding neither necklaces nor neckties 'neath the nebulous northern night.”

I like long titles.

Sketch from Cambodia: Phnom Kulen, Elephant Pond

After a scooter ride and a small walk through the jungles of Cambodia, we came across this wonderful site. I wanted to capture that moment as it just emerged out of the jungle as we turned the corner. Constructed around 802 AD Phnom Kulen or The Elephant Ponds is all that is left of what is believed to be the birth of the Khmer Empire. It was so peaceful.

I was able to visit in February of 2017 and I am just getting to painting some of my sketches from the trip.

#100 of 100 Elephants: Stick Elephant

The last one! I went simplistic with this one. Upon reflection, this was an incredible creative exercise. Not only did I push myself, I realize now that I can push myself farther. It was frustrating. It was liberating. It was great to allow myself to explore with out serious consequences. I would highly recommend doing this to push your creativity.

Starting in the fall, 100 logos.

#99 of 100 Elephants: Dragon

One more day left of the 100 Elephants. Here is the Elephant Dragon.

#98 of 100 Elephants: Backhoe

One morning I was working on a wood service project with my church. One of the congregation members had their backhoe to help with moving big logs. As I looked at it I saw an elephant. I was seeing elephants in everything.

#97 of 100 Elephants: Platybelodon

This is a variation of the prehistoric elephant, platybelodon.

#96 of 100 Elephants: High Fashion

#96 is playing with the trunks again and adding a whole lot glam and hair.

#95 of 100 Elephants: Snow Elephant

This began with the question, “how would you make a traditional snowman look like an elephant?”

#94 of 100 Elephants: Lamp

This was another creative breakthrough. I was stuck. Was almost done. With all the elephants that had come before and all my thinking I came to this solution. I love the simplicity of the idea. Now it seems rather obvious.

I just realized he has no bow tie.

#93 of 100 Elephants: The Wizard

It took me 93 elephants to realize that the tusks can go side ways. It is small, but exciting.

This one has also been sold.

#92 of 100 Elephants: Genie

I really do not know what to say about one this other than it was really fun to draw. There is something really liberating about this project. This opportunity to explore possibilities to allowing yourself to fail and to come up with some joyful ideas.

#91 of 100 Elephants: Hot Air Balloon

I lived in Albuquerque New Mexico for a number of years while growing up. The International Balloon Fiesta was something that impacted me visually in so many ways. The hot air balloons keep appearing in my work.