(no subject)
With the DemandStudios trial contract in front of me, I'm going to do a spate of easy articles and just assume that everything after article 17 "How to Draw a Land Hermit Crab in Derwent Drawing Pencils" counts only toward making the 23 articles for the no-strings $50 one-time bonus. I've done two lovely professional-art articles since then, "Harvest" with the pumpkin and "How to Draw Original Fantasy Maps" on a prompt from a NaNoWriMo forums poster who wanted help and tutorials on drawing fantasy maps. The more I think about my article, the more I think it'd probably help writers who are using Campaign Cartographer and other mapmaking software. It still takes design skills and some idea of what coastlines and continent shapes look like, even if the software fills it with pretty map symbols and little drawings you don't need to draw.
I'll count no-photo-reference, no-Deviation article projects toward the contract until I hear otherwise about the images. eHow itself does not claim copyright to my articles or images, and there's nothing in the contract about not writing more articles on eHow. The good art, Expert level, salable finished artwork articles are still a draw for Deviants and other online friends who want to try this at home and/or just get curious about how I did it with things like colored pencil realism. I could even do things like crop key details and use the crop image as the article image, like an article on "How to Draw a Dewdrop Realistically" with the dewdrop on the Blue Rose, cut so close you can't tell the flower's a rose. That's the one print I've sold already.
I drew and posted How to Draw Halos for Religious Art with a Pitt Artist Pen sketch of a madonna and child with a simplified Renaissance style halo on each -- and that didn't really bend me religiously because that's the same Goddess and Sun Child of my Yule celebrations too, plus I am Italian. I think I'm going to use my Pitt Artist Pens more for these article illustrations, because they scan well, like colored Conte crayons they demand a loose quick style and come out looking well. And the resulting art isn't necessarily a Deviation, though sometimes it can be. Thankfully the little disposables are waterproof colored India ink with reasonable lightfast, unlike many types of markers out there. So when I do something good in them, I can post it as a Deviation or sell it on eBay.
So that's number 20. I've got only three to go to make that first challenge -- and nine to go for the DemandStudios trial contract, which is not too bad to think of. Doing two extra Easy or Moderately Easy or simple-quick illustration articles isn't going to be that hard, especially when I've got things like Paganism, New Age Spirituality, Evolution, Dinosaurs, Medieval Art, Art History, Cats and Society for Creative Anachronism as potential topic areas besides Drawing to do contract articles on. I listed Painting too, but haven't posted any articles on painting. I guess I'll have to do one on Painting separately on spec, like a neat watercolor article, for them to see that yes, I can also write about painting topics. Art Supplies isn't on the contract list, so I won't do product review articles for them as such.
It's fun. And it's given me this crazy buoyant hope of getting my old life back, better than ever. The way I lived in New Orleans where if I wanted something at Blick, I just drew something extra or stayed on the street longer. eBay could be that. Two out of four of my pastel drawings sold on eBay back when I first tried selling on eBay. The other two sold word of mouth offline after the auction, which wasn't bad for the eBay fees. I wasn't taking pictures that were nearly as good either, because I had a QuickCam to photograph the art with. Not the scanner or my good Kodak from lilcrabbygal. So when I'm done with the articles, I'll post my auctions. Quite a few of the good artworks from my dA Gallery will be matted and auctioned. Post on the ones you'd like to see and I'll let you know if they'll be going up. Or comment here and mention them.
I'll count no-photo-reference, no-Deviation article projects toward the contract until I hear otherwise about the images. eHow itself does not claim copyright to my articles or images, and there's nothing in the contract about not writing more articles on eHow. The good art, Expert level, salable finished artwork articles are still a draw for Deviants and other online friends who want to try this at home and/or just get curious about how I did it with things like colored pencil realism. I could even do things like crop key details and use the crop image as the article image, like an article on "How to Draw a Dewdrop Realistically" with the dewdrop on the Blue Rose, cut so close you can't tell the flower's a rose. That's the one print I've sold already.
I drew and posted How to Draw Halos for Religious Art with a Pitt Artist Pen sketch of a madonna and child with a simplified Renaissance style halo on each -- and that didn't really bend me religiously because that's the same Goddess and Sun Child of my Yule celebrations too, plus I am Italian. I think I'm going to use my Pitt Artist Pens more for these article illustrations, because they scan well, like colored Conte crayons they demand a loose quick style and come out looking well. And the resulting art isn't necessarily a Deviation, though sometimes it can be. Thankfully the little disposables are waterproof colored India ink with reasonable lightfast, unlike many types of markers out there. So when I do something good in them, I can post it as a Deviation or sell it on eBay.
So that's number 20. I've got only three to go to make that first challenge -- and nine to go for the DemandStudios trial contract, which is not too bad to think of. Doing two extra Easy or Moderately Easy or simple-quick illustration articles isn't going to be that hard, especially when I've got things like Paganism, New Age Spirituality, Evolution, Dinosaurs, Medieval Art, Art History, Cats and Society for Creative Anachronism as potential topic areas besides Drawing to do contract articles on. I listed Painting too, but haven't posted any articles on painting. I guess I'll have to do one on Painting separately on spec, like a neat watercolor article, for them to see that yes, I can also write about painting topics. Art Supplies isn't on the contract list, so I won't do product review articles for them as such.
It's fun. And it's given me this crazy buoyant hope of getting my old life back, better than ever. The way I lived in New Orleans where if I wanted something at Blick, I just drew something extra or stayed on the street longer. eBay could be that. Two out of four of my pastel drawings sold on eBay back when I first tried selling on eBay. The other two sold word of mouth offline after the auction, which wasn't bad for the eBay fees. I wasn't taking pictures that were nearly as good either, because I had a QuickCam to photograph the art with. Not the scanner or my good Kodak from lilcrabbygal. So when I'm done with the articles, I'll post my auctions. Quite a few of the good artworks from my dA Gallery will be matted and auctioned. Post on the ones you'd like to see and I'll let you know if they'll be going up. Or comment here and mention them.