In my real life I work with a lot of artists and creative-types...Yes, there are interesting and artistic people in Missouri. Now, Kansas, that is another story.. Anyway, I think it's interesting to learn how each one approaches his or her work. While the details may be different, I think there is always something to be applied to my own creative work or personal development.
I'm introducing a new "series" or "segment" here on Sarah Drags Tim...Each week (hopefully) I'll interview an artist or creative professional living and working in the Midwest. If you are interested in being featured, feel free to email me or tell me about your work in the comment section (No Jokers)...
We'll start this experiment with my good friend and the designer of this blog...William Marchant. You may also recognize his work from this recent post. He's a great illustrator and graphic designer and he and his fiance are truly some of my favorite peeps. Billy, as I know him, has built a profitable one-man graphic design business in a short amount of time. Because of it's length and my crazy schedule this week, our interview will come in two parts... Ok, here we go, Part 1.
Sarah: Did you always know you wanted to do something creative for your career?
William Marchant: I pretty much always knew that I wanted to stay in a creative field. Ever since I was a little kid I was making things, drawing, and tinkering around on the computer. So when I got older, it was a natural progression to move into graphic design and illustration.
In college I went for my Psychology degree in order to keep my options open. But I also thought that gaining more understanding of human perception and how people react to things would help my art.
While working on that degree, I got a part-time job as a graphic designer for a communications company, which sort of directed me into my current career path. I not only enjoyed creating graphics and websites, but I was good at it and got better with every new project I did. Working there was a great learning experience. I not only developed my skills in graphic and web design, but learned what it took to run a small business...which would come to be very useful when I later ventured out on my own.
S: In my work, I've noticed a lot of people don't think that being an artist is a real job, have you ever met anyone like that? If so, does it affect you and how do you react.
WM: Oh yea, I run across that all the time. Even after five-plus years of doing this, I think that some family members and friends perceive me just sitting around all day on the couch watching TV; which is definitely not the case. There's an attitude that an "occupation" has a black and white definition: "You go somewhere for eight hours and get a paycheck bimonthly; if you don't have those two things, you are unemployed." I don't blame people for holding that opinion, although it gets on my nerves sometimes.
The other thing is that most people don't realize that art is everywhere. For instance, a simple lunch probably contains several artists' work. Someone probably spent weeks designing the soda can you hold, another designer created the packaging for your bag of chips, and another designed the logo on your napkin. People don't think about these things...not that they should, that's the nature of our business. But what they might also not know is that the label on that soda can was done by someone exactly like me, at a home studio in front of a computer screen. Now if that artist didn't have a "real job" as you claim, you probably wouldn't have bought that soda if it just had a simple white label with "Soda" written in black Times New Roman font.
The same goes for fine artists. Office buildings, for example, would be a lot less attractive places if it were not for the five oil paintings hanging in their lobbies. As you might be able to conclude, I wish that people were able to recognize these facts more often.
My reaction to people who hint that I don't have a "real job," is just to talk about what I do. Once I start talking about recent projects, they are shocked at my actual workload. It's funny because you can see their attitude change as they start asking more questions. Then I get the silent, understanding nod saying, "Hmm, I guess you really are making this work."
S: It seems like a bulk of your work is through "Looks Great" your graphic design business, and is very commercial. But you also are an artist and are working on other creative projects. Is that a hard thing to balance? How do you stay motivated?
WM: Most of the work I am getting right now is in the graphic design category. A lot of logos, websites, business cards, t-shirts, graphical mock-ups or renderings for marketing campaigns (which I unfortunately cannot display on my website due to legal issues with the brand names they are for). This is all stuff that pays the bills.
What really gets me going is illustration. I concentrate on illustration opposed to "fine artwork" because I aim to reach a broader audience than just gallery-goers. I truly appreciate the art scene and contribute works to galleries at least a few times a year. But I would greatly prefer to have my work distributed in forms such as magazines, which are viewed by a mainstream audience. I went through a change of focus a few years ago when I realized that I have something to say with my pictures, and I want to say it to everyone; not just art collectors. I don't mean that as a negative attitude towards art collectors, I just feel that within the art world, it is more important to make art simply for the sake of making art...the goal being to out do artists of the past. In the illustration world, the goal is to get across a message. That's what I love, telling a story with a picture in an interesting way. In fine art, there is a message as well, but it seems to always be extremely discrete. I have always thought that if you have something to say, just say it.
Balancing illustration, design, and also my comics is really not a problem for me. It all kind of flows together. I think I've gotten very good at jumping from one thing to another and back very quickly. You just have to learn how to change gears. It is kind of irritating when you are sketching something and then have to jump onto Photoshop and crank out a graphic of some sort. But I just take a deep breath and do it. Then, I go back to the sketch when I'm done.
Motivation comes in different forms. I don't like to lend myself to criticism, so in most projects, my motivation is to impress the client. That's the name and the promise of my website, Looks Great, "my work isn't done until you can say 'looks great!'" It's a little corny, but I do mean that. I get jobs mostly from referrals, so I can't allow a project to be sub-par for fear that it wouldn't lead to another project.
Other motivation, for projects that I do on the side which I won't necessarily get paid for, comes in waves. I get really inspired sometimes and draw up a storm. I get this itch to get ideas out of my head and onto a page (or computer screen). Other times, I get into "slumps" where I feel like drawing something, but don't have any fresh ideas. During those times I tend to move over to the graphic design and website side of things...there's always something to do.
WM: Simple answer: By playing and making mistakes. I am largely self-taught, so I really just figure out styles that I like and then try to make them better. My elementary school art teacher Mrs. Pigeone always said that there were no mistakes in art. I've never forgotten that.
I've been drawing cartoon characters like the ones in CftC since I was a kid. I couldn't say where that style comes from...I guess its an amalgam of different comic strips, comic books, and cartoons that I liked growing up. My style/technique has just developed into what it is because of drawing all the time during school...I used to do some of my best work in the boring classes!
For the scratchboard stuff you see on RockScratch, that started as an exercise in my Illustration course at Mizzou. Our instructor challenged us to try scratchboard because it wasn't that well known of a medium. I didn't have the patience to use it as intended, with fine strokes and cross-hatching...so I started using it my own way. And people liked it so I kept doing it! My goal with that medium became simplicity; getting across the figures, objects, and scenes as simple as possible. I try to explore what makes an object come across as that object. To clarify that a bit, you can draw an apple with a thousand pencil marks...or just three simple marks in the right places. That's what I've always tried to do when working with the scratchboard knife.
Thanks Billy! We'll have more coming up next week.. stay tuned! PS: you can buy the Rock Scratch Posters here.