Bren

Frequently asked questions

I get a lot of questions through the website and in real life too at life drawing sessions. I'm more than happy to talk about my art practice and answer any questions anyone may have, so please feel free to contact me for a chat. Otherwise below is a list of questions I get asked a lot.

Do you work professionally as an artist?

Not currently. That's definitely an aspiration, if I can make it work. Otherwise I'm doing relatively well designing and developing websites and digital journeys for a variety of businesses, which can be challenging but also rewarding. A lot of my friends are professional artists, illustrators, and animators. They all work extremely hard and I know it isn't easy. At the moment I'm just content to draw and create, and if other people like what I do then that's a bonus.

Wait, you're a developer and a designer? And an artist?!?

Yes! This tends to confuse a lot of people who seem to think that technical people can't be creative, but coding and technical design are just forms of creative thinking and problem solving. Likewise designing and drawing require a level of technical skill and technical thinking. A lot of technical people I've met are highly creative people, they just get pushed out of creative conversations because they're seen as "technical" yes no people. For a lot of my peers that's really not the case! Likewise a lot of accomplished artists I've met have a high degree of technical skill and will use problem solving skills when approaching a drawing or painting.

There's not a whole lot of different between the two disciplines in my opinion. Becoming proficient is just a case of practice and where you focus your time. As someone who spends a lot of my working life in front of a screen solving business problems creating art on paper is a good way for me to get away from a screen and find balance and peace.

Is your work available for sale?

Yes some of it is. I'm also open to commissions. Rates will vary depending on what you want. If you see a piece you like please contact me and we can arrange something.

How long have you been drawing for?

Since I was a child, so pretty much for as long as I can remember. All children draw, I guess I just didn't stop. I've always been doodling in some form or another. When I hit my thirties I decided to take my art a bit more seriously again.

Where did you train as an artist? Which school did you go to?

I studied art and design in college, and did pretty well, but overall my experience in education wasn't always positive. For the most part I'm self-taught, most of my learning has been via Proko on YouTube, as well as a bunch of other resources. I put the Solo Art Curriculumn together so I could have an easy to navigate learning resource available to me whereever I was (I didn't expect other people to find it as well). I also learn a lot from my peers in the art community, and seeing what other people do in life drawing sessions. Honestly no matter what level of skill someone may think they have I get a lot of inspiration from seeing the work of others. An artist is only as good as the other artists around them, and I'm lucky and grateful for having a great community of artist friends.

I think getting good at art really requires a LOT of time and a LOT of practice. I draw pretty much every day, and have done for several years now. I think this is true for whatever you do, inside or outside of formal education. Feedback from peers is also really really important, when I stopped drawing in isolation my skills really started to develop very quickly.

Radio Runner put together the Solo Art Curriculum. Why did you steal it?

Um, I didn't. Or at least I didn't intend to. During the pandemic I was looking for learning resources so I could use my time constructively and pursue my passion. I was also unemployed at the time, which just added to the scare and anxiety during that time and I needed something creative to help keep me sane. I found Radio Runners Solo Art Curriculum and was highly impressed at how well curated it was, as well how well presented it was. It was a very large flat image though which I found difficult to navigate on my phone. I turned it into a webpage so I had something I could navigate and interact with more easily. Also since I was looking for work at the time I wanted to show prospective employers my skills, and that I was using my time constructively and keeping my skills sharp. Radio Runners design was so nice I thought it would be nice to challenge myself by turning it into a webpage. Long story short I did a some art learning and landed a decent job.

It wasn't long before I noticed my site was getting a lot of traffic, which I thought was a bit unusual. Turns out a lot of people were looking for a useful way to learn art during the pandemic, and still are.

I did get over excited and made a mis-judged decision to add some affiliate links to the page. I got called out and removed them. I do regret that, but I took the learning and fixed it. Since then I've kept the page up and available, as I think it's a nice way of sharing this invaluable resource and contributing to the community. I'm also a strong believer in free use and sharing information openly, in a way that's respectful.

Some of the links on the Solo Art Curriculum are out of date. When will you update them?

I'm really sorry about that. Unfortunately working full time while also purusing my own art studies AND making my own self-published comics is a lot of work, and I simply don't have the time and resources to maintain it. Given how popular the resource is and how much more experience I have I may see if I can curate my own curriculum and iterate on the current page to make something more useful and user friendly. At the same time though I want to do this in a way that's easy to maintain and respectful to the community. It needs a bit of thought to do right, and some time to plan. For now I keep it up as I'm hoping it remains an inspiration and a nudge in the right direction.

To give an insight into my thoughts on this, since the page gets such a large amount of traffic I've considered advertising my own comics work on it. However I really don't want to interrupt people's learning with self-promotion (although youtubers do this a lot, it can be annoying and intrusive...), and I don't want to disrespect Radio Runners work. I've also noticed a LOT of art courses popping up on the internet of varying quality, and before I found Proko I wasted money on a bad course myself. It's important to me that the resource remains useful and respectful to the community, and leads people in the right direction that will benefit them. So having built something casually I thought would be useful for me I now feel a bit of a burden of responsibility, but that's ok. I get a little bit of traffic to my personal site from this page, and that's enough for me right now.