Monday Coffee: Smart Dummies Planner On Sale Now!

I was just about to fall asleep and I realized that I hadn't made a post for tomorrow! This is important because the Smart Dummies planners are up for Pre-Sale now on ETSY!

https://www.etsy.com/ca/DaniDuckArt/listing/614548248/smart-dummies-planner-pre-order?utm_source=Copy&utm_medium=ListingManager&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lmsm&share_time=1531723136295

Sample Planner Cover

Why order a planner when you can download the free .PDF? It would help out Smart Dummies a lot! This will help me get the money to continue doing the Smart Dummies logo contest with a every year and add new contests and help every year.

The Smart Dummies planner is printed with a full color cover. The book will be spiral bound so the pages open flat. Inside I will write a personalized note and likely draw a silly picture! Also you don't have to worry about printing.

This book includes a timeline for both the pre-event in August (for those who want to get a head start) and for those just working in September. There are several pages of workbook material and a planner that runs July 29th - September 30th!

Ordering:
IF you plan to do the Pre-Event in August please order the planner ASAP! They might take as long as 2 weeks to get to you.

If you are planning to do just the September event please order the planner by August 15th.

If you order late you can always download the planner free and print any of the pages you need early.

Order here: https://www.etsy.com/ca/DaniDuckArt/listing/614548248/smart-dummies-planner-pre-order?utm_source=Copy&utm_medium=ListingManager&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lmsm&share_time=1531724343942

Please contact me if you live outside of the US/Canada and want a printed planner!

Sample Planner Page

A portion of all sales goes to Rob Peters whose lovely illustration is the logo for this year's Smart Dummies Event. http://www.rob-peters.com/

You may qualify for a free planner! If you've donated around $20 in the past please see if you qualify for a free planner!


Want another way to help out Smart Dummies? You can always choose to be a patron: https://www.patreon.com/join/SmartDummies or send me a coffee with KoFi: https://ko-fi.com/A484NS9

Join me with your own Monday Coffee post! Monday Coffee is a joint effort between Dani Duck and Christy Illustrates!

Monday Coffee: Are You Ready For Smart Dummies?

Well are you? Personally, every year takes me by surprise! So it's been decided to do things differently this year.

What's new?

Well since the event takes everyone by surprise I've decided to run it in August! SURPRISE! 😂😂😂 Actually the main Smart Dummies event will be in September. However, there will be a month-long pre-event starting August 1st! This pre-event will help prepare you for creating a dummy in September. There will be a sign up for the pre-event so I know who is attending this event.

The pre-event will not have prizes, but it will help guide you through the planning process of a Dummy right up until the Thumbnails. For this Smart Dummies event a free downloadable .pdf guide will be available for you to print out and plan out your dummy.

What about the actual event?

I think the Smart Dummies' guide will go a long way in keeping people on track. The amount of guests will be cut down this year. I believe several people have told me that it's a lot of work reading the posts and keeping up with making a dummy. We are going to go with 12-15 carefully selected guests. This will cut the reading in half (at least) but still have a lot of great information.

There will be a post every Sunday explaining what you need to do for the rest of the week. If people are up for it I'd love to have a day where we share our work. One week maybe there would be a call for facial expressions, doodles of the week, character designs or even old work. Final dummy drafts and pictures will not be posted on the blog.

There may be more changes to come! I will let you know when and where they will happen.

Join me with your own Monday Coffee post! Monday Coffee is a joint effort between Dani Duck and Christy Illustrates!

Monday Coffee -- A Reminder Post!

Logo Contest Prize bumped to $50 thanks to Heidi Yates!

I'm still accepting Logo Contest entries through Friday. Unfortunately I can't extend this any longer because I need to get going with the Smart Dummies preparations for this year. You can see all the details for entry here: https://daniduckart.blogspot.com/p/logo-contest.html

The Website Portfolio Critique giveaway has been extended! You can enter until Wednesday. I'll announce the winner on Friday.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Join me with your own Monday Coffee post! Monday Coffee is a joint effort between Dani Duck and Christy Illustrates!

Monday Coffee

There is still time to enter the Smart Dummies Logo Contest! Since I haven't gotten a lot of entries to the contest yet I'm going to extend the deadline until Saturday, July 7th.

We need something quick because I'll be finishing up the Smart Dummies' workbook soon here and I'll need a logo for that. You can let me know that you are entering so I can keep an eye out for your email!


https://daniduckart.blogspot.com/p/logo-contest.html

If you need something that's a bit easier to enter, then be sure to enter my giveaway for a free website portfolio critique. This review will include a full review your portfolio images on your site (with the option of showing me anything you are thinking about adding). I'll tell you what's working and what's not working in your portfolio and what you can do to improve it in the future. This will include a critique on your entire website as a whole including layout, content and other mechanics.

If you are a writer you will get a critique on your blog instead of a portfolio critique, and I'll include lots of blog posts ideas and ways to get your blog seen. If you don't have a blog I will help you get started!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Join me with your own Monday Coffee post! 

Monday Coffee is a joint effort between Dani Duck and Christy Illustrates!

Monday Coffee - I Knew There Was Something I Forgot

I completely forgot about Monday Coffee today! Nothing in particular happened last night, but there was craziness. I was on my phone looking through social media and then realize OMG I FORGOT TO POST! I'm not sure if the last link-up was set correctly (dates were wrong when I logged on), so I've made sure that people can add their links this time!

Anyway just wanted to know your feelings on something. I've had a lot of people ask me for advice lately. Eventually I'm going to start charging for this advice, but why charge when I can give it out for free?

If I started doing portfolio website critiques would you be interested? I've done several so far, but would love to do more. Every other week I'd be giving them away. If you don't have a website/portfolio I can give you suggestions on how to start one. If you are a writer I can give you feedback on your website as well (let's not leave anyone out here).

I have had over 18 years of experience as an artist. I have a BFA in Fine Arts and an Associates in Graphic Communications. I have experience in both digital and traditional media.

Edit: Don't forget about the logo contest: https://daniduckart.blogspot.com/2018/06/design-logo-for-smart-dummies.html

Join me with your own Monday Coffee post! Monday Coffee is a joint effort between Dani Duck and Christy Illustrates!

Monday Coffee -- Why Haven't You Killed Your Darlings Yet?

Picture 1: Spinach and lettuce all jumbled together.

You've probably heard it over a hundred times: Kill your darlings. It's practically beat over every new writer's head. You have to kill your darlings for your story to survive. I'm not going to tell you anything new today, but I'm going to tell you why these darlings must be killed.

I learned an important writing lesson from my garden. There are several things you grow that grow best with lots of similar plants around it. Kale, spinach, lettuce and carrots (to name a few) are all great when grown with other plants around them!

Picture 2: Thinning out these plants from
Picture 1 will allow them to thrive!

After a few weeks it becomes an apocalyptic situation. Spinach starts attacking spinach. Brother attacks brother. Okay, no, what happens is they run low on resources so they continue sharing them. Having to share these resources the plants stay small.

A couple years ago, when I first started growing my plants from seed, I found out that I need to thin them out so they can grow. I grew them from seed. I gave them life. AND NOW I'M BEING TOLD TO KILL MY LITTLE DARLINGS? I was crushed. Yes I know they are plants, but it takes a long time to grow these things. SO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT!

Picture 3: The middle two plants (under the big plant from
Picture 4) never got big because they stayed too close
together and too close to that big plant!

Much to my dismay, I killed my darlings. Of course I tried to save as many of my darlings as humanly possible. I put them in little pots hoping to find a place for them in the garden. I have a fairly large garden (you are just seeing pictures from my small garden here) but the space is still finite! I was able to give some away to a friend, but it still wasn't enough. In the end I had to let my precious little darlings die.

It isn't a sad story. In the end I had the best kale and lettuce crop I've ever had! All summer long I was able to go to the garden to get a range of salad greens and I didn't have to worry about having to buy any of these things all summer. We actually weren't able to eat it all, so I've changed what I put in the garden this year.

Picture 4: This plant has grown this size because it
 grew strong with other seedlings around it and then it's
mates were killed violently so it could grow.
(Same plant as Picture 3.)

Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that you also have to kill your writing darlings. Maybe your darling is a beautifully descriptive paragraph, or maybe it's a character that you love. Once you've established that these darlings are of no use to your story then get rid of them! You may give them to another story, or find another place for them in your current story (or series). I'll say it again: IF YOUR DARLINGS AREN'T HELPING YOUR STORY THEN KILL THEM FROM THE STORY.

Though, never kill them from your mind. Put them in their own special file and maybe one day they'll grow into their own little garden. Or maybe they'll die in that file. Either way your story will be allowed to flourish!

Monday Coffee -- Help Smart Dummies Succeed!

I need your help! It's not just for me, but also for the winner of the logo contest. Right now I only have $35 to give to the winner of the Smart Dummies Logo Contest: https://daniduckart.blogspot.com/p/logo-contest.html but that's not enough! I'd like to be able to give them $50 or more. You can donate at: https://www.patreon.com/SmartDummies You can also donate a prize. Please send me a note via my contact form to donate a prize!

Your donations will help to fund this logo contest and the Smart Dummies Planner that's coming up soon! The planner will be offered for FREE as a download. I will not be able to afford to keep offering fun things if I don't get more Patrons! Please show the love so we can have a lot more great events and offers.

Monday Coffee -- This Page Unintentionally Left Blank

Monday Coffee was unintentionally delayed today. I have an injury that caused me a lot of pain this weekend. I was not able to get any artwork or posts scheduled this weekend. I will be doing "What Progress?" Wednesday, but I'm not sure about the interview for this week. Hopefully next weekend will be better!

Monday Coffee - May 21

Weird week this week, sorry everyone! I forgot today is Monday because it's a long weekend here. Victoria day messed me up!

So I've been working on a lot of things lately and one of those is working in Clip Studio Paint. The problem is I like making my own colors, so I took a red, blue, yellow and brown I liked and got to mixing! I didn't quite end up mixing all the colors I'd needed but I got a good pallet started. It's one I can use in other paintings, so I'm happy. I got most of the colors of my painting changed and I hope I can continue working on my painting soon! 

What are you working on now?

Monday Coffee is a joint effort between Dani Duck and Christy Illustrates! 

What Progress?

Crazy days have been happening lately my friend. I'm thinking most of these are because it's so close to summer! My children are feeling it and are determined to drive me crazy. They might do it too if I weren't already there!

What I'm Creating

I finished my post sticker for Monday Coffee this past Monday. You can join me for the linkup. I have Christy helping me with this project so it should be twice as fun. There are a few kinks to work out, but I'm sure we'll smooth them out over the coming weeks! I will be making one soon for What Progress, so you can join me for this too (or just choose one)!

I am still working on my draft for my dummy. I got distracted with using Clip Studio Paint lately. I finally found a paint tool that I feel comfortable using! So now my brain wants to work on all the digital work while also trying to get to work on a dummy and sent out work to publishers. FOCUS BRAIN, FOCUS! Slow down, work on one thing at a time. If you work on too much at once nothing will get done. Okay, I think I'm good now.


Schedule

Ongoing - Find more people to interview.
May 19th - Have reasonably good pencil drafts for my dummy.
May 30th - Have at least one of my dummies finalized.

Interview Schedule:

April 27th Jardan J. Scavone - Done!
May 4th Benson Shum - Done!
May 11th Katherine Locke - Done!
May 18th Ashley Howland
May 25th Nick Patton

I will add more people to this list soon!

Join Me for Monday Coffee!

Here is your chance to join me every Monday for Monday Coffee! Every Monday I'll be posting my regular Monday Coffee posts with one little difference: A link-up so you can share your own Monday Coffee post! You will have a couple days to add your name, but do it right away so everyone can see your link!

What is Monday Coffee? Monday coffee is literally anything you want it to be. You could post tips for artist, what you did for the weekend, how you are feeling or anything you want! There are no wrong answers here. 

The Monday Coffee badge is below, and under that is a little button for you to put in your own link to your blog! This may take a few weeks to get going, but I'm hoping this becomes a fun thing to help creative people connect! Be sure to include the badge below (linked back to my blog) in your post.

I will be creating a badge for "What Progress?" soon as well. Might as well get this one started!  

Monday Coffee

It's a late Monday Coffee today. I've been busy for most of the weekend. I delayed this post a little because I want to post some pictures.

All the grass and weeds removed.

Toddler is sick so I was a bit queasy this weekend and also exhausted because he messed our sheets at 4:30am Saturday morning (too much cleaning needed for that time of day). It was one of those things were I was better off getting up and doing things rather than sitting and working on my art! So I did a bit of gardening.

Have to get some of this clover out of the rosemary/spice pot

I've shown my window gardens already. They are getting quite big now and most (if not all) need to be transfered. For one thing I've got some naughty things going on in my window garden. The spinach has somehow spread to the lettuce, and there are CARROTS in the same container. WARNING: You may not want your child to see such smut. I'm ashamed that it happened in my own kitchen! Here is the shameful scene in picture form:

I know, it's almost too racy to show!

It's dirt overturned!

I know, I know, I need to do some more art right now. I'm taking a bit of a pause so I can get this garden up and going. I have until May long weekend to get everything planted and I want to get as much in the ground as possible! The plants in storage are falling over because they so want to be outside.


Anyone else working on a garden this week?

My other garden.

Monday Coffee

One of my weekend (unfinished) projects!

I did a lot of spring cleaning over the weekend. Well some of this was regular cleaning, but technically it's done in the spring so it's spring cleaning. My house is looking pretty decent right now, but I haven't been able to do much in the way of art or writing. Also, I'm afraid tomorrow morning (I'm writing this on Sunday) I might be in a world of pain. I overdid it a bit on the cleaning and I may have more neck and back pain than I bargained for. I have proved once again that I can't do it all!

I'm hearing a lot lately: "Well if I (or this person) can do it, then so can you!" This is meant as a positive message to hear, but to me it can feel negative as well. People who are older, have more kids, work a day job, have a disability, ect. are doing it, but I'm not. It makes me wonder, "What's wrong with me? Why are these people making it and I'm not?" The truth is there are a lot of reason why other people have made it big (or big-ish) and I haven't.

The problem is this is not an apples to apples comparison. It doesn't factor in so many things. Maybe these people have a more supportive family, a steady source of income, better health, more creative time, a better education, fewer hurdles that helped them succeed. Life is different for everyone Even siblings don't have the same experiences, so why would you have the exact same experiences/success story as someone else? I personally have a lot of hurdles to get over and just getting time to work on things is extremely difficult.

I probably took the long route to get to my point. You might not find the same route to success as someone else. You might have to work harder. You might have to fight for every second you have to work on things. When you can't work because of hardships, that's okay too. There is no place you are supposed to be right now. You might not be where you want to be, but it doesn't make you a failure. You do your best and I'm going to root for you! Surround yourself with positive people and and have hope you'll succeed. No pressure, though, at least not from me. If I can not put extreme pressure on you to succeed, then you can also not pressure me too. Right? 😁 

Monday Coffee

I spent the whole day yesterday cleaning and rearranging my art studio. It's not finished yet (but I survived the webs and spiders that were hidden under canvases so far. I might actually be able to post pictures when I'm finished!

I'm posting today because I NEED YOUR HELP! I'm going to do an interview series on my blog and I need you to help me keep this going. I have 6 people who have agreed to do interviews, but that won't last long.

INTERVIEWS

Interview posts run on Fridays. 

- These interviews are for kidlit people only.  Board Books - YA. Graphic novels for a younger audience is okay. 

- Anyone being interviewed must have web presence. Something beyond a basic web page and may include non-private social media pages.  

- People with professional experience will be given priority. Teachers, Graphic Designers, Fine Artists, Librarians and even Parents could have an insight others might not. Having a book/art to sell helps!

- Unless a specific date is needed posts will run in the order I receive the completed interview.

- If you know someone who should be interviewed please have them contact me. I may not contact them otherwise as I have a lot of people I could ask to interview!

Send me a message if you are interested! You can email me directly with daniduckart@gmail.com. If you don't hear back from me in a week feel free to message me on any social media. 

Here are some old interviews for you to check out: https://daniduckart.blogspot.ca/search/label/Interview

Monday Coffee -- Art vs. Plants

Admit it: You wouldn't know these were plants
if they weren't so clearly marked.

I've been busy lately getting my garden in order. This is the first year that I've attempted to do some indoor growing before the growing season gets underway. Right now it's raining so I'm not going to be doing anything outside. Since it's so rainy the pictures are a bit dull. I added in some drawings to make them a bit more lively.

I made these little planters out of old egg cartons. I cut off the lids and put them on the bottom of the cartons. I probably didn't have to put the foil around the bottoms (but this isn't my place and I'm afraid of big messes especially on the wooden storage shelves). I'll see how things go this year and maybe I'll skip that step next year. The nice thing about these is the egg cartons soak up some of the water so it's hard to accidently overwater and the dirt stays moist longer. I used potting soil and old pots for the bigger plants. In the past I've bought plants for my garden. planting my own seeds made a lot of difference!

Soaking up the sun in my kitchen.

In the next couple of weeks I'll be getting some new dirt in my garden. This will be my fourth year having a garden, yay! Last year was the first year that I had a decent garden. I started with seeds which made a difference. Also I think the soil was bad in the garden and it took a few years of adding soil to it to make it a strong garden. I did my research last year as well. Instead of just throwing the plants in the soil I actually looked something up. It wasn't that I knew nothing, but instead of just listening to advice from others I worked at learning things for myself.

Hoping somehow the sunflowers will survive this year.
We seem to have some animal life that like to kill sunflowers!

I was going to have a lovely story relating plants to art, but  I feel like I've already said so much in this post. Maybe next Monday. My plants should be a bit bigger then too.

Honestly, until I started with an outside garden I had trouble keeping my indoor plants alive. Last year it was even easier and I think it's because I started from seed. I was able to see wonderful results in my garden because of this.

Do you have a garden this year? If so what did you plant?

An example of how my garden looked last year. Last year
the bowling pins didn't grow quite so well. 

Monday Coffee

It's been a crazy weekend. We celebrated Easter on Saturday because my husband had that day off. That gave us plenty of room for April Fools on Sunday. I didn't plan a prank, but told David we'll pack away a few of his toys. He turned into "all of his toys" and started crying. 😒 He had two pranks for me. One was that he was going to do all of my chores. The second was that he was going to clean up all his stuff. We did neither. 😂 All in all it was a good weekend!

How did you spend your weekend? Did you celebrate Easter? Any fun April Fools jokes?

Monday Coffee

Sometimes I take on more than I can handle. I always take on more than I'll likely get done. I'll have a lofty goal and though I think I'll not make it I'll be able to pull through like I did for the #kidlitart28 and the #30paintingsin30days combo. 

The problem is finding the difference between a lofty goal, and a terrible side project that can derail everything. One such project is being part of a group reading "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. I bring this up because I have it sitting on top of my computer untouched since I borrowed it from the library. Don't get me wrong: "The Artist's Way" is a great book. I just couldn't keep up with any part of the group. I couldn't read the chapters, do any of the projects or participate in discussion. At the time I was working on some illustrations that I was trying to finish. 

What made this a terrible side project for me? Well right now my focus is on developing my illustration portfolio. I could make time to read, do projects and participate in discussion, but it would be about all I could do this month. So I reluctantly decided to sit out this group. I made a lot of progress on my portfolio and I'm happy with that. This wouldn't have happened if I stayed with the reading group. Would I have learned a lot from the group? Absolutely, but it would have been terrible for my illustration portfolio. I will have to re-read the book later when I can focus on the book. Sorry Julia Cameron. I'll have to catch up with you later!

Monday Coffee

I obviously haven't had enough coffee this week because I almost forgot to post this post. I had this all typed up last night and forgot to hit "Publish". 😅 Pretty sad because it's only the second week! I'm going to think of a picture to put with these and add that later..

Not as much to talk about this week as last. As many of you know I'm on Instagram. What you may not know is I'm doing some giveaways there. You know those images I did for Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 (#30paintingsin30days) and #kidlitart twitter chat's #kidlitart28?  You don't remember? Haven't you been following my blog? 😂 Anyway, I'm giving them away on Instagram! You can join the fun here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BgedSRSFFOn/?taken-by=smart_dummies_challenge

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bgg9EYsl_o5/?taken-by=dani_duck_art

Don't live in the USA? That's okay. I'm not limiting shipping anywhere (yet) so feel free to enter.

Monday Coffee

I need to keep posting on my blog, so weekly I'm going to do a series called, "Monday Coffee". I'm hoping to post this early enough every week so that you can read it with your morning coffee or tea. I've had a lot of exhausting weeks, so this could be a lot of incoherent ramblings. You're probably tired too, so likely you'll understand me either way. 😂

This morning I'm listening to Will Terry talk about, "When to Say No to Illustration Work" on YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWBaRkjNCM0&t=238s The funny thing is it's made me feel a bit better about some of the jobs I have taken. I had a book I did for a self publisher called "The Magic Mask". The job itself didn't pay a lot, but it wasn't hard and I am currently using the images in my portfolio. There are times I have turned down work, and I luckily made the right decision. It's hard to know the line, but I think Will Terry's video covers most of it!

I know a lot of people who are using Photoshop to illustrate. If you are a digital illustrator you probably know that Photoshop is the program to use. The big problem is that paying for Photoshop on a monthly basis is expensive. I can't tell you that there is something better out there, but here are some alternatives:

1. Older Versions of Photoshop: I believe you can still buy an older version of Photoshop outright. Many of these older versions will work on a newer computer. If you go too old the disk won't read right in your disk reader. I have a version of Photoshop 4.0 that I haven't been able to use for years, so maybe don't go that old!

2. Procreate on the iPad Pro with an Apple Pen. If you are thinking about getting an iPad you may consider the iPad pro. It is expensive but some professional illustrators are switching to the iPad, because it's like a Cintiq but is more versatile. Photoshop and a Cintiq together are better quality, but this may be a good alternative for you. I have not had the pleasure of using this yet, but I hear great things.

3. Clip Studio Paint (Formally Manga Studio): I have not used Clip Studio Paint for coloring. I had Manga Studio 4EX and was not happy with the coloring portion. I do love the ink pen, though. You can create straight lines, or a more brush like line. The great thing about this is you can use the pen like vectors and adjust each line individually if needed (but you don't have to use the vectors at all). There are good sales for this. This is not being updated as they have sold the company, but maybe the company that bought them out will make newer versions.

4. Corel Painter: This program is fairly expensive, though you can find older versions of the software. This can be used to make beautiful paint like illustrations. The bad thing is the software crashes a lot. I currently have 11. I have downloaded newer versions and they all seem to suffer from the same instability problems. When it does work it's a lot of fun!

5. Krita: I love the idea of this program, but I can not get it to work on my computer anymore. It does have decent brushes and a good layout. This is a free program so it wouldn't hurt to try it out.

6. Gimp: I feel like this is sort of the last ditch resort. Gimp is absolutely free, but it's pretty clunky. I do use it for minor image editing especially after scanning.

Other programs: Here are some other programs I haven't had the chance to try out or heard much about:

Inkscape: (alternative to Illustrator -- Vector software.)
Affinity Photo
Corel Paintshop
Pixelmator (Mac)
Sketch (Mac)

There are also some free online software. I don't like the idea of this, because the software can disappear. Also there is a huge lack of privacy when you do this.

Which programs do you use for your illustrations? Do you know of any great programs I haven't mentioned here?