Iceland-born Siggi Eggertsson’s works are amazing. His illustrations reminds me of pixel art, but he makes them wholly his own through deft manipulation of colors, shapes and textures. A grown-up, slicked-up version of pixels, if you must. He’s currently based in Berlin, and you can read more about him over here.
We’ve made a few changes here lately, and one of them is the Pikaland Artist Bootcamp. Cat-loving artist Jamie Shelman and I have been running the online class since 2010, offering feedback and thoughts as we follow along with our students as they complete weekly assignments that were designed to help them think beyond paper (and canvases!)
We’ve enjoyed the experience tremendously, as did our students. We gave in-depth feedback to each and every one of our students, and watching each of them break out of their shell was the height of the whole experience for us. However, this year we’ve decided to take a break from the bootcamp, as I have my hands full – with current projects and exciting new ones to be launched this year. It was tough to decide, but ultimately we want nothing but the best for our students and so we decided to make some changes.
Bootcamp #1: Making Your Mark will be the last one that we will be doing for the year (and for now). Seats are limited and our last class begins 30th April. This 6-week class is great for artists and illustrators who want to explore their style further and bring refinement, focus, or new ideas to your work. The course is also excellent for those who don’t know how to begin, and need fresh eyes to help guide their art-making – enrollment is open and you can register here.
Bootcamp #2: Bringing Your Work to Market is now re-designed as a self-study class [with a reduced pricetag along with it!]. It’s structured for those just developing their online presence and those who want to make their existing persona better through self-paced lessons that cover topics from branding to photography. The classroom is available all year round, and you can enroll here.
So, if you’ve ever wanted to work with two very opinionated folks with lots of ideas to share on how to bring your art to a whole new level, then this would be your last chance to enroll for Making Your Mark – I’d love to see you there!
Some of you might know that my laptop has gone AWOL for almost two months. I’ve been sending it off to the workshop for repairs three different times, only to bring it back with the same recurring and very annoying problem of having it hang on me while doing the most urgent of tasks.
But there is a silver lining behind all this; and for me it’s about making sure that I remain as nimble and flexible as I can when it comes to work.
I’ve compiled a few tips for those who might be facing this sort of situation that will stand you in good stead (though I’d never wish for it to happen to anyone!). These are just a few things that managed to keep me sane and organized, and I have to say that having this workflow has allowed me to regain some semblance of sanity while my workflow and schedule was shred to bits.
Have your most important files within easy reach
I use Dropbox’s free service for putting my most recent files up in the cloud. Anything that I’m working on gets filed up there so I can retrieve it on my phone, laptop or anywhere else that has an internet connection. I’ve tried other services too, like SugarSync, but I’ve always gone back to DropBox (just test out the both of them and see which one you like better!)
Use a web-based email service
I’m using Gmail as a catch-all email since I am no longer have confidence of accessing my email via the Mail software on my laptop. I’ve gone through three re-formats and a hardware change and having these things happen to you throws a wrench in your workflow. So I make sure all my correspondences are now easily accessible, no matter where I am. I’m planning to implement Google Apps pretty soon once I iron out some kinks.
Google Documents
Ever since the scary laptop incident, I’ve moved a lot of my working office documents over to Google Documents – spreadsheets, articles, documents – I now edit them all at one spot, so I won’t have to worry about having different versions of files around (crucial and often overlooked when moving files about). Once a document is finalized, I download it so that it can be archived.
Back up your data
I back up religiously after I had my hard disk fail on me a few years back. Back then, the last backup I made was 6 months ago – before the hard drive decided to take a nap and never wake up – and I found myself high and dry (and very upset at allowing it to go as long as it did!) So now I use Time Machine, a software built into Mac that made incremental back-ups so that I had different versions of my files for safekeeping.
These are very simple tips for you to get started – not only when you’re having problems with your computer, but I’ve found that I’ve gravitated towards solutions that will allow me the most flexibility so that I’m more prepared if a nasty surprise ever springs up yet again!
