Art for Kids
A resource for beginners and professionals who want to make art for children’s literature (i.e., Kidlit).
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill
Quick Recap
If you missed last week’s newsletter on the “Beginner’s Mind”, you can click here to check it out. We discussed excellent resources to begin your journey in writing for children. Of course, there are many more resources to discuss; however, in the interest of respecting your valuable time in reading Just One Thing!, we kept it short and sweet!
I’m really digging the title of my Publication because it helps me stay focused on single topics rather than going down rabbit holes with endless writing.
Speaking of Rabbit Holes, have you ordered Down the Hole by Scott Slater and Adam Ming published by Clarion Books, an Imprint of Harper Collins?
Art for Kids
Making art for kids is a lot of fun. You see, the truth is - we create art not only for kids, but also for adults; but more importantly - for ourselves.
Let’s admit it, life is hard. There’s endless bills, mortgages, traffic, and just the daily grind of making it through the week. To help mitigate the effects of stress, some turn to art, which can be both expressive and cathartic.
When making art for kids, there’s quite a bit of playfulness, which can make you smile throughout the entire process, regardless of your skill level. Time simply disappears while making art, then you suddenly snap back into reality realizing an entire hour had gone by despite it feeling like only minutes.
The hard part is looking at your work and wondering if it’s any good. This is the judgement part, which is not my favorite part of making art. Personally, I struggled with this part because I had a hard time putting on paper what I had in mind. You see, there was a gap in skill between what I knew I wanted to create and what I actually created. I call this, the “Dreaded Skill Gap”!
Here’s an embarrassing illustration from December 2018 when I decided I wanted to learn how to write and draw children’s literature. I can’t believe I’m sharing this…
Where to Start?
I knew I wanted to write and illustrate for kids, but BOY!, my art sucked! Just look at it! This was 5 years ago and I was 39. I had so much fun drawing this piece; however, the gap between my mind and my actual ability was far too great. I needed to close the gap, but how?
Fortunately, I stumbled on several art resources over the last 5 years, which I will share with my trusty readers.
SVS Learn
I found SVS Learn and felt like I found a gold mine! Check this out! Three professional children’s book illustrators (Jake Parker, Will Terry and Lee White) started an online school called, School of Visual Storytelling (SVS), which gave me a chance to learn from Pro’s who are working in the industry! Needless to say, I signed up right away!
SVS Learn is affordable and in my opinion, will transform your art very quickly! The best part, you can learn from home!
After taking a few courses, my art when from the embarrassing illustration above to the below in just a few months of training.
I still had a long way to go; however, my art improved exponentially after taking courses at SVS Learn. Words of wisdom - do the homework! You can easily get caught in the trap of watching the videos and thinking that you are absorbing the information; however, the true learning comes from doing the homework!
For the avoidance of doubt, SVS Learn is not sponsoring this post. I’m simply sharing that I learned so much from Jake, Will and Lee. Plus, they have an incredibly hilarious podcast called 3 Point Perspective, which is full of gold nuggets and laughs.
Check out SVS Learn here.
Marco Bucci
Where do I begin? Marco’s an amazing artist, but what I think makes Marco shine more than anything, is his uncanny ability to teach! Have you seen his YouTube tutorials? He provides so much wisdom and teaching for free! I knew I needed to learn more from Marco. With 829k subscribers on YouTube, I’m certainly not alone with my sentiment on Marco.
https://www.youtube.com/@marcobucci
I’ve watched all of Marco’s videos on YouTube and followed along in my sketchbook. I decided to dive in and take his children’s book course, which is phenomenal! It’s titled, “Illustrating Children’s Books and Beyond”, and it’s only US $30.00!
Here’s my final assignment from the course.
Thank you, Marco!
If you’re interested in taking some of Marco’s courses, which I highly recommend, you can find them here:
https://marcobucciartstore.com
Final Thoughts
Admittedly, I’m just scratching the surface with these 2 resources. In future posts, I will add more resources and classes which have helped me in my journey.
In just 5 years, I have improved quite a bit; however, I still maintain the mantra of the “Beginner’s Mind”. If you missed last week’s newsletter, you can check it out here.
If you would like to know more about me, check out my first newsletter here.
Thanks again for reading, Just One Thing! If you enjoyed anything in particular about this post, please let me know in the comments below.
Talk soon!
Jeremy Ross
Interesting! 2 new sources of info!! Curious if you follow (*pay) anyone on Substack or Patreon?!