Are you ready to master the skills needed to THRIVE as an artist today?

There are two things that every artist MUST master if they’re to make a dent in the world today.

First - craft.

Without your hand skills, you’re nothing. Unless you understand the vocabulary of art-making ( composition, color, value, anatomy, edges, etc.) you will never be fully fluent in the language of creativity.

To be frank, there's a host of well-meaning but misleading crap online. It’s the blind leading the blind.

Second - a personal brand.

The fact is, the gatekeepers of yesterday are gone.

Galleries do not hold the prominence they once did, art directors are no longer the intermediaries between a creator and their audience. 

We have social media. We have the ability to attract, create for and sell to a dedicated group of people that are fiercely loyal and eager to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

However, unless you understand how to cultivate an audience and build a robust personal brand, you will never fully capitalize on the opportunities that lie within your pocket.

The smart artist knows that they must attack both simultaneously and with vigor.

They must become fully conversant with the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES that underpin both craft and marketing.

Unfortunately, there’s a whole lot of crap online these days.

Questionable Youtube ‘gurus’ painting anime girls and advising young artists on how to render eyeballs. TikTok fadsters chasing the next viral sound hoping to blow up. 

These folks are missing the point. 

They’re building on a foundation of clay.

Unless you understand how to ACTUALLY create work that lasts the test of time, work based on time-honored principles that have served artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Norman Rockwell, you will always wonder why the art you create is missing that ‘certain something.’

There is in fact, a RIGHT and a WRONG way to make pictures. 

There are canonical principles that create compelling art. There is a language that every picture maker must learn in order to communicate with their audience. 

In MAKE YOUR MARK, I teach you these principles.

They’ve been passed on to me by long dead makers from past as well as contemporary masters in the fields of illustration and fine art. Men and women whose work has delighted audiences for decades and who easily sit in the pantheon of great 20th century artists.

They’ve been solidified by a lifetime of art making and over ten years as a freelance illustrator. The art that I’ve created has spread throughout social media and helped me to cultivate a robust personal brand of dedicated fans.

It has helped me to connect with clients, sell original work and educate & inspire a host of young creators worldwide.

In BRANDED, I teach you how to build such an audience with your work.

Every maker today has the opportunity to go directly to the source. There are no more middlemen. The artist who understands this has the opportunity to carve out their own unique, self-sustaining niche. 

There is more than enough attention and interest online for well-made, compelling art and folks who have spent the time to master their craft DESERVE to enjoy a slice of the pie.

This is the age of the personal brand.

You see it across disciplines. Everyone is an ‘influencer’ today, whether you realize it or not. The difference between the herd and YOU is that you actually have something of value to share...

Your ART.

Art is net positive for the world. Expressing your creativity and choosing to be someone who BUILDS instead of simply consuming is an act of DEFIANCE.

In an age when everyone is more interested in their next hit of dopamine than in producing a body of work that stands the test of time, you as an ARTIST are a shining paragon of excellence and an example to others. 

You BUILD.

You are ACTIVE.

You’re not just a participant…you’re an ARCHITECT of reality.

Understanding this and learning how to use your work and your personality to attract a group of likeminded people via social media is a crucial skill in today’s world.

Thoroughly mastering these twin disciplines of creation and promotion will unlock a limitless world of possibilities for you.

Recognition, community, self-confidence, profit and pride…

All of these await the smart artist who chooses to master their craft build their brand online.

This is exacly what you will learn to do in the STACKS & RACKS bundle.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN in MAKE YOUR MARK:

•  How the best makers in the world THINK about creating art
•  The ATTITUDE that they bring to the drawing table each day 
•  The major SKILLS that you must know to become an effective artist
•  An overview of what you should understand about ANATOMY 
•  Basic, powerful, time-tested principles of COMPOSITION
•  Simplified and effective COLOR
•  The ALPHA & OMEGA skill of representational art - OBSERVATIONAL DRAWING
•  How to develop your unique STYLE
•  How to make drawing, painting & creating a HABIT
•  Simple CHALLENGES you can use to push you past your limits
•  How to link everything together in a MAJOR PROJECT to cement these concepts
•  The easiest way create a body of work that you LOVE
•  Plus, a brief list of recommended RESOURCES to further shorten your learning curve

MAKE YOUR MARK is a 'soup to nuts' primer on picture-making and all that goes into it. I’ll be with you every step of the way. Together, we'll walk through each of the topics above. All the while, I'll be sharing anecdotes and information gathered firsthand from the 'art trenches.' 

Once you're through, you'll understand...

•  The meat & potatoes 'talent stack' that every competent artist must possess
•  How to link what you love to what you do so you’ll never have to ‘force’ yourself to create ever again
• The art 'meta’ skill that informs everything else you'll learn
•  The 'too good to be true' tactic used by a famous Swedish artist to create lush, harmonious paintings
•  One downright weird drawing practice that even a blind man could do...

Plus...

•  ‘Controversial’ anatomy advice gleaned from one of America’s greatest illustrators
•  How to never feel overwhelmed when dealing with color ever again
•  How to trust your instincts whenever you pick up a pencil
•  How to roll with the punches when you make art and turn each setback into an advantage
•  How to integrate what you’ve learned, create something of value to the world & profit in the process

Follow the information within and you'll hit the drawing table each day with enthusiasm, discipline, & deep love for this vital craft.

Everything you will learn is evergreen and time-tested. It’s a distillation of my best practices. It will guide you through an easy to execute process for habituating your creativity.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN in BRANDED:

• Social media psychology for artists (We’re all subject to a few basic human needs…)
• The industry agnostic best practices for growing an audience online (Marketing & sales are marketing & sales, regardless of your niche!)
• The three most important things that social media allows you to do (These are well understood in other businesses, but woefully neglected in the arts.)
• Why these are absolutely critical (and work in tandem) if you’re going to establish yourself online or do any selling of any kind.)
•  How you have an absolutely massive leg up over every other kind of business online when it comes to brand building (You’re already a champ, you just don’t know it yet.)
• All killer, no filler advice on how to grow via Instagram or TikTok (No tips, tricks or hacks here. Just fundamentals that work.)
• This secret trust building tool that artists notoriously shy away from (This is to their enormous detriment! Do this and watch the game change.)
• How to leverage the secrets of ‘written persuasion’ in constructing your brand (This time tested meta-skill has minted more millions than just about anything else.)
•  How every single ‘drawback’ to your creative practice and in your life is really a secret ‘benefit’ to be exploited (Behold, the power of differentiation!)
• How to make the most of every single unfair advantage that you possess for maximum results (Life ain’t fair, folks.)
• How to turn this one woefully neglected tool into a device used to generate insane amounts of loyalty and potentially, sales (This is your lifeline!)
• How to flip your haters into free marketing (Turn your detractors into flashing billboards for your work with ease.)
• The power of polarity when it comes to building an audience (Hint: If you’re annoying people, you’re doing it right!)
• The secrets of working smarter, not harder, when it comes to social media (You can do a lot more with a lot less than you think.)
•  The concept that any smart entrepreneur worth their salt tests to the hilt BEFORE ever launching a product (Artists - neglect this at your peril.)

Plus...

• How to harness the power of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ to spread your work far and wide (You’ve probably got a few of these already, now collect them intentionally!)
• The basic principles behind any sort of successful selling online (Guess what? Your job is made a heck of a lot easier due to unique skills you ALREADY have.)
• The real 'skinny' on hashtags and what place they have in your social media presence (Important? Sure. Critical? Tune in to find out.)
•  How to trumpet your work and wares from the rooftops without burning out your audience (It comes down to these two incredibly important factors.)
• The ballpark percentage to aim for when crunching the numbers on any artistic offer (You can blow this out of the water, or fail miserably, but it keeps things in context!)
•  The unique, irreplaceable, ‘million dollar’ advantage that you have over big businesses with huge ad budgets (Artists don’t realize just how powerful they are.)
• A lack of these 'deal-breakers' let absolute nimrods dominate but they can keep intelligent artists frozen in their tracks (I’ll help you eradicate this from your existence.)
• The secret ’tactic’ used to get people to do what you’d like which most artists are too polite to use (Or which they don’t use nearly often enough!)
•  The hidden truth about promoting your work online (Hint: Telling people just once isn’t going to cut it!)

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN in the DEMO BUNDLE:

Expressing a personal point of view is the entire purpose of making art.

It’s saying something ONLY YOU can say within this visual medium.

No one else sees the world in quite the same way that you do. Each subject reveals itself slightly differently, and the things you choose to emphasize or discard are completely unique to your tastes and discretion. There is no right or wrong, only what appeals to your innate sense of poetry and aesthetics.

With that in mind, this bundle of short-form demonstrations (previously available only through my shuttered Patreon) shares my own unique spin on subject matter and materials.

Inside these demonstrations, you’ll learn more about…

• Using destruction to create
• When and how I pencil things before inking
• The benefits of starting a piece from scratch if it doesn’t go your way the first time
• How using media that’s tough to control leads to unexpectedly cool results
• Rolling with the punches both challenges, instructs and informs every subsequent move
• Reacting to reference and interpreting photography as opposed to literal copying
• The joys of working without a net