Where to Start?

Posted by on Aug 27, 2010 in Blog, Memoirs | 4 Comments

Welcome:

Year: 2004 Event: Backstage at Sliver & Gold Broadway show

Me with Actress Vanessa Williams 2004

Hello blogosphere and welcome to my first blog entry. My name is David E. Wilkinson. I am an artist with more than sixteen years of experience. In running my own agency called The Drawing Board Art Studio I have worked for some of the biggest names in toys, entertainment and sports. Some of my clients include Vanessa Williams (TV’s “Desperate Housewives”), Jon Cryer (TV’s “Two and a Half Men”), Mattel, Hasbro, Warner Bros, MGM Studios, Learning Curve / RC2 Corp., Starz / Anchor Bay Entertainment and more.

It has been 6 months or so since on the advice of a fellow artist and old friend of mine Evelyn McCorristin Peters that I set up my blog account. In that time I have not entered a blessed thing. I suppose like many, I have struggled with where to start and what to say. That and there is that pesky thing called time. As a full time freelance artist I must make sure my clients come first. Thankfully I have remained busy in this depressing economy.  Even so, when I am not busy with paying jobs, then my focus needs to be on finding my next job. One of the pitfalls to being a self employed artist is that your time never is really “your own”. Often, when you work full time for someone else and clock out, you know that time is yours. Not so when you are on your own because you can always be doing something productive, so finding down time to do what you want can sometimes be difficult. Even from just a mental standpoint.

Year: 2010 Event: Stanley Cup Finals Game 6

Myself with NHL & Flyer Great Brian Propp 2010

Then, on top of all that there is family and my lack of ability to control my creative inspirations which lead me into all kinds of other time consuming projects. As those of you who stay along for the ride here will find out, I am a uniquely versatile artist who like to express himself creatively in everything from drawing & painting to video production. I even write poetry on occasion. So, in the end there is just not much time for blogging. Even though I do enjoy writing, historically I share what I write with a select few people. So, sending my thoughts out into the blogosphere would not be my first choice as a writing outlet, but social networking and blogging have become such an important part of an artist marketing themselves these days, I feel as though I have to. It can go such a long way and be a powerful tool in getting the word out to promote yourself and your work. That all said, this can certainly be considered networking and marketing, so in a round about way it is working. With proper justification now properly in tow, here I am.

I can’t even begin to tell you what kind of shape or direction this blog will begin to take. I haven’t thought that far ahead. I see it as an ever evolving thing that grows with each entry, learning from the last and hopefully getting better as it goes along. I am sure some entries will be informative and insightful and others might be me just plugging something I have just added to my Zazzle shop. What I do know is that I have a lot of work and experiences to share.

I have always considered myself very fortunate to have been able to make a living doing something that I truly enjoy doing and working primarily in the three industries I have always loved the most. Toys, movies and most recently sports. What more can an artist ask?

I won’t lie, my main motivation in even creating this blog is to promote myself and my work but I do hope that in sharing some of my experiences both past and present that some of the younger readers and art students among us who are just starting out might be able to learn something along the way from my successes and failures.

Once a year or so I am asked to speak to the junior class at my old school, The Hussian School of Art which I am always honored to do.  The reaction I get from the classes has always been very positive so I am going to bring much of what I share with them here to my blog. Some of the things I try to stress most to the students I speak to is the importance of networking, marketing yourself, remaining open minded to each and every opportunity that comes along and most importantly striving for versatility in what you do. I really believe that these are the keys to my success.

Flyers Enforcer Riley Cote By David E. Wilkinson

Caricature I created for Flyers’ enforcer Riley Cote
2010

Although I feel as though I have been the luckiest guy in the world in that I have had some amazing opportunities fall in my lap. It takes initiative, talent, professionalism and hard work to make the best of those opportunities and have them lead you to the next one. I am certainly not saying that I have not earned what I have achieved or worked very hard to get where I am. I certainly have but I also feel very fortunate to have met some of the people I have and had some of the opportunities present themselves at key times in my career.

In closing I will just say thanks for reading and stay tuned. Please let me hear from you if you have any thoughts or reactions to anything I may say or if you have any questions regarding my work.

Dave

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4 Comments

  1. Evelyn McCorristin Peters
    August 28, 2010

    Blog looks terrific! I tweeted it out and sent it through my Facebook page. Already got one tweet of artist who will be checking in!
    Best of luck…and oh yeah one more bit of advice, way important to leave comments on others blogs once in a while, gets you up there in the search engines, to see what I mean Google me
    “Evelyn McCorristin Peters”, also a little creepy!

    Reply
  2. Maureen
    August 28, 2010

    I stopped by via a tweet from your friend Evelyn.

    You have quite an interesting background and obviously a great deal of talent. I wish you much continued success.

    Consider using your blog to promote your creative side, and join Twitter, where a huge group of great artists congregate and share resources.

    Reply
  3. VinaMist
    August 29, 2010

    Hi David!

    I am Teia, @VinaMist, Evelyn tweeted about you today. I am so glad you are joining the online artist community. You have such a wide range of artistic talent to share and promote.I am looking forward to learning what you have to share.

    I am a writer and editor helping to manage escapeintolife.com. Our founding editor Chris, my bff, passed away last month. He built a huge community of artists on the web through blogspot, twitter, and facebook. Our sole purpose is to promote artists like yourself.

    After publishing two art posts/essays everyday, I network with writers and artists all day. Eventually we will support an online store that is in the works. I can relate to you in knowing there is no time of “your own”. I have been trying to find time all night to comment to you and here it is nearly 12AM. When I started writing, you tweeted me then one of our writers Skyped me at the same time. I am so busy, people have no clue what it takes to promote a website these days. A little crazy, but I have loads of fun doing it.

    I would love to read your poetry if you ever share it someday. I am a big poetry lover. I will have to post more poetry and videos on my blog “Just Breathe” as my time is now fully taken by EIL. You have started your blog off great. You have so much to elaborate on from this post, such as your speeches from The Hussian School of Art. And of course we would like to know about all your artistic talents. You seem like an amazing person with a wealth of talent and knowledge to share.

    Cheers!
    Teia

    Reply
  4. dew71
    August 30, 2010

    Hello Maureen and VinaMist. Thank you so much for joining and commenting. Of course thanks to you as well Evelyn!

    Maureen. I do already have a Twitter account if you want to look me up: https://twitter.com/davidewilkinson

    VinaMist, That is a great thing you are doing to help promote artists. After all what good is an artist’s work if no one is there is appreciate it? I have begun working on my next entry which is trying to explain what it is that I do. As you said, I do have a pretty wide range of talents and styles so it is kind of hard to do.

    I do have a few poems I could share. The vast majority of what I have written is for my wife so I am not sure she would want to share.

    If you love Poetry that much what I really need to do is share some of my Mother’s with you. She unfortunately passed away VERY suddenly 15 years ago. She like me was very introverted with her writing and did not often share it. She suffered with Epilepsy since she was a teenager which took it’s tole on her. That and raising 4 kids did not leave her much room or mental capacity for writing. So she did not write nearly as much in my life time and I had no clue she had this talent. Upon her death I found her stash of poems. Over 50 of them. What a gift. I transcribed them all into Word documents to preserve them. Just some VERY beautiful stuff. I feel so blessed to have them.

    If I had known what a great writer she was I would have encouraged to write more. Like me, she never gave herself enough credit.

    Glad to have met you!
    Dave

    Reply

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