A big welcome and hello

to all my new subscribers, thank you so much for joining me in this journey of my creative career as an illustrator.

In this video, I will share with you what happened in the last few months of summer. First, you will hear about my new creative online classes, one is a children's book assignment class and the other a gouache for illustrators free 7-day course to promote my main online class. Then I will share some other amazing news: I finally took the courage to send out my work to a magazine; I joined the SCBWI Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and submitted an illustration to my first professional illustration competition (Undiscovered Voices); and I finally had the courage to send out my portfolio to an illustration agency specialising in children's book illustration. The video is concluded with my thoughts about my final year of university studying graphic design with pathway illustration and thoughts on writing my 3rd thesis.

I'd love to hear what you are up to.

Stay joyful,
Romica

THINGS I HAVE MENTIONED

Please understand, you follow links mentioned here at your own risk.

- Course: Children's Book Portfolio Assignment (Skillshare)
http://skl.sh/2g3TI4h (affiliate)

- MY FREE 7-DAY GOUACHE E-MAIL COURSE for beginners
https://youtu.be/v23EAztBGVw

- SCBWI Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators
https://www.scbwi.org/

Hi Creative Adventurers,

Fred Deakin's twitter about my article led quite a few people to my blog and when I realised how outdated my sketchbook page is and that my CV only goes until 2013 ... I felt a bit awkward.

How serious am I about my online representation?
What opportunities did I miss because I wasn't showing my progress and my work?

Maybe I wasn't as serious as I wanted to be and for the second question I don't know and there are no answers but it definitely made me reflect.

Why updating your blog / portfolio / CV is important

You never know WHEN and WHO is going to find your blog. What if it was a potential business partner or even employer that for some reason found his or her way to your site? If your portfolio hasn't received much attention, what else can their base their judgement on (maybe this isn't the right word, but I hope you get what I mean). Even if your work is amazing, what can it do for you if it's not visible?

Be good to your creative self

It is unfair to yourselfto let laziness destroy or lower your chances of showing you in an authentic way. You develop, improve, ... I bet you, there has been much going on, but are you showing this?

If yes, great and congratulations. You seem to know the importance of your online presentation and I am really glad you do. I wasn't as prepared as you are.

For me, this opportunity of exposure to mostly creative people came quite as a surprise. I knew I wanted to update some of my important pages eventually but it never happened until now. I realised this is partly also because I recently started to use a different platform (romicaspiegl.tumblr.com) due to uni requirements to keep my work up to date. However, I haven't made the effort to connect my blog with tumblr which definitely has to change.

Sketchbook Update

To make up for this: Here is a short update on what I have been up to recently in my free time. I'm taking a Skillshare class with Matt Vergotis about brushpen logo design and these are my practice sheets. I used gouache instead of a brushpen. I love this class and I need to take more time to practice.

Conclusion

This might sound like a short rant but especially in this digital age, and as a designer or creative business owner, your online presence is important. So I decided to either link my sketchbook to my tumblr or to commit to regular updates.

So yeah, this was short but sweet and I hope it could help some of you. How are you taking care of your online presence? Share your thoughts and comments below.

Have a wonderful day,

Romica :)