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I’ve been freelancing for ten years now; full-time. I don’t just do illustration work but also design and programming. Here’s my typical day/week.

I wake up daily at 3:45am. Grab some coffee and read my email/rss feeds. That takes about 10 min. Then I start working. Why start around 4am? Because I won’t answer a client’s call until after 8am and that gives me four or five hours of uninterrupted focus time. Besides, I feel more creative early in the morning.

I’ll grab lunch at noon and take about a 30 min. nap to refresh. From there, I’ll work up until around 4 or 5pm. At that time the phone won’t get answered and emails wait until the following day.

Family time is from 5pm on. I’ll usually crash for the night around 9:30 to 10pm.

Another benefit to my schedule is that IF I have something I need/want to do outside of work, I won’t feel guilty quitting at noon. I have a full 8 hours in by then.

Call me insane. I know I am, but I’ve done this schedule for the last six or seven years and LOVE it. It was really great when my son was young and required much more attention. He’d be sleeping instead of competing for my attention.

Hi Greg,
Thanks for commenting. Like you, I generally get up somewhere between 4am and 6am for the same reasons. There’s a lot to be said for continued hours of uninterrupted time. I like what you’re saying about working at the hours that you’re most creative or productive. One of the best things about freelancing is the ability to dictate hours that work for you, rather than try to conform to someone else’s schedule. I’m glad you’ve found something that works well for you.
Thomas

I get up at 5:50am to get my son ready to drive him 11 miles to the bus stop. I get back around 7:15am. I then check my email, twitter, facebook and such. So, I get going around 7:45-8:00am and stop working between 4:30-5:00pm.
That generally gives me enough time to do what I need to do. If there’s a project that demands more time or if I’m really getting into it and want to keep working, then I’ll start up again around 7pm – 10pm.
I’m probably going to need to get a part time job soon because work is drying up for me right now, so it’ll get a whole lot different after that.

Thanks Mark. I like that you seem to set clear boundaries between work and home life. I’m getting better at that myself. It’s so important when it comes to setting aside time to get things done.

I’ve been freelancing for about 5 years now, but only recently full time (I just finished my MFA at Academy in SF) – I’m still trying to figure out my work schedule because as of late, I’ve been realizing I need to get out more (your podcasts, among others, make me feel less like Ted Kaczynski). But, my typical work day starts around 8am and I usually don’t go to sleep til about 2am. Sounds bad, but I make sure to have an hour lunch, a ’siesta’, approx 40 mins run with the dogs, dinner time, some couch time with the wife … so all in all not too bad.

But, here’s to figuring my way around! Thanks again for your time/podcast/etc its very very helpful!

Hi Rich. Your day may sound long at first glance, but it sounds like you’ve worked in a lot of other activities. Congratulations for finding a balance. Definitely not always an easy task.
Thanks for sharing.
Thomas

Currently I’m just an amateur that has yet to take any actual illustration jobs. For me, I’m completely unorganized and any time usually between 2pm and 7am is fair game when I get smalls bouts of energy or inspiration.

In the past few years it was just a hobby every once in a while when my unfulfilling software job was sucking the life out of me. I realized fairly recently how much it actually meant to me and quit that job (with the help of some savings) to explore what avenue of the illustration field I want to pursue.

I’m very curious as to the schedules of others in situations where they are still learning the ropes, trying to get confidence in their own work, and keeping from slacking off.

Not knowing any other illustrators personally and having never taken any art classes in the past has really made me insecure and isolated feeling. Thank you for building a community to help out all levels and types of people in the field. Would love to get anyone else’s eyes on my work to get a better sense of where I’m going with it.

Great topic! Something I’ve wanted to ask fellow artists myself. Been delving into full time freelance illustration work in the last 2-3 months, and my schedule usually looks something like this:

- Get up between 8-9am
- breakfast, checking emails, and twitters 9-9:30
- Work! Or a warmpup, from 10am. This is usually only 2-3 hours work and this is when I like to roughs/concepts for projects, generally. Otherwise, I work on whatever project I have on.
- Lunch 12-1pm and a bit of exercise/fresh air
- Work from 1pm until dinnertime, which is sometime between 6 and 7pm, with a few little breaks inbetween.
- After dinner I’ll either relax with some games/reading/tv, or do some personal artwork.
- Sometimes I do a bit of work for a couple of hours before bed if I am in the mood.
- Bed at 10:30-11pm

I’ve heard that getting up very early works wonders for being creative. I wouldn’t mind trying getting up at 5am or something and getting in a few hours of uninterrupted work before 9. The day will have just started for most people, but I’d have several hours work done already!

When I started, I thought, ‘awesome, I can work whatever hours I want!’ and I started work in the afternoon. This ended up being disastrous because in the morning I couldn’t help feeling as though I was procrastinating, and couldn’t enjoy my free time.

I tend to keep the same hours as my fiancée with whom I live. She works full time as a designer. So we get up at the same time and do break fast together around 8-8:30am. Once she’s out the door I fire up the computer and start checking emails etc. I usually work on projects or promotion for the rest of the day with breaks for lunch and walking the dogs. Then when while my fiancée is on her way home I clean up and start dinner.

Basically, I Try to keep our schedule lined up so we can more of our leisure time together. When she’s working I’m working. When she’s home, I’m off duty.

Y’all are making me feel like a slacker for sleeping so late. I’m just starting out as a freelancer, so I rarely have enough freelance work to keep me busy all day – when I have any at all – so most of my day tends to be taken up by marketing, portfolio-building, research, or doing studies and the like to improve my skills. That said, I try to work from 11-7, Monday to Friday. I’ve tried in the past to get up earlier, but when it comes down to it, I’m just Not A Morning Person. I’d push it even later, if I could, but being awake by 10 means that if I do get any calls or emails from clients, I’m able to respond to them within a more reasonable timeframe than if I was sleeping ’til noon.

Of course, the other reason my hours are so late is that I’m often up late into the night – annoyingly, inspiration often strikes around midnight, or even 1 or 2 in the morning, and I can’t NOT draw when I’m suddenly in the zone. So I’m often up ’til the wee hours of the morning, whether that was my intention or not. I often get my best work done in the hours when I had long since intended to be asleep.

Finally, if I have something to get done that necessitates working on the weekend, then I’ve got no problem doing it. It just means I can finish earlier on Monday or something – a lot of my “non-work” hours are spent on art anyhow, so why not?

I promote my services primarily through two aspects: 1) my website and 2) word-of-mouth via satisfied clients. Repeat customers of mine have referred new clients to me.

My work gets seen through facebook, youtube, blogspot, forums and online competitions mainly.

I use my facebook to put up folders of drawings, paintings, recent work, portraits, etc. The thing that pulls interest is when I do portraits of entertainers (usually local festival circuit sort of thing). Tag them in the sketch (might be just a rough sketch from a show, or a media exercise, whatever). Then heaps of people have it show up on their feed. Most of them are disinterested, some leave a comment, and some of them are enthused enough to commission something.

Forums are great. Especially ones that aren’t primarily illustration-oriented. Post up something they’d be interested in seeing, then answer any questions, then a link to the blogspot (basically a portfolio now).

So, basically, I use these social networking sites to keep myself in practice, and get my work seen by people who might appreciate it. Then it’s word of mouth from there on in.

I use all the options that I find that can work for my illustration style. Being a children’s illustrator for books and products for children is challenging.

Online portfolio sites are very helpful. I use Children’s Illustrators, Picture Book, Coroflot, and Creative Shake as places where a host manages the exposure. Children’s Illustrators and Picture Book charge a fee the others are free.

I post my work on my own blog and several group artist blogs to maximize exposure. My blog is linked into my Facebook account and posts will show up there as well as on my own blog.

Beyond that I keep an active and up-to-date portfolio within my website. The website also serves as home to my bio, contact and articles I write that are helpful for the trade. By offering articles that apply to my industry I find that others seek the information there and that helps to drive visitors to my site.

I apply to search engines, keep my keywords relevant, make good use of meta tags on my website and watch the publishers sites to see what they are offering in their children’s book catalogs.

I answer emails promptly and will lend a helping hand if I can when I am asked about my work or the industry in which I work.

I co-administer a blog for 12 artists who post their promos, successes, ideas and images for the illustration community and the public. The exposure for the group as a whole helps each individual as well.

I belong to a group of illustrators called the CBIG (Children’s Book Illustrators Group) which also has an online presence and portfolio section linking back to my website.

My social networks include, Facebook, Twitter and Linked In. I find that Linked in is the more reserved and professional site, Facebook allows me the most exposure of the three and Twitter is helpful for promoting web posts, blog posts and links.

In addition to promoting my work online I use an outside printing company to print postcards with my best illustrations on them. They come in various sizes and I send these out to prospects 3 or 4 times a year.

Whenever it is allowed I will add a link to a comment that brings a viewer to my blog or website.

Thanks for asking the question.

I contact magazines publishers artdirectors artgalleries through very short emails with attached few samples of my recent works. I try not to re-contact the same person for at least 4/6months. Flickr Twitters and other social portals I use are ok only for showing (rather than promoting) my works amongst my collegues. Dripbook is a great tool for promoting my work to clients. Using Dripbook I can customize image-galleries very quickly, and the clients will get an email from Dripbook with a link to the gallery. Dripbook is a bit expensive but if you have a bit of budget I believe it is worthy a go. Finally I take part to 3/4 major illustrators contests every year, in the hope to have my work seen by clients, publishers and art directors. Again to take part to those contests is quite expensive. Every year I fix a budget for my promotion and then I try to stick to it.

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Postcards, Website, Facebook and e-mails…. and then pray that someone looks at it!

I use flickr and facebook along with my own blog and portfolio site to showcase new work. I use Twitter to send out that there are new updates. I have entered a couple competitions, but I have to limit them as they can get expensive quick, as mario said above.
I really don’t think I do enough so I am definitely going to be watching the comments on this post to see what everyone else is doing.

This seems like an appropriate topic to slip in a question I’ve had for a while – when contacting art directors/designers you’ve contacted before, by email, how do you frame that? It’s easy enough to call the initial email “Illustration Submission”, and to introduce myself, and say that I’m interested in working for them… but the followups have me stumped. Is it a resubmission? A reminder? Do I assume they remember me submitting before, knowing they probably don’t? Am I seriously overthinking this? (…Yeah, probably. =))

…As to the original question, I tend to promote myself with the aforementioned email promos linking to my site, by tweeting my blog posts, by linking my site in places like IllustrationMundo… really, I’m not too into the whole social networking scene. I’m one of those stone age holdouts that doesn’t even have a facebook profile. I do try to get involved in blog topics (like this one!), in contests and the like, but I’m aware that my online promotion could definitely use a boost. I’ve got a new blog of daily drawings that I’ve been running since January, and tweeting them with the #daily365 tag (which is mostly used by designers) has got a little attention, but nothing significant as of yet.

Besides seasonal email ‘mailings’, I have my own website, two paid web galleries (Altpick and CreativeShake), several smaller free web galleries, listings on a few Illustration and design sites, a Facebook Fan page and a LinkedIn profile page. I will be creating a WordPress blog as well as a Twitter page shortly.

I add news items to Altpick news which go out on a Twitter feed, I update my FB fan page often, I participate on a number of illustration listserves and forums and I contribute often on LinkedIn groups and am growing my network of connections there. I have also been interviewed for a number of illustration resources where the interviews and my information appear online on their respective websites.

At first, I was totally clueless. I had a DeviantArt account for years, but never managed to get more than 5,000 pageviews (this is meaningful to those who have an account there and notice than some members regularly get 5k pageviews for everything that they submit!). I had Twitter, I had Facebook, I had LinkedIn… I had a lot of things, but I wasn’t using them in conjunction with one another.

I took a marketing class from the ConceptArt.org Livestreams and got my act together and more organized. I linked all of my accounts to one another via Posterous.com. It allows you to email update all of your social networks and blogs all at once, so it makes marketing yourself less of a chore. It does spread out your comments to a lot of various networks instead of one central place, but at least you are getting exposure.

I try to take the time to respond to all of the comments people send my way. So far, I haven’t been so swamped that I can’t answer them all. If a day like that comes, I may resort to just answering the questions or setting up a F.A.Q. to link people to.

I know only one way to obtain freelance work and it’s very difficult. I have specialised in the fantasy/sci-fi scene and I am interested in magazine, book, RPG and any other kind of work I can get from that genre. So I painstakingly go through Google searches, book stores, magazine shops and individually make note of each publisher I can find that I feel my work is suitable for and then email them a quick note linking them to my portfolio (as many do not wish for email attachments or emails with attachments can go straight to the trash).

I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback, but I’ve only gotten a handful of jobs in the 9 months I’ve been a freelancer through this method. Unfortunately, it may be a sign of the times as many of the responses consist of “we like your artwork, but we don’t have any work for you at the moment”.

I keep pushing my work out there, always trying to create bigger and better pieces. I constantly update my Twitter, Blog, Facebook, and DeviantArt accounts with new work. I post tweets every so often announcing that I am looking for illustration work. Honestly, I’m not sure what more I can do. I am considering an agent, but I’m not exactly sure how to start on that path- most agents I see are for fine artists, not commercial illustrators.

Thank you for posing the question! I am excited to read the other responses and see how others promote themselves so I may learn something new!

I would never ask you to share your stories at EFII without joining in myself, so here’s my experience with spec work:

Like many new Illustrators, I didn’t even see a difference between spec work and “real” work when I was just starting out. I created comps for multiple “clients” in my first year as a freelance artist, in the hopes of landing a project, but even when the client accepted the work, I was never given the payment or other forms of compensation that were promised.

I thought that working on spec was just part of the business. It was only through more experience and research that I learned how to demand your rights as an artist, and how to run an effective business.

I never do spec work now, because I know that it is just a waste, but I can definitely relate to new Illustrators who are hungry enough to work on spec.

I can’t really say that I’ve done spec work, but I have done work for VERY little pay, which isn’t that much different from spec work.

I once did 300 designs for baby bedroom sets (quilts, lampshades, crib bumpers, etc.) for $500 dollars. Do the math. That’s $1.66 per design, some of which took a couple of hours. So, I made around 86 cents an hour. YIKES!

I will NEVER EVER do anything like that again. I was a really hungry rookie and just wanted to get paid for my art, so I took it.

I learned a BIG lesson there.

The bottom line about spec work is: If they don’t have the money to pay you, then they don’t have the money to get you exposure. Plain and simple.

DON’T do spec work!

Having spent 10 years as a designer before I got back to my roots as an illustrator I did plenty of spec work, but I still was paid. That’s because my clients hired me to do the work, companies that know better. But, how do you get the little guys to steer clear when the big guys do it all the time.

The byproduct of this type of work is that clients get a taste of it and then expect it. Then you’re committed to doing all the work upfront with no guarantee of being paid.

I think there are times when this approach might help with a client. I would think a client that you’ve worked with in the past and have a good relationship with. You have a great idea you think would really benefit them or a new twist on a project.

Most of the time though spec work is simply work done for free and then freely taken advantage of. I avoid it whenever I can.

In my case, as a self-taught “student”, (read here, very limited experience) I can tell you I haven’t been approached. But, from my perspective, its an opportunity to push myself, and gain experience, if I see an opportunity to express myself… that would count as my “pay”.
So far, only family has asked for anything. The rest has been initiated by myself (very few), and I have the freedom of deciding whether I do it, or not. I have one current opportunity to show my work at the tiniest cafe I have visited, just because I commented on a photograph, and the friendly waiter was proud to show it as his. I offered to draw something, and the staff was excited about it (they had seen me drawing at the table). This may count as spec work, but I have complete control, and its out of a feeling of adventure I do it. Ah… newbies! LOL! (thinking – a good way to try new things… drawing surfers going at it is something I’d like to try!)
I think that this is the only safe way to view spec work, in a good light, when it is for YOU!!
(don’t spec for promises, folks).

My carreer is as a direct result of creating and sending off speculative work!

Hi Thomas,
just a quick thanks again for all the effort you put into this incredible blog and podcast series.

For the record, having been several times bitten and twice shy, I am now anti-spec work in all cases.
In the past and particularly when I was trying to get a foot into the industry, I’ve made entire animations and music promos for little to no pay whatsover, and ultimately found the final quality of this kind of work never justifies the time and effort put into it.

I’ve found its better just to flatly refuse all spec work hands-down, and concentrate on creating my own personal work for free. I have a daily rate and if people aren’t prepared to pay it, then I’m not prepared to do their work. Its not always easy, particularly in tough economic times, but I feel as a community we have to refuse hands down to be taken advantage of for our skills.

Often, the very companies and clients encouraging freelancers to work for free or on reduced rates and pitch speculatively for work, seem to have a roster or core team of fulltime staff on salaried jobs.

Also of note, there’s a campaign on motionographer and cartoon brew at the moment against specwork and “contests” in general. Rightly or wrongly, sesame street seems to have bore the brunt of it, but it definitely raises some interesting arguments for and against and is well worth adding your names to the cause.

http://motionographer.com/2010/02/22/dear-sesame-st/
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/dear-sesame-street.html

Thanks again, keep up the great work

Dylan

When I was first starting out, I didn’t even know what spec work was. I fell for one of those, “We’d like to see designs from several artists so that we can pick the one we think best fits the product, yadda yadda”. Thankfully what I sent them was a pretty rough sketch, so I didn’t lose much time on it. And of course, they suddenly dropped off the face of the planet after receiving the sketch. After that, I became much more cautious about making sure I was paid before sending anything to anyone. : /

My first cover started off as spec BUT I wasn’t just foolishly jumping into it. My teachers in college spent a lot of time telling us about the business. A lot of time. We came out knowing what to expect and the traps for young illustrators. Anyway, they were looking at me and another illustrator, but all I did were thumbs. Nothing else. Not comps. Crappy little sketches. I figured it was worth the risk wasting a little bit of time. I don’t regret it. It gave me a chance to exercise my brain on coming up with a visual solution to an abstract concept (advanced manufacturing, btw). I knew what I was getting into and I gave them the benefit of the doubt. It was one of those situations where I followed my gut. I got a good vibe and went for it. It was nothing but a good experience.

A small local publisher found my work through my graduating class’s exhibition last year. Since then I’ve done some work for them on spec, sketches, roughs, colour character designs. I was a student when this all started so I didn’t know nearly as much about how the industry works as I do now. However, I wasn’t stupid, I knew that this was a reputable company, not some joe schmoe I’ve never heard of before.

If I had 10 years experience in the industry, of course they wouldn’t have asked me for this work. It bothers me a bit sometimes, as I feel my portfolio is proof enough of the quality of my work.

Today, I’m awaiting a contract from them to do a full children’s picture book. So it’s gotten somewhere.

At the end of the day it’s best to use your judgement, if the ‘client’ seems like a dirty scumbag who doesn’t want to pay you, then he/she probably is. I’d never do free work, ever, unless I thought it would truly be worth my while. In my case I’d met the clients in person several times, and I got advice from teachers and others about doing the work for them.

Technically not “spec work” what I did as a volunteer for organizations with whom I was a member was still requested and unpaid with the promise of “exposure”, but in this case it did work as promised.

I was a member of several local and regional environmental organizations, and as I was leading up to working entirely freelance at home I agreed to design logos, brochures and create artist’s renderings of master site plans for remediation and conservation projects.

When I went freelance and those projects were funded, I was then hired for subsequent work with those same organizations, and became the “go-to” designer for many organizations, even with county and state bureaus who needed either design work or needed older brochures and posters to be updated and made electronic.

But even with that, while I do donate artwork and design services when I so choose, I hate when someone asks me to donate or create something “becuase it’ll be great exposure for you.” I’m tired of exposing myself.

Time management is a BIG issue for me, as is the daunting competition out there. I feel like I’m dancing as fast as I can, and I’m still not dancing fast enough. There’s never enough money to update my technology, and whilst it’s NOT about the tools, it helps if you have a decent digital camera or a printer that actually works. I also suffer from indecision; should I specialize in ONE thing and corner that market, or try to get good at many things to be as marketable to a large audience as possible? *siiiiiigh* Add to that the fact I run a household with three sons, one cat and a husband, and my so-called career often falls by the wayside. Good times.

Getting work.

I find there are a lot of challanges to be an illustrator but the biggest one for me is believing in myself. I haven’ t really developed my own illustration style yet and seeing all the great work out there often makes me doubt myself and my abilities. I try to work daily on learning to draw better etc. and it boosts me that at least I’m working hard and fighting for it, but in the end I have a hard time persuading myself that I’ll ever measure up and be good enough.

[...] this week’s Weekend Forum on Escape From Illustration Island, I thought I’d invite you all to try and answer this [...]

That’s a common obstacle Aimee. Have you considered NOT looking at other artists’ work for a while. I know this can be difficult, but it’s really self-defeating to compare yourself to other Illustrators. I have had this issue myself, as I’m sure other artists have as well. I hope this helps.

Hey Christine. I can relate to the problem of juggling your work with your family life. All we can do is push on and try to create boundaries that allow us to have the time we need to devote to ourselves and our passions.

I find that my biggest challenge right now is in staying motivated to create illustrations, even though I haven’t found any work doing it. Although I’ve been drawing for most of my life, I’ve only recently decided to pursue children’s illustration.

That’s true, sometimes I think the other illustrations are getting the work, not me, because I am not good enough. But I like to think that everyone is different, not better or worst, so each of us have our place and our public. It’s just a matter of finding it!

I understand, for me is the same. I quit graphic design works in big companies to start pursuing children’s illustration, editorial, painting. It’s difficult but if you have your goals and you fight for them it’s possible.
What helped me a lot is to start (in December) making Illustration Friday and some other weekly illustrations to have a stronger portfolio. When you have a word to start with is much easier!

My biggest challenge at the moment is keeping my hand/wrist safe from pain. Drawing all the time makes my joints hurt….but I never want to stop! Regular breaks and stretching helps.