Monday, December 27, 2010

Been a funny year. This is what I do.











These are some of the demonstration drawings I've drawn while advertising my work to people this year. Based upon passersby, they're done outside admidst usually strong wind since those days are slower business. Normally a sketch takes five minutes or so. These are up to around twenty minutes since I was taking my time.





RANT TIME:There are two kinds of blogs. Business and personal. Career artists often run the fine line of being both. Only some capitalize on pageviews, but likely all appreciate the benefit of their art being seen for potential work. But we show our work, to get more work. Our art is our work.

Due to a recent exchange with a blogger overseas who wished to use a caricature(work) I did on their blogsite for free, I researched that blog and its associates. I would've happily given the caricature had it been an education for learning's sake type of site. But this site was specifically income based. It bragged very heavily about it. The purpose of the site is to build entrepreneurs out of people who spend their days clicking links. They profit solely upon people purchasing the same software from the associates that help them to make their own site. This led me to many other bloggers who also use sideline advertisers to make income on pageviews and link clicks. Maybe I'm late, but I now know about a trend of blogs profiting on some very basic information. Usually no real information at all.

Charging for information is an old tradition. We wouldn't have schooling otherwise. Selling info is not a bad thing. The bad thing about a majority of these sites is that they provide an overview of a topic such as income earnings through a blog, and provide enough information to be considered the first 30 minutes of a freshman intro lecture on economy. Again with the uneducated not knowing what they can't know yet. That is how many information brokers, such as colleges even, make their money.

They profit from this approach, and maybe this passive income tuns them into complete users. Or maybe they are the sponges in the first place. Either way, they come to expect freedom in their usage of other peoples "work" when they have done none themselves. My caricature was taken down per my request. I do respect the honesty.

I make my earnest plea to other artists. If your work is good enough, you'll get paid for it. If they want it for free, they'd better be non profit.