Cupcakes keep falling on my head

Well not really. But I am cranking away on my cupcake illustrations. I like them. I would eat them. But mostly I like painting them. All the cupcakes I am painting are all digital. I eschewed the Caran D'ache, and am working in Photoshop via Wacom tablet. Transitioning from traditional mediums into painting digital feels very natural to me. The style seems to translate, the colors are a non-issue. Heck I think I like it. The upside, I have a 'no-need-to-scan' piece of art in my computer, the downside, I don't have a tangible piece of art (God forbid I don't back up my hard drive and all that dog hair starts a fire in my tower). I do love that I can try different shading and painting, without messing up my original. I also like adding and deleting elements. It really does offer a lot more flexibility. I can dig it. Check one of my finished cupcakes to the right.

cupcakes yippee!

I recently received my second rejection, but it was more like a 'Please send us more when you create it because we really like your work'. Which is not exactly a rejection, although it isn't a 'sign the dotted line here please'. But considering the world of rejection letters, I will take it as a positive sign. 

I want to post a few cupcake sketches that I am working on. I have one colored but I don't have it saved small enough to post right now and I am too lazy to open Photoshop. So, without further ado, here are a few sketches.

and a one and a two and a three

Several weeks ago I sent 6 or so inquiries for representation to licensing agents. So far I have 3 for 6 'no'. And surprisingly I don't feel sad. No, no I don't. After this many years, and this many no's, I sort of just feel like 'oh yeah, saw that coming'. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that I deserve the no's. In actuality I think I deserve at least one yes. And I know that given the right product my art would sell nicely. I know that this is about business, not art. This is about making money plain and simple. And people want sure things. They want easy money. One of my rejections even told me to read a book about licensing, that he wrote. So, I bought it, (yes I gave money to one of those that say 'No'), started reading through it. This is what I thought when I started reading it: 'Man they should've used a good designer to lay this thing out'. The fonts were terrible and outdated and it looks blah. What struck me as very funny, is for a book about licensing, they used crappy art examples. Heck they couldn't even pony up to buy the rights for something decent. It was the quality of clip art from someplace like 'FreeClipArtNow.com'. Essentially the few nuggets of good information that I have gleaned, are weighted against the lack of credibility for a poorly designed book.

Long story short. To all you fellow aspiring artists, don't let the people who say No get you down. They don't define you, they don't define your art, they are just doing a job, and well, their job is to say No to most of us. And even if they said Yes, that doesn't mean they will license one piece of art that makes anyone a penny. And with that realization, I am going to scan my oh so cute 12 cupcake sketches and start working on my next group of art to be rejected. Why? Because this is for me, and I refuse to let 'the business of art'  make me stop enjoying the gift of creating pretty things.