Chewing Pencils

There are stacks of pro-cartoonists with blogs these days, and many of them happily share their thoughts on what it takes to make some money from drawing. These are two posts that recently caught my eye that I think Chewing Pencils readers will like:
Marketing Yourself as a Freelancer on Tom Richmond’s MAD blog. Tom suggests getting […]

When I started Chewing Pencils, my main aim was to share what I’ve learnt in my journey from hobby doodler to professional cartoonist, in the hope that others would also see some of their drawing dreams become reality. In the six months that I’ve writing this blog, I’ve been encouraged by the emails I’ve received from people […]

This arrived from Rob Reid:
I found your e-mail on the chewing pencils site.
I used to draw editorial cartoons for my university newspaper. Now that I’ve graduated I’d like to continue drawing the occasional cartoon. I can’t resist new subjects (targets?) like Kim Jong Il.
I’ve sent submissions to local newspapers but they don’t show […]

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m away for the next few days and will be out of computer contact…kind of nice really!
There are a couple of post scheduled to appear while I’m gone, but I won’t be able to respond to any emails until I get back. So if you do send something, it will probably be […]

I’m off for some quiet retreat time this week as part of my preparation for the year. It gives me an opporuntity to make some plans and think through some ideas in a way in which the normal hectic schedule doesn’t allow for.
As art of my retreat time, I like to read. Which, along with […]

Can you tell me how to start. I know somebody who is not a professional cartoonist. But really is doing good cartoons. How do you usually start this kind of hobby or work at home small business. Please advise me on what to do to convince  him to submit his work. Where should we start.molly
The […]

Karla contacted me last week with a question about how to go about turning her illustrations into an animated show for television. Honestly, I wouldn’t have a clue, but thought I’d post the question here in case anybody else had some insight to share.
Hi Matt, My name is Karla Lee from Sydney and I […]

An interesting article from Robert McMillan on how the printed newspaper hardly registers on the radar of most school students. Schools are turning to the internet for their teaching.
A quote:
More US teachers are using national and international online news sites in the classroom, leaving behind newspapers that fail to grasp the Internet’s importance in trying […]

Every so often I come across a nightmare client. They have no idea what they really want, but whatever you present is wrong. Their list of changes to ‘finished’ artwork keeps growing longer, they rarely pay on time, plead ignorance when it comes to copyright even though it’s been spelt out to them and […]

An unexpected area of interest a few months ago was this post on ‘monetizing’ your website. Basically I shared some of the things I had learnt about generating a secondary income through my website by using the different forms of advertising you see scattered around Chewing Pencils.
I’m still a learner when it comes to this […]