Richard Solomon Interview

[Jason Manley]

Hello ConceptArt.Org,


Recently I had the honor of interviewing the top artist representative working in the field of illustration and large scale mural work, Richard Solomon of http://www.richardsolomon.com/

You can grab the phone interview podcast here: http://www.conceptart.org/podcast/ or subscribe on iTunes by searching for conceptart
under podcasts.

We discussed a number of important issues artists face in the industry today and shared ideas on where things are headed in the future. I learned a lot during the conversation and think you will too.

Richard represents a group of phenomenal illustrators including:

Kent Barton
James Bennett
Tim Bower
John Collier
Paul Cox
Rick Farrell
Chris Gall
Rudy Gutierrez
Sterling Hundley
David Johnson
Gary Kelley
Murry Kimber
Liz Lomax
Gregory Manchess (whom many of you know from his work here in the community)
John Mattos
Yan Nascimbene
Bill Nelson
C.F. Payne
Peter de Sève
Douglas Smith
Mark Summers
and
Ted Wright

His company has helped these artists to become some of the major illustrators in the world today, over the past twenty years. His clients include an A-list of companies such as National Geographic, TIME, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Road and Track, Paramount, Disney, Barnes and Noble and many others. His illustrators have won many awards and are well known educators who share their knowledge freely and openly with artists and students alike. With more than 8000 successfully completed projects, this crew is prolific, professional, and inspiring and Richard has been the major force for business in their careers.


Richard has a beautiful website showcasing his other company, Art on a Grand Scale. http://www.artonagrandscale.com/ is the link. He has put together a stellar group of 33 artists and is now covering the urban, corporate and architectural landscape with absolutely beautiful works. Art on a Grand Scale transforms generic spaces into provocative places of inspiration. Richard is responsible for generating the work that feeds and keeps all these people doing great projects. Together they create beauty for their clients. It does not get much better than that.


Further information, as well as important articles related to the world of art, can be found on his blog: http://richardsolomon.com/confab/



Best Regards and please enjoy,



Jason

[Grief]

thanks, listening to it now

[Jason Manley]

There is some great stuff on his websites too! Worth the click. I promise.

I found his comments on style and getting started to be totally on point.

Thanks for the help Davi!

[Zaxser]

For a couple minutes back there, your banner linked back to the forums. I'm enjoying listening to it right now.

[Jason Manley]

yeah...had to set it all up. We will have more of these coming...hope you like em. I did this over skype so the quality is up and down...am working on some other solutions for future interviews as well.

[Grief]

I found his comments on style and getting started to be totally on point.

yeah the point he makes about stylization and "why would a company want to hire a knock-off?" is something that should make it clear to anyone wanting to enter the client-based commercial art field that they need to have they own unique expression or voice. its also good to hear that quantity isn't as important as quality for taking jobs.

i was ignorant to the affect of stock images on the field of illustration, something i never really put together.

"an afinity to the reality of the job"
that's a good quote worth milking.

thanks again jason

[Diego]

Hey thanks jason, just listened it. very insightful for sure. Thank you again for taking the time.

[Irene Gallo]

Just listened in. Great interview. I like the point about not having still life and figure studies in a portfolio. Save em for the blog - portfolios should be geared toward the commercial work you are looking for.

Thanks!

[Farvus]

Thanks for the interview.
It gives good insight into what to look for and what to avoid. I especially liked all the words about signature style and having some art in portfolio that could be valuable for clients.

[DeadlyFreeze]

A lot of the name dropping was over my head, I don't really fallow the illustrator world but it was still quite interesting.

You gotta invest in some better equipment though. Richard sounded pretty good by Jason was all over the place. I hope to hear some more.

[Dile_]

Thanks a lot for posting this great interview.. made me very inspired ! especially the end

also cool of you to share 'your' side in between for comparison and more more info !

[Jtho]

That was a great listen-- I hope there's more content like this coming down the pipeline.

[eskanto]

Thanks much, listening to it now as well.

[Nrx]

Is there another section to this? im at 48 mins and it ended mid sentance, so much wisdom to gather !


Awesome though, thanks so much for constantly giving
Edit, dl'd it and got the whole thing

[Jason Manley]

A lot of the name dropping was over my head, I don't really fallow the illustrator world but it was still quite interesting.

You gotta invest in some better equipment though. Richard sounded pretty good by Jason was all over the place. I hope to hear some more.

It shouldnt be. I posted his website with links. If you do not know these guys, you need to. They are responsible for much of the illustration done over the past 20 years and are part of illustration history.

[DannySketch]

Thank you for the interview, really essential and interesting stuff, i hope these become a regular thing.

[Fvallejo]

thanks Jason!

Richard's artists are superb. I'm very impressed with how fast he has recovered from the crane accident.

A few of my friends have interned with him and have said he runs a tight ship but is a great person as well.

thanks again!

[Taj]

this is very exciting i hope you guys plan on keeping the podcasts more regular? Interviews from within massive black would be amazing also. Thanks for the great podcast Richard and Jason!

[squidmonk3j]

great and very relevant info!

thank you for organizing and sharing this!

[Jason Manley]

you are quite welcome.

[Elwell]

Thank you so much for this, Jason.

[Dave_]

Ty jason, i have 2x 50 minutes between classes tomorrow (high school fails) i can listen to it tomorrow, TWICE

Edit: i listened it, very cool advise wich i'm sertainly going to follow.

on a more techincal note, you where talking relatively soft in comparison to Richard. Aso, his 's'' hurted my ears the first few mins.

[Noah Bradley]

Thanks a lot to all involved in doing this.

Certainly hope the next one comes out soon.

[Serpian]

Is there a link to download the file to my computer? I'm on a slow connection and would rather download the whole file than stream it, it kept stalling and buffering.

Thanks anyway, the ten minutes I heard were great!

[Jason Manley]

Mr. Solomon has a series of candid youtube videos that are up. I am sure you will recognize some of their names. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qph0-1Fpm1g


Enjoy...


Jason

[davi]

Is there a link to download the file to my computer? I'm on a slow connection and would rather download the whole file than stream it, it kept stalling and buffering.

Thanks anyway, the ten minutes I heard were great!

The is the flash player on the podcast site, you can download from itunes, and there is a download link listed on every new update. The last update is here: http://www.conceptart.org/podcast/wp...andRichard.mp3

We prefer if people subscribe, so we know how much interest we have in the site, since we cannot track individual downloads from the direct link. With subscribes we can show other artists, companies how much interest the podcast gets so we can get bigger artists/interviews more easily.

I thank everyone for the interest in these podcasts, It's been a dream of mine for years to set this up, but I do not have the experience in art industry or contact list that Jason does, so it made little sense for me doing the interviews.

Maybe in the future we will have more interviewers around the world collectively gather interviews from the art hot-spots.


Also, sorry about the look of the website, as many people around here probably already guessed...we are not the best web designers. We can make pretty backgrounds for websites, but the insides are a struggle. I'll be working on it to the best of my ability


Keep your ears open, I hear Jason has plans for more.

[Earendil]

Greg Manchess was really cool to hear from as well. The whole 65,000 graduates per year figure was really sobering.

Thanks Jason and davi!