On Being Published

I had my first magazine illustration published in 1974, when I was entering my senior year of college. The magazine was called 'the Friend',  a children's magazine for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I did many more illustrations for the Friend through the years, the latest were in 2004. I also did a few illustrations for the Ensign magazine, and for the children's publications: Turtle, Humpty Dumpty, Children's Playmate,  and Children's Digest.  I've even done a few magazine covers for Turtle.   My illustrations were all paid assignments. They ranged from pen and ink illustrations, to Prismacolor, to line art with hand cut amberlith separations, to marker renderings, to digital illustrations.

I've had digital scrapbook layouts published in Digital Scrapbook Magazine and Creating Keepsakes. The digital scrapbook published works are an entirely different matter. Being used to receiving a nice check when my illustration work was published, it was quite a shock when I discovered that these 'hobby' publications don't pay at all! I'm still not sure I'm really comfortable with publications 'honoring' the artists with a free copy of the magazine, and a nice addition to their resume, but no money. Seems kinda like they are taking advantage, and getting an entire magazine's worth of inspiration for practically nothing.  (When I say they don't pay at all, I mean that they don't pay the designers that are published in their gallery sections. They do pay modest fees for articles, tutorials, and features). But much of what you see in these kinds of magazines is 'gallery' work. But that gripe is for another day, another place.

That said, I was thrilled to stop by Barnes and Noble last night, to find that the latest edition of Somerset Digital Studio magazine had hit the shelves.  One of my layouts was featured in the magazine's gallery, and it was a full page! Somerset publishes a whole slew of amazing, highly regarded, and high quality hobby and art publications, and I am proud to have had one of my layouts picked for the Spring 2012 Digital Studio issue. My complimentary issue arrived at my mailbox at home yesterday also, but since I'm in Utah, I didn't get to see it. So, there I was, standing in the magazine section, telling a lady standing near me, about my layout! She seemed nice enough, but moved away quickly, muttering something under her breath about 'nutty lady', or something like that. I put the magazine on a chair and pulled out my iPhone to snap a couple of photos.

So, ta da, here's the actual layout for your viewing pleasure, I actually created it nearly 2 1/2 years ago, but they didn't seem to mind that it was old! I hope you don't mind either.