You have heard of Cher, Madonna, and Prince, but let me introduce you to a social media rockstar artist, ‘Nemo’. Nemo is a unique individual who has successfully found his own personal flair and artistic voice, drawing with the pencil.
In fact, last year Nemo wrote a popular guest post on this very subject entitled, How to Find Your Own Artistic Voice. Nemo’s popularity has grown to where he gave up his 40 hour a week career as a graphic designer to meet his fine art demands. Last year, I met Nemo on Twitter and was impressed with his beautiful, intricate and unusual circle pencil drawings, and his fun personality. I am glad I found Nemo and can share him with you… 😉
“PowerArtists are the social media ‘rockstars’ of the art world! Not only are they talented creatives, but they understand how to harness the power of social media and use it to promote their art careers. #PowerArtists are inspiring and freely share their knowledge with others.”
Nemo, a native of Texas, lives with his wife in a historic home less than one mile away from The Alamo. He has a background in architectural and graphic design, but now Nemo and Hannah enjoy traveling the country in their RV, participating in art festivals.
Strictly a pencil artist, Nemo uses various line weights combined with multiple styles of circles, spirals and swirls to compose his subjects. The entire image is drawn freehand with a #2 pencil with an accent of colored pencil on vellum drafting paper. Nemo finds the real beauty in the complexity of details made with the most primitive of tools – the pencil.
Describe a typical day in the life of a #PowerArtist.
PowerArtist, I love the sound of that, I might just sit around all day saying it over and over to myself. Maybe I could be the one SuperPowerArtist of the bunch? What do you think? I promise to only use my art for good.
Ok, I have a few basic types of days in my life…
The first type of day: This is a “Show Day” (which is most weekends). We wake up at a Walmart near the show and we make coffee and drive over to the show site. We lug all our stuff over to our spot and set up, it takes about an hour to get the tent up, hang art and set out our tables. Then its show time – we wheel and deal all day long. Typical art festival life. Then after the day long or 2, 3 or even 4 day long shows (the 4 day shows are killer), our feet are killing us and our voices are nearly gone from all the talking.
Our bodies are hurting from putting up with heat, wind, rain or whatever nature wants to throw at us.
©2011 Nemo
The second type of day: This is a “Traveling Day“. This one is easy – we wake up when we feel like getting up and we drive about 5 hours to a rest stop, Walmart or friend’s house for the night. I also try it get in an hour or 2 or 3 of drawing when we stop. Its really crazy to get going on these days, we sometime drive around looking for wi-fi, looking for water to fill our tanks, places to dump and all the time trying to keep the art coming.
The third type of day: “Work Day”, is the best. Sometimes we find ourselves in an RV park or a place where we are plugged in for the day, have water and can stay there for a few days. I try to get up around 5 or 6 and I type out a little free writing (about a page or two) then I make coffee wake the wife up and as I drink my coffee, I blog a bit. After we eat and get ready to take on the day we get to work. Its about 9 or 10.
©2011 Nemo
I draw like a guy about to get his hands cut off and my wife Hannah does everything else, and I mean everything else. I joke about how she really does everything, I only draw the circles. We go on till about 6 or 7 then we have dinner, I will work a bit on other stuff that’s not my main work or we walk an art walk or whatever we can find, hang out with the locals if we can. Then we knock out and repeat.
Nemo and his devoted wife, Hannah Give an example of how you use social media to promote your art career.
We use social media to find places to park our RV all the time and to build a following before we show up to a city or to keep tabs on people when we are away from them.
The best story I have is of a girl I had been chatting with for a while before I even had a show to do. I booked a show in her town, and I let her know we were on our way. She tweeted me back and in a little time she showed up in my booth and we hugged like old friends. It’s a strange feeling to meet someone for the first time and feel like you have known each other forever. She ended commissioning me and invited us to have dinner at her house when the piece was done. We dropped it off and had a great time and even got to park the RV out in front of her house.
I try hard to add as many people as I can to Facebook or Twitter while I’m out and about. Really, I can just go on and on about how social media has helped me or how I work it, but it will all just start sounding the same.“All I need to say is social media works if you work it.” ~Nemo
If you could meet any artist: past, present, or future, who would it be and why?
I would love to meet every artist out there. If there’s any artist out there who wants to hang out, chat about art or just have a drink and shoot the sh*t. I am game and chances are I will be coming to your town for a show. But, if you want a name I would want to have lunch with Banksy. At the fanciest place in New York and we will both be wearing monkey masks and boxers, we will have PB and J’s and water and talk about pirate ships.
If your art could be displayed anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
Well, I’m 9 months into a USA art tour, so I guess in a way my art is going to be displayed in every state. But, if I had to narrow it down anymore than just saying I want my art everywhere, I am shooting for getting gallery representation in every city with a basketball, football or baseball team.
Something about these cities is what helps us do good in the city. I have no idea what it is, maybe it’s the size of the city.
What sage advice would you give an artist who is just starting out in his/her career?
I really only have one thing to say to an artist starting out: WORK!
Yup, that’s it.
Produce piece after piece after piece. I think the only reason I am where I am is that I bust my ass everyday all day.- Talent has little to do with it.
- Luck has almost nothing to do with it.
- …and there is no right or wrong way to do anything.
The only thing that successful artists really have in common is that they work hard at what they do.
So what the hell are you still doing reading this? Go work and don’t stop till you’re dead and hopefully all your hard work will keep working long after you’re gone!As a #PowerArtist, what do you do to ‘give back’ or ‘pay it forward’ to your community.
©2011 Nemo I blog as much as I can about my process and I never, ever sugar coat anything. So, whether I am doing great or not, I write about.
I notice in most blogs people never talk about the down times. But, in books there’s always moments when the main character is down and out. As seen on TV over and over people fail and fail and we all love to see how they are going to come out on top. So, I have always wanted to be the one telling the story as it happens, not when its over and only high lighting the good parts.
Hopefully artists following me can pick up on things that might work for them. Its all about trial and error and doing more of what’s working and less of what’s not. Not to mention I answer all questions and get back to everyone no matter what.*****
I hope you all enjoyed this interview as much as I did! Thanks Nemo for such a enjoyable and inspirational interview. It is a pleasure to add you to the PowerArtist family! ~Lori
Check out Nemo’s blog (You can read Nemo’s blog if you want to know about my RV living!)
http://artbynemo.blogspot.com/
Nemo’s website
http://www.artbynemo.com/
Follow Nemo on Twitter!
If you want to learn more about drawing, I recommend you check out these wonderful books on drawing (and many more) from Northlight Books!
You might like these other interesting articles:
5 Websites to Help You Learn to Draw
Using Colored Pencil to Create Fine Art
The Healthy Artist: Tips to Help You Stay that Way
10 Helpful Ways to Overcome Spring Fever in the Art Studio
Artistic Temperament: What to Do When it Strikes!
How to Jump-Start Your Art Career
Inbound or Outbound: which Direction is Your Art Marketing Going?
3 Tips for Artists to Promoted Themselves and Their Galleries
Vancouver, Canada: 3D Art, Architecture and the Aquarium
3 Reasons to Start a Creative Blog for Your Business
Boost Productivity with Short Studio Sessions
How to Overcome 3 Common Barriers to Success as an Artist
7 Creative Ways to Approach an Art Gallery for Representation
…oh, and let’s meet on Facebook and Twitter! ~Lori
What do you think about Nemo the pencil artist???
Very smart gentleman Mr. Nemo! Nice interview, I am glad I got to meet Nemo here on your blog. Always love to hear different perspectives and learn something new. I loved especially what his secret to success is: work. My philosophy, too.
Heading over to Nemo’s blog now 🙂
Franziska San Pedro
The Abstract Impressionist Artress
Hi Franziska…I love how you signed your name this time – ‘Artress’! I am glad you enjoyed Nemo’s interview. We three share the same philosophy…in fact, I better get back to painting right now!
Cheers-
Lori
It is great to read even more about Nemo, whose blog I’ve followed for a long time. His straight-forward way of sharing what he encounters and what he thinks about it is really refreshing. Thank you for doing this interview with him as I love reading more about how he is faring! I guess you realize he doesn’t live near the Alamo anymore, but is totally on the road in that fabulous, specially out-fitted van! I hope he makes it the the east coast sometime so I can actually meet him!
Hello Lynne and thanks for stopping by for a comment. I am glad you enjoyed this interview. Nemo is a real character and I hope to meet he and his wife in person someday too. I love his circles…very original.
Take care-
Lori
Wow great article Nemo. Don’t get a big head now. Nice work. I especially liked the Japones inspired piece.
Hello Ray, yes Nemo is a talented character. I enjoy both his work and personality. Thanks for stopping by.
Lori