We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chris Dudley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chris below.

Chris, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

“Lil Boogaloo Shrimp and the Clean Sweep”, is a project recently launched with Micheal Chambers from the 1984 movies “Breakin’” and “Breakin’ 2”. This is the first book that I have authored and illustrated. It teaches kids responsibility and priority using break dancing. The story also highlights the 2024 Olympic debut of breaking! Additionally, it teaches readers a little bit about the history and origin as well as breaking terminology.

I was 8 years old when the movie came out, but it was impactful how it seemed everyone turned to dancing. This became a mainstay on the playgrounds at school. No one was fighting or arguing, everyone was either dancing or watching others do so. To many, breaking kind of “went away”, but the fact that it will now be part of the Olympics, shows how much momentum it has!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I begin drawing at a very early age, albeit not well, but that did not stop me. My desire to improve motivated me to keep learning. I actually started out doing simple drawings and t-shirt designs, because my drawing ability was lacking. I later decided to exclusively focus on drawing, to bring my skills to a level that I felt was more acceptable. This led to my entering and getting accepted into juried Art Exhibitions, which was a great confidence booster. This endeavor also helped me to improve significantly. After 15-20 years of almost exclusively focusing on realism, I turned my attention to children’s book illustration. This has been the bulk of my work for the last 10 years. Over the years, we have added Graphic Design to our offerings for clients.

It is such a pleasure to bring a client’s children’s book manuscript to life. I often tell them my goal is to illustrate the story, not the text. The latter would be redundant. The imagery and text should rely on one another, not repeat each other. Additionally, a well illustrated story creates an economy of text, as less is needed.

The approach is to always keep the client involved throughout the process. It that way, there are no surprises for either of us. The goal is a high-quality product that readers will love!

While I thoroughly enjoy working with clients, it was a lot of fun having full creative liberty as author/illustrator on my first book: “Lil Boogaloo Shrimp and the Clean Sweep”.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

It takes a lot of practice to become a decent artist. So many think it just comes naturally and effortlessly. I often relate to people how EVERYBODY learns to read, write and do math. The reason is that we are forced to do so for 13 years and tested on it throughout the entire process. Everything else is optional. It rare to come across someone that isn’t at least proficient in those three areas. Even someone who isn’t good at math, can usually count money pretty well! Lol Seriously, this explains the reason for the great divide in others abilities.

Consider, if someone offered you $100 million and gave you 1 year to run a 100m as fast as Usain Bolt (9.58), it’s an impossibility. You CAN’T do it, despite the incentive. Whereas, if given the same offer to be able to draw well on the 366th day, all of a sudden, most would make the time to practice EVERYDAY. This shows they had the potential to do it all along, but no incentive. Artists simple practiced because we loved it, the incentive was within, not the ability. It takes a long time to learn to draw well. Anyone can learned to do it. The reality is, most really don’t want to as much as they’d like to think they do!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

You go through stages as an artist, first it’s: “I can draw something that‘s recognizable.”

Then: “I can draw something that looks realistic.”

Those become easy after you’ve drawing for a given length of time. The most rewarding aspect for me now, is to be able to take all of my knowledge, ability and experience to create something that did not previously exist!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chrisdudleyart.com
• Instagram: chrisdudleyart
• Facebook: chrisdudleyart
• Linkedin: chrisdudley
• Twitter: chrisdudleyart1
• Other: www.hudsondawnpublishing.com