What do I want for Christmas this year? How do I explain to someone that I want something cool? Not what they think is cool, but what I think is cool (other people's cool is usually not very cool).

 

I ran a survey last week and more than 230 artists answered a series of questions of what they want for Christmas this year. Times, they are a-changing, as you will see from the results. You can find this survey online at www.SurveyMonkey.com/s/artistgifts. I'm leaving the survey open so you can take it too.

Artists are very particular about supplies they like to work with. It used to be that we all had our favorite brand of pencils, only used certain pens, preferred a particular paper and only worked with one type of paint.

Over the last few years, artists preferred tools are no longer instruments to make physical art. Our preferred tools are for making virtual art. The top two requested supplies this year are software (more than 60%) and computers. While pencils take the 3^rd position, lessons and subscriptions (presumably to learn how to make better use of those faster computers and upgraded software) take up the next spots.

I'm always fascinated by lists like this survey. While all artists share creativity, we vary greatly in how we look at the world. One artist asked for the desire to improve their craft and patience to actually draw something. At first glance it may seem hard to give the gift of desire, but that's exactly what artists get out of incredible art books and toys (especially really cool maquettes).

When artists talk about the books they'd like to get, the list is incredibly varied. One common theme are the Art of… books, based on our favorite animations and sci-fi/action flicks. This year I also saw the request for more training books than I've ever seen before. Software advances so quickly that it's hard to keep up. That's an annoying issue we all share. As much as I hate HAVING to learn new software all the time, the new things software can do are really awesome.

A number of people also want books on marketing for artists and books on storyboarding. Luckily, I've got just the books for you (here comes a sales pitch). Take a look at my link at the bottom of this article for books I've written on these subjects, Thriving Artist CDs and other books I recommend. For those of you who asked for my books on the survey, thank you, thank you, thank you.

The incredible list of books requested in the survey has given me tons of ideas for books I now want that I didn't even know existed. Take a look at the Survey Results link below and you're sure to find more books you didn't even know you wanted (but you really, really do).