The sincerest form of flattery?
Remember that old saying about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery? Maybe we can take that one step further. We recently learned that various sites and blogs are offering PDF scans of our Famous Artists textbooks—free. The people who scanned them and the people who downloaded them can’t say enough wonderful things about them, raving about how thrilled they are to be able to study and learn from this classic instruction by some of the great American illustrators.
Let’s leave aside for the moment the uncomfortable fact that these materials are copyright protected, and therefore to scan them for public use is theft. What these enthusiasts don’t realize is that our textbooks are just one part of an integrated Course whose central feature is the personal critiques by real artist-instructors—that as good as our textbooks are, the full Course, including the critiques and the one-on-one attention from instructors, is a hundred times better as a learning experience.
And not only that: we are about to launch a revised and updated version of the Famous Artists Course built on the classic material that is so highly regarded, but expanded to include even more color and demonstrations.
We’re delighted that there are so many artists and potential artists out there who love our materials. But let’s be fair. We’re still in business, our books are still in print, and our complete Courses are the most thorough and in-depth method of art instruction ever developed—and the best is yet to come!
Dear Magdalen:
FYI I have seen several of these sites and have made an attempt to reply ( where it was possible)
that FAS will beat anyone “out there” on art instruction !Also, us “old grads” are anxiously waiting the appearance of the NEW course ! And like myself, those “artsy” grandkids in our family will be given an opportunity to take the FAS YPAC when they are the right age.
Feel free to use any of Hank’s corrections of my work for promoting the School.
John Lankford
PS-One important thing that made FAS so important was that it motivated you to do your best because a ” real artist” was going to take a peek at it. You just did not want to send him a piece of junk.
Having to “make a presentation” to your instructor is a motivation!to improve!! So, the $ spent on the Course is well-worth it even if on that fact alone.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/05 at 05:41 PMThanks, John—we appreciate anything you can do to get the word out! We’re getting close to having the new Course ready, so watch this space for details.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/05 at 06:03 PMHi!
I must admit that I had no idea the FAS was still in business when I found the online pdf’s, although I had heard a great deal of praise for the courses elsewhere. You are absolutely correct in saying that the files are only half of the course, lacking the important personal element provided by a tutor.
Might I suggest that you use this situation as an opportnity? The files are out now, it’s simply isn’t possible from a technical point of view to stop people from distributing them. It might be an idea to now distribute this particular course for free yourselves from this website. This will of course probe you to be unanimously the ‘good guys’, but will more importantly give you a fantastic opportunity to upsell with personal tuition.
This is potentially some very lucrative publicity you are looking at here and a rare opportunity if you treat it as such. Many companies would pay an advertising company millions of dollars to come up with a scheme like this.
Of course, the decision is yours and you would be well within your rights to simply close the doors on this matter and carry on as you are.
Kind regards,
Biggles Bristol
Posted by Biggles on 01/08 at 03:44 PM
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