How to Fail and love it

At the start of this month I decided I wanted to undertake the 30 day challenge for November. I had done similar challenges before, drawing and or creating every day for one month, and I had wanted to do it again and kickstart my drawing habit. I had hoped to start work on a series of short comic strips which involved taken some already written material and translating them into 3 panel comics.

Well it didn't really happen the way I thought at all, but I'm ok with that. Something about the time period was good for me mentally. I had a good hard look at myself and all the excuses I had been making not to draw recently. I had been telling myself that with full time work and kids I should not be so hard on myself for not drawing, which to a certain extent is true. But then two truths occurred to me. Firstly, other artists I know work full time, have kids and still draw, and secondly, how much time do I spend on the web surfing twitter, Reddit and various another sites and distractions. If I just spent half that amount of time drawing then I could probably get quite a bit done. Another subsequent thought is that I don't have to be drawing and writing a graphic novel each week, the number one important thing is that I actually did work and use my time effectively  Consistency it turns our it the key to feeling creative for me.

That being said here are some things I got accomplished this past month,

1-Continued writing some comics that I had started a few months ago
2-Came up with the concept for my annual end of year/Christmas/new years card and have actually drawn it and almost finished adding the digital colours
3-Actually did get around to pencilling and inking some of the above mentioned strips I wrote, which I should be previewing soon
4-Finished the final proof on my comic 'Rose Parade', now just have to do the hard slog of fixing all the typos, left out words, etc
5-Developed a method to keep track of my drawing equipment; This sounds like a small feat, but the kids are constantly appropriating and sometimes breaking my equipment. The solution is basically just a bag with my sketchbooks, rulers, and a Ziploc bag with my pens in it
6-Discussed a future collaborative project with Jen Breach, which I feel really excited about
7-Finally ordered one of my Redbubble shirts (Ok this is not creative, but still affirmed drawing for me)
8-Got around to trying Pinterest, and after initial scepticism and social media fatigue I can say I know what people are on about. Pinterest is the future of the web in a big way (If not Pinterest then Pinterest like websites, with Pinterest functionality)

In conclusion here are some things I learnt from the experience,

1-I need to stop making excuses and just shut up and do the damn work already
2-Consistency is key in creative work, if you stop working, you start to doubt yourself and then it's all over
3-Consistency also gives you that nice artistic buzz, the reason you stick with it even though you're pretty sure most people either don't care of think you suck
4-Failing is not such a bad thing if you get a good result in the end

Comments

  1. Thank you for sharing this. I've pretty much wasted all day today similarly surfing the Internet and not getting work done...

    Looking forward to more of your work

    ReplyDelete
  2. So what is the big deal about Pinterest, if you don't mind me asking instead of just finding out for myself?

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Alexander Bunyip, it's one of those things you just have to try out but here's a point form answer
    1-It's a visual thing, for lovers of art, images, photos you are immersed in images. A feast of images you might say
    2-Install the bookmarklet and you can start pinning from anywhere on the web, it's fun and easy to do (uploading from the site is kind of slow and painful)
    3-You can create multiple boards in different areas, in effect creating streams...this means that you can also follow only certain boards of other users handy if you like their art tats but not their fashion tastes, or interest in cat pictures etc

    Two recommendations, when you sign up choose the smallest amount of boards to follow as possible (I think 3 is the minimum)I chose a whole bunch and was flooded with so many boards I wasn't interested in and it took me ages to unfollow, which interfered with me getting started. Secondly, keep in mind anything goes. Currently Pinterest is filled with a lot of crafty type thing but once you explore around a bit and follow some interesting boards you can find a lot more.
    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete

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