I don't know why I am so resistant to change sometimes. I have a way of doing things, and I like my little systems for getting things done. I used to get critiques all of the time when I was in school. People would push me to go outside of my box, and try new styles and techniques of work that would open me up to new discoveries in my artistic practice. It is always good to be willing to change. Making changes in how we work, is the only way we can make improvements. The only way to make things better is to make changes.
It is like that saying goes, "Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." If I use the same techniques and procedures to do all of my work forever; I will no longer be improving my work, and eventually will no longer be relevant.
Despite all of this I am still often resistant to change. I am a creature of habit and feel comfortable in my life of ritual. I have had pointers and suggestions about my work from several different sources, but I have been unwilling to change. I think it comes down to two things.
The first reason that I may be resistant to change is that I am lazy. I like the way that I do things. It is easy to repeat the same procedures on every art piece that I am working on, then that way I don't have to try as hard to produce something. Also the suggestions that I have received are more labor intensive than what I have been doing previously. Why should I do more work for an end result when I could just do it the easy way? This is no way to think because a better process cannot be found if I am unwilling to try a new things.
The second reason for my resistance is that my creative mind seems to be dead lately. I mean I have a list of projects that I want to work on, but they are all things that I have been doing. I will finish them, because they are what I want to do, but when it comes to working on something new none of my ideas have been able to come together into something that I can actually make. I get these hints of an idea but nothing that is strong enough yet to form the basis of a new piece.
I don't know what to do about this mental block I have against this new process. I have been waging a battle against the artist's block that has been holding me back for weeks. The only reason that I have been able to keep working is, because when I was still able to grasp things from my imagination I wrote them down and have stored up ideas to keep working on. The thing is that if I continue to battle with my creativity like I am right now I am going to run out of things to work on.
If I get the the point where I don't have anything left on my list of projects then I will become inactive. When I don't have any active projects I stop working, and go into my lazy depressed phase and don't work on anything for months.
What I need is to figure out a way to implement the suggestions people have made into my work. I need to take these things and run, use them to inspire my next pieces of art. This will kill two birds with one stone. I will be able to avoid falling into the lazy inspiration-less pit of depression, and I will be able to implement the changes to the work that will improve it. I just have to work harder at finding my next inspiration so that I can get onto making these changes.
Though I don't have any strategies to defeating a creative slump. If I keep working at it I usually come up with something. If only beating your head against the wall actually worked to help you come up with ideas. Oh, well inspiration will come and if it doesn't I will just have to do creative exercises to make them come. One way or another I will keep moving forward.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Many thanks
I have quite recently started teaching art to a kid in my area. It kind of just happened, and I am making up lessons on the fly with not real curriculum. The classes are informal and take place at my kitchen table where I do all of my own art, but it is kind of fun.
Getting ready to teach each week has made me reflect on lessons I had when I was learning how to draw and do art. It has also made me thankful for all of the art teachers I have had through the years. I don't really think I would have discovered my love for art without out them.
I have one teacher in particular that I am especially grateful for. She taught outside of school like I am with this kid. I learned things that no in-school art teacher would have ever gotten to. She was and is still an actual practicing artist. I learned from someone who makes art that I admire. It was great to gain insight that is so fundamental to my own art practice.
The most important thing that she taught me was how to see. She taught me the difference between symbols we use to communicate and the lines of the real world. In our lessons she broke me out of the habit that most people never break, that compulsion to draw with symbols rather than drawing with their eyes. I am a very logical person and at times it can be quite difficult for me to see real life through the symbols that permeate our lives. Up until the point in my life where I had that lesson, I had always thought that I didn't posses the skill to become an artist. I thought the most creative thing I could do was write. I was pretty sure that I would end up doing some kind of average desk job.
I have leaned to see the shapes of things. I have learned the difference between the weird almond shape that has a circle inside it that is a symbol for a eye and what a real eye looks like. I didn't know what I was doing when I was learning these lessons. They were just assignments. She managed to teach us without us realizing just what it was that we were learning. Now that I know what she was teaching I am eternally grateful for these lessons.
With the new objective I have to teach another how to draw, I feel like I can actually do this. She prepared me so well with the fundamentals of drawing and the lessons she taught me were simple enough I feel like I could easily pass on this learning to others. She broke down the concept of drawing so well for me that I feel like anyone could learn to draw if they had the desire to.
I am so thankful for the gift she gave me, that I have learned how to express myself through art. I don't know that I could ever express to her how much I appreciate this skill in my life. Though I may not ever see her again I just needed to share my gratitude for her lessons. I would not be the person I am today if I had never attended her classes. They became the direction of my life and continue to help me as make my way through this world.
I don't know who I would be without art, but I am thankful for what it has done for me in my life.
Getting ready to teach each week has made me reflect on lessons I had when I was learning how to draw and do art. It has also made me thankful for all of the art teachers I have had through the years. I don't really think I would have discovered my love for art without out them.
I have one teacher in particular that I am especially grateful for. She taught outside of school like I am with this kid. I learned things that no in-school art teacher would have ever gotten to. She was and is still an actual practicing artist. I learned from someone who makes art that I admire. It was great to gain insight that is so fundamental to my own art practice.
The most important thing that she taught me was how to see. She taught me the difference between symbols we use to communicate and the lines of the real world. In our lessons she broke me out of the habit that most people never break, that compulsion to draw with symbols rather than drawing with their eyes. I am a very logical person and at times it can be quite difficult for me to see real life through the symbols that permeate our lives. Up until the point in my life where I had that lesson, I had always thought that I didn't posses the skill to become an artist. I thought the most creative thing I could do was write. I was pretty sure that I would end up doing some kind of average desk job.
I have leaned to see the shapes of things. I have learned the difference between the weird almond shape that has a circle inside it that is a symbol for a eye and what a real eye looks like. I didn't know what I was doing when I was learning these lessons. They were just assignments. She managed to teach us without us realizing just what it was that we were learning. Now that I know what she was teaching I am eternally grateful for these lessons.
With the new objective I have to teach another how to draw, I feel like I can actually do this. She prepared me so well with the fundamentals of drawing and the lessons she taught me were simple enough I feel like I could easily pass on this learning to others. She broke down the concept of drawing so well for me that I feel like anyone could learn to draw if they had the desire to.
I am so thankful for the gift she gave me, that I have learned how to express myself through art. I don't know that I could ever express to her how much I appreciate this skill in my life. Though I may not ever see her again I just needed to share my gratitude for her lessons. I would not be the person I am today if I had never attended her classes. They became the direction of my life and continue to help me as make my way through this world.
I don't know who I would be without art, but I am thankful for what it has done for me in my life.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Life Lessons
I have spent the last couple of weeks preparing for my first craft show. Since actually being at the fair this weekend I have learned a few things. There are so many things I have learned, some of which don't apply to my work, I cannot put them all down, or even account for all of them now that I have time to sit down and think about it I am have listed the most important.
I would like to start with the most important thing I learned this weekend. People like my work. Having spent the last couple of months struggling with self doubt, lack of feedback from customers and viewers, and low sales has made me think that maybe I was creating a product that people didn't appreciate. It was great to have people walk past my booth and smile. Since the nature of my work is quite humorous it was fun to see people do a double take of my art laugh and then move in to see more. Even though I am for the most part an introvert it was also nice to get a little attention for my work from people other than family and friends. I didn't even care if the person bought anything in the end. I felt happy just getting to see their reaction to my art. Learning that people liked my art made me want to continue on with this venture. My faltering confidence has had the boost it needs to keep going on.
I have also learned about the cost of a craft fair. I won the booth, which was great because I had a substantially smaller amount to compensate for in trying to make a profit. When talking to the other venders I learned that this fair in particular may not have been the best place to go to get sales. Some of the people there were estimating that only %40 of the vendors there were even going to earn back the cost of the booth in sales. I got lucky enough that not only did I make up for my over head but had I actually paid for the booth I would have broken even.
Apparently you have to do research before you decide to be a vendor at a craft fair of any kind. Some fairs are better than others. Some fairs are more expensive than others. There are some that are pricey and you don't make your money back, while others are pricey but you get way more sales than you would at a cheap one. There are also cheap ones that make no money. There are topic specific fairs, I was just at the Oddmall you know for weird stuff. I also got invited to sell at a SciFi convention, and a Steam Punk fair. Before I decided to do another fair (that is if I decided to do this again) I need to be sure that I am selling in a fair that attracts the kind of people that would be interested in my product, and is also popular enough that I will get enough buyers to make up for my costs.
The traffic at a fair is different than internet traffic. On the internet I feel like the shear mast of information and product available in one place, and the number of views you have to get before you get a sale or even a "like" is vastly higher than what you have to do in person. Based on my observations of people, (I am an avid people watcher. Being a vendor offered me a great opportunity to sit and watch people) the fact that they left their house to come see stuff in a craft fair has already narrowed down your audience to people interested in at least seeing your stuff. Also people who have left the house are more willing to spend money, and they give your product more viewing time than what they would have done online. I tried to used my numbers from my Etsy shop to estimate how much product to bring with me. It turns out that I considerably underestimated the interest I would have in my booth. I probably would have made more sales if I had come with more product. Because as it turns out people who would have made an impulse buy at a craft fair, are also the people who will not really look at your site after they go home even if they say that they will. (Though it may still be too soon to tell on those numbers. I can only base it on what I have seen so far.)
The last lesson I learned is the most specific to my work. I have been targeting the wrong audience with my blog features and reach-outs. Somehow I have been reaching out to blogs and sites that get more traffic from the teen nerd girl. What I have learned is that though they truly appreciate my art they don't really have a use for it. They like to look at my pictures online but don't really have any kind of motivation to buy. In the end I actually made more sales to adults and in particular men. Adults have things like homes that they have to decorate. They also have stuff like money with which to pay for things. Two positives when it comes to selling art.
Guys also tend to like funny things more than girls. My booth was right next to a booth decorated as a bakery selling plushies shaped like donuts and had little kitten faces on them. Girls and women would stop all day at this booth and fawn over these cute little things while their male counterparts would stand there for the most part uninterested till they saw my booth. It was funny actually to watch Dads pull kids and husbands draw wives away from these stuffed kitty pastries to look at art. I need to find these people online. If I want to draw people in without having to do another fair I just have to find where these guys hang out when they are on the nets.
Though I don't know if I will be doing any more of these fair, I have gained a ton from the experience. Much of which I can implement without having to do another fair. I hope that I can follow through with all of this new information to improve my sales and find my success without having to pay for all of the overhead that comes with working a fair.
I would like to start with the most important thing I learned this weekend. People like my work. Having spent the last couple of months struggling with self doubt, lack of feedback from customers and viewers, and low sales has made me think that maybe I was creating a product that people didn't appreciate. It was great to have people walk past my booth and smile. Since the nature of my work is quite humorous it was fun to see people do a double take of my art laugh and then move in to see more. Even though I am for the most part an introvert it was also nice to get a little attention for my work from people other than family and friends. I didn't even care if the person bought anything in the end. I felt happy just getting to see their reaction to my art. Learning that people liked my art made me want to continue on with this venture. My faltering confidence has had the boost it needs to keep going on.
I have also learned about the cost of a craft fair. I won the booth, which was great because I had a substantially smaller amount to compensate for in trying to make a profit. When talking to the other venders I learned that this fair in particular may not have been the best place to go to get sales. Some of the people there were estimating that only %40 of the vendors there were even going to earn back the cost of the booth in sales. I got lucky enough that not only did I make up for my over head but had I actually paid for the booth I would have broken even.
Apparently you have to do research before you decide to be a vendor at a craft fair of any kind. Some fairs are better than others. Some fairs are more expensive than others. There are some that are pricey and you don't make your money back, while others are pricey but you get way more sales than you would at a cheap one. There are also cheap ones that make no money. There are topic specific fairs, I was just at the Oddmall you know for weird stuff. I also got invited to sell at a SciFi convention, and a Steam Punk fair. Before I decided to do another fair (that is if I decided to do this again) I need to be sure that I am selling in a fair that attracts the kind of people that would be interested in my product, and is also popular enough that I will get enough buyers to make up for my costs.
The traffic at a fair is different than internet traffic. On the internet I feel like the shear mast of information and product available in one place, and the number of views you have to get before you get a sale or even a "like" is vastly higher than what you have to do in person. Based on my observations of people, (I am an avid people watcher. Being a vendor offered me a great opportunity to sit and watch people) the fact that they left their house to come see stuff in a craft fair has already narrowed down your audience to people interested in at least seeing your stuff. Also people who have left the house are more willing to spend money, and they give your product more viewing time than what they would have done online. I tried to used my numbers from my Etsy shop to estimate how much product to bring with me. It turns out that I considerably underestimated the interest I would have in my booth. I probably would have made more sales if I had come with more product. Because as it turns out people who would have made an impulse buy at a craft fair, are also the people who will not really look at your site after they go home even if they say that they will. (Though it may still be too soon to tell on those numbers. I can only base it on what I have seen so far.)
The last lesson I learned is the most specific to my work. I have been targeting the wrong audience with my blog features and reach-outs. Somehow I have been reaching out to blogs and sites that get more traffic from the teen nerd girl. What I have learned is that though they truly appreciate my art they don't really have a use for it. They like to look at my pictures online but don't really have any kind of motivation to buy. In the end I actually made more sales to adults and in particular men. Adults have things like homes that they have to decorate. They also have stuff like money with which to pay for things. Two positives when it comes to selling art.
Guys also tend to like funny things more than girls. My booth was right next to a booth decorated as a bakery selling plushies shaped like donuts and had little kitten faces on them. Girls and women would stop all day at this booth and fawn over these cute little things while their male counterparts would stand there for the most part uninterested till they saw my booth. It was funny actually to watch Dads pull kids and husbands draw wives away from these stuffed kitty pastries to look at art. I need to find these people online. If I want to draw people in without having to do another fair I just have to find where these guys hang out when they are on the nets.
Though I don't know if I will be doing any more of these fair, I have gained a ton from the experience. Much of which I can implement without having to do another fair. I hope that I can follow through with all of this new information to improve my sales and find my success without having to pay for all of the overhead that comes with working a fair.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Scared
I love my Etsy store. It is kind of a non-committal way of trying to sell my wares. It is a hand's off way of putting myself out there. I don't have to talk, I don't have to see the people who are looking at my work. It is nice because I am usually a introvert. I'm sure that this is the reason that so many people have their own Etsy shops. It is easy to just throw stuff up there, and let people look around your shop without having to be that annoying shop owner; making sure that people are enjoying their shopping experience, and that they have found everything they are looking for.
That is great and all, but if I want to get noticed, and actually make sales, then I cannot be just one of these thousands of people who haphazardly put up goods on a website, and then lean back and hope that someone likes their iPhone pic of their crocheted scarf. (I'm not trying to be judgmental, maybe that works for them, but this doesn't work for me.) The thing is that so many people are doing the same things, I need do more than that to get noticed, and find the kind of success I am actually looking for.
This means that I am going to have to go beyond the comfort of my computer chair and art table, and talk to people in real life. This weekend I have my first booth in a craft fair. (http://oddmallseattle.wordpress.com/ ) It is great that I have this opportunity, but I am starting to freak out. I haven't shown my art in a public space since college. That is almost 5 years of distance from the art community. I have been losing sleep with worry that I am going to take this great chance to get back into the art world and totally crash and burn.
There are many reasons that I feel like I am not going to do well. Most just lead back to the fact that I am introverted and don't socialize well with strangers. I get the feeling that I am going to look like this. Obviously I won't be asking strangers for their hand in marriage, but I will be asking for their attention, their opinions of my work, and in the end their money. It just makes me shake with fear that I am going to fail at one of the most basic skills of being human: communication.
My stomach has felt full of rocks and butterflies all week knowing that I signed myself up for this. I like to live a logical life, and use reason to get through my struggles, and also get out of unpleasant situations. But this time my fear of the entire encounter is getting in the way of my ability to think my way out. I know what I needs to be done, but I am worried that I don't posses the skill to be likable, interesting, and informative in a manner that will sell people on my work. I keep hoping there is a way around this feeling so that I can move on (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pspcBpqUlRY), but it will not be that easy, everything worth doing never is.
I don't know when I became such a wimp when it come to social situations, but I cannot make any excuses. I know that this is not only good for my sales, to get it out in the public eye, but it is also good for me. I need to get uncomfortable in order to make any kind of progress towards becoming better at this.
We have been learning how to interact with people since the day we were born, I just don't understand where my fear of it has come from over the years. I am old enough that all of my years of practice should make me a pro at talking to others, but at some point I learned to fear it. This will just not do, so this weekend I take the plunge back into the art world, and relearn some of those communication skills I seem to have forgotten. Despite my fear this will get done.
That is great and all, but if I want to get noticed, and actually make sales, then I cannot be just one of these thousands of people who haphazardly put up goods on a website, and then lean back and hope that someone likes their iPhone pic of their crocheted scarf. (I'm not trying to be judgmental, maybe that works for them, but this doesn't work for me.) The thing is that so many people are doing the same things, I need do more than that to get noticed, and find the kind of success I am actually looking for.
This means that I am going to have to go beyond the comfort of my computer chair and art table, and talk to people in real life. This weekend I have my first booth in a craft fair. (http://oddmallseattle.wordpress.com/ ) It is great that I have this opportunity, but I am starting to freak out. I haven't shown my art in a public space since college. That is almost 5 years of distance from the art community. I have been losing sleep with worry that I am going to take this great chance to get back into the art world and totally crash and burn.
There are many reasons that I feel like I am not going to do well. Most just lead back to the fact that I am introverted and don't socialize well with strangers. I get the feeling that I am going to look like this. Obviously I won't be asking strangers for their hand in marriage, but I will be asking for their attention, their opinions of my work, and in the end their money. It just makes me shake with fear that I am going to fail at one of the most basic skills of being human: communication.
My stomach has felt full of rocks and butterflies all week knowing that I signed myself up for this. I like to live a logical life, and use reason to get through my struggles, and also get out of unpleasant situations. But this time my fear of the entire encounter is getting in the way of my ability to think my way out. I know what I needs to be done, but I am worried that I don't posses the skill to be likable, interesting, and informative in a manner that will sell people on my work. I keep hoping there is a way around this feeling so that I can move on (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pspcBpqUlRY), but it will not be that easy, everything worth doing never is.
I don't know when I became such a wimp when it come to social situations, but I cannot make any excuses. I know that this is not only good for my sales, to get it out in the public eye, but it is also good for me. I need to get uncomfortable in order to make any kind of progress towards becoming better at this.
We have been learning how to interact with people since the day we were born, I just don't understand where my fear of it has come from over the years. I am old enough that all of my years of practice should make me a pro at talking to others, but at some point I learned to fear it. This will just not do, so this weekend I take the plunge back into the art world, and relearn some of those communication skills I seem to have forgotten. Despite my fear this will get done.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
The Skies Open Up
I have been having a rather hard time trying to feel good about my work recently. I have had some mild success selling. I have had several different features on different blogs, and I have been working hard to get the word out about my art, but have seen very little return on my efforts. I know that if I don't get the work out there no one will see it, and there will be now sales at the end of the day. I have been investing a ton of effort into networking and such, but even with all of the work and, even attention that I have had I have still been rather unsuccessful at selling.
It is funny like that. I have all of these high expectations for the return for my effort in this, but I have not seen what I had wanted. I dump so much hope into something so little. I know that I could increase my efforts, but when I don't get any reward for my current effort it is hard to want to put more into it.
So the last couple of weeks I have been contemplating just quitting entirely. I had been thinking that the money, and effort that I have put into this art, and store in the last year in a half has seen minimal return. I have not made back the money I have spent let alone made up for my labor. I was really just done with the whole thing.
I have been thinking about a lot of things lately. It's the change of seasons that makes me do this. I am pretty sure every time summer comes around I get this itch to change my life around in one way or another. Most goals, changes, hair cuts, and things of that nature happen around this time of year. I think it is because my mind has been programed by the end of the school year to think that this time of year is a time for transition.
Anyways, I was thinking about shutting down my shop. It was making me sad to give up on this, but I just couldn't justify spending any more money on this venture that wasn't making any return. We are trying to save up for some big things, and my desire to sell art that wasn't selling was just going to have to be put on hold.
Then the clouds rolled back and two things happened. The first is that I got a sale, like my first one since January. Then I won a free booth space in the Seattle Oddmall. It is was an uplifting weekend. It helped my to realize that maybe there was interest in my art. When I get down on myself and feel like a failure it can be just the little things that make me feel better about life again. I really only made a $15 sale of a print. It was minimal but it got my spirits back up.
To be honest one purchase is not going to save my shop, and I don't really know just how much I will actually be able to sell at this craft fair, but we will see. I have decided that the future of my shop will depend on how this next month goes.
What I need to do now is make goals. I need to measure the success of my sales for the next month, and if I make the goals that I have then I will keep the shop open. If I don't then I will start to shut things down. I need to have a duel mind when it comes to these things. I need to hope for the best sales, but be prepared for the fact that I may not make my goals and will need to end this venture for now.
I'm not saying that I will shut down my shop forever. I think that it was a good thing for me to open this shop. I have learned a lot about networking. I have learned about how to run the finances of a small business. I have learned how to sell. I have also been more interest in making and following through with goals. It has been great, I will just have to put it on hold till we get this whole housing, and financial thing figured out. This art venture is important to me and important to making me feel productive and independent of the title of mom. (Which to be honest is great for my self-esteem to be more than just a care giver.) It gives me a sense of identity that I don't think I could ever abandon.
We will just have to see how things turn out. But this isn't the end just yet.
It is funny like that. I have all of these high expectations for the return for my effort in this, but I have not seen what I had wanted. I dump so much hope into something so little. I know that I could increase my efforts, but when I don't get any reward for my current effort it is hard to want to put more into it.
So the last couple of weeks I have been contemplating just quitting entirely. I had been thinking that the money, and effort that I have put into this art, and store in the last year in a half has seen minimal return. I have not made back the money I have spent let alone made up for my labor. I was really just done with the whole thing.
I have been thinking about a lot of things lately. It's the change of seasons that makes me do this. I am pretty sure every time summer comes around I get this itch to change my life around in one way or another. Most goals, changes, hair cuts, and things of that nature happen around this time of year. I think it is because my mind has been programed by the end of the school year to think that this time of year is a time for transition.
Anyways, I was thinking about shutting down my shop. It was making me sad to give up on this, but I just couldn't justify spending any more money on this venture that wasn't making any return. We are trying to save up for some big things, and my desire to sell art that wasn't selling was just going to have to be put on hold.
Then the clouds rolled back and two things happened. The first is that I got a sale, like my first one since January. Then I won a free booth space in the Seattle Oddmall. It is was an uplifting weekend. It helped my to realize that maybe there was interest in my art. When I get down on myself and feel like a failure it can be just the little things that make me feel better about life again. I really only made a $15 sale of a print. It was minimal but it got my spirits back up.
To be honest one purchase is not going to save my shop, and I don't really know just how much I will actually be able to sell at this craft fair, but we will see. I have decided that the future of my shop will depend on how this next month goes.
What I need to do now is make goals. I need to measure the success of my sales for the next month, and if I make the goals that I have then I will keep the shop open. If I don't then I will start to shut things down. I need to have a duel mind when it comes to these things. I need to hope for the best sales, but be prepared for the fact that I may not make my goals and will need to end this venture for now.
I'm not saying that I will shut down my shop forever. I think that it was a good thing for me to open this shop. I have learned a lot about networking. I have learned about how to run the finances of a small business. I have learned how to sell. I have also been more interest in making and following through with goals. It has been great, I will just have to put it on hold till we get this whole housing, and financial thing figured out. This art venture is important to me and important to making me feel productive and independent of the title of mom. (Which to be honest is great for my self-esteem to be more than just a care giver.) It gives me a sense of identity that I don't think I could ever abandon.
We will just have to see how things turn out. But this isn't the end just yet.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Creative Inspriations
I have made a list lately of all of the art that I want to achieve this year. The are particular pieces that I want to make for one reason or another. I am going to list them for you and me so that I don't forget that this is what I want to do later:
1. I want to do an anime inspired self portrait. I have recently gotten back into anime, and the beauty and simplify of the style of drawing really appeals to me. When I was in art classes my teachers would always get on to me because I didn't like to fill in all of my shading and detail when I was drawing faces. In the end the lack of detail actually resembled the anime style of drawing to some degree.
2. The next piece that I want to work on is another anime based item. In my head anime and the styling of Mucha's art works rather well together. When I was taking art history I fell in love with the art nouveau. The line work and shading are similar to that of the anime. Mucha style also seems to be informed a bit by the Celtic knotting which I have a love for too. It all kinds of adds up to something awesome.
3. I have my brother's name for Christmas this year. I was thinking some kind of epic dragon piece for him would be fun. Though I don't really know all of the details on that one yet. I don't know what style that I will be making it in but it should be fun to try to come up with something that will work best for him.
4. The last piece that that I have been having on my mind is a portrait of my great-grandma. I was looking through one of my old sketch books and found and unfinished version of the same picture I want do. I have this great head shot of her with her cute little bob haircut when she was young. It is beautiful. I think that I want to do this one as a watercolor and try to add color the picture that is really only in black and white.
There are still many ideas bouncing around in my head right now but none of them are as developed as these ones I have listed. I don't want to forget all of the things I want to do. So often I tell myself I am going to do something and then never get around to it because I forgot. At least if it is here, I won't forget that I want to do these things.
1. I want to do an anime inspired self portrait. I have recently gotten back into anime, and the beauty and simplify of the style of drawing really appeals to me. When I was in art classes my teachers would always get on to me because I didn't like to fill in all of my shading and detail when I was drawing faces. In the end the lack of detail actually resembled the anime style of drawing to some degree.
2. The next piece that I want to work on is another anime based item. In my head anime and the styling of Mucha's art works rather well together. When I was taking art history I fell in love with the art nouveau. The line work and shading are similar to that of the anime. Mucha style also seems to be informed a bit by the Celtic knotting which I have a love for too. It all kinds of adds up to something awesome.
3. I have my brother's name for Christmas this year. I was thinking some kind of epic dragon piece for him would be fun. Though I don't really know all of the details on that one yet. I don't know what style that I will be making it in but it should be fun to try to come up with something that will work best for him.
4. The last piece that that I have been having on my mind is a portrait of my great-grandma. I was looking through one of my old sketch books and found and unfinished version of the same picture I want do. I have this great head shot of her with her cute little bob haircut when she was young. It is beautiful. I think that I want to do this one as a watercolor and try to add color the picture that is really only in black and white.
There are still many ideas bouncing around in my head right now but none of them are as developed as these ones I have listed. I don't want to forget all of the things I want to do. So often I tell myself I am going to do something and then never get around to it because I forgot. At least if it is here, I won't forget that I want to do these things.
Bogged Down
I don't take heat very well. Summer is my least favorite season. I loath doing anything. I don't want to go out, because that means I have to put on pants and and make-up which just adds to the discomfort of the whole situation. Summer makes me want to lay on the cold tile floor in pajamas with a cool wet towel on my head, and not let anyone touch me. My body doesn't really deal with the heat very well. I get over heated, and it takes me forever to cool down. I just don't function at all in the heat.
When most people talk about all of the fun of summer, I just sit there dreading it. People talk about water parks, bbq, and sports. And I'm just over here trying to figure out all of the indoor, air conditioned places where I can hibernate for the summer. It is just not a season that gets me excited in any way at all.
Not only does the summer coming make me want to become a hermit, it also is detrimental to my work ethic. Being over heated makes me want to just lay there all day, and try to refrain from any kind of effort that would add to my body heat. I can spend hours trying to avoid any kinds of movement, or work. To be honest I cope with the heat best by taking naps, and because of that I have a record of spending most of my summers napping to avoid the heat.
It is difficult to want to do anything at all when I feel like this. I lose all kinds of motivation. Things start to fall apart during this time of year. I don't want to do art, I don't want to be creative, I would really rather just be in some kind of stasis pod on ice for the three months of summer and then revived when it is all over.
This is just not an option with the current technology of the world. So I have to muddle through like anyone else. This also means that I cannot just leave all of my art on standby till I feel like moving again. As much as I feel at the time that it is totally worth it to become a sloth for three months and not do anything, I regret it later. I feel bad that I haven't really done anything for so long. I have to make myself get back into the swing of things and I curse myself for all of the time that i have wasted. But it is just so tempting to want to curl up in the fridge and take a nap.
Summer is truly the most trying time of the year for me. I am uncomfortable, and drawn to laziness. I just need to bear down and deal with it. If it takes packing myself in ice in order to get art done then so be it. I am just going to have to be creative so that I can be just as productive during the summer as I am the rest of the year.
When most people talk about all of the fun of summer, I just sit there dreading it. People talk about water parks, bbq, and sports. And I'm just over here trying to figure out all of the indoor, air conditioned places where I can hibernate for the summer. It is just not a season that gets me excited in any way at all.
Not only does the summer coming make me want to become a hermit, it also is detrimental to my work ethic. Being over heated makes me want to just lay there all day, and try to refrain from any kind of effort that would add to my body heat. I can spend hours trying to avoid any kinds of movement, or work. To be honest I cope with the heat best by taking naps, and because of that I have a record of spending most of my summers napping to avoid the heat.
It is difficult to want to do anything at all when I feel like this. I lose all kinds of motivation. Things start to fall apart during this time of year. I don't want to do art, I don't want to be creative, I would really rather just be in some kind of stasis pod on ice for the three months of summer and then revived when it is all over.
This is just not an option with the current technology of the world. So I have to muddle through like anyone else. This also means that I cannot just leave all of my art on standby till I feel like moving again. As much as I feel at the time that it is totally worth it to become a sloth for three months and not do anything, I regret it later. I feel bad that I haven't really done anything for so long. I have to make myself get back into the swing of things and I curse myself for all of the time that i have wasted. But it is just so tempting to want to curl up in the fridge and take a nap.
Summer is truly the most trying time of the year for me. I am uncomfortable, and drawn to laziness. I just need to bear down and deal with it. If it takes packing myself in ice in order to get art done then so be it. I am just going to have to be creative so that I can be just as productive during the summer as I am the rest of the year.
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