My creative journey 4

Every journey begins with a step...and continues with countless more. There is no end to the creative path. Only progress. To get better you have to do. Your skills, your mind, your art will not get better unless you try. And trying means you will fail a lot. But, if you keep at it, eventually you will triumph, break through, and be where you want to be. Here is another step on my journey.

Last night was another night filled with drawing, hehe.

The start was a bit lackluster. And I think I know why. The page on the far right on the cover was where it began. I tried to jump into my own head without warming up the skills and so what came out was only half formed. A small lesson for me to learn...before you try and start your run you gotta take a minute to stretch and get ready :)

Overall it was a pretty great session. It actually stretched from a couple hours at the coffee shop to several more back at my place broken up by dinner with friends in between. When I got home I was going to take a bit of a break to let my mind relax, but the draw of the marker was a bit too strong.

The follow two drawings were ones I did at the coffee shop.

Since I'm trying to figure out details, and now framing as well, I took some inspiration images and not only drew the whole thing, but also zoomed in aspects. I don't want to get too comfortable drawing just one aspect, like overall form, and suddenly feel uncomfortable just jumping into anything. Flexibility, a quality I learned was quite necessary from my 7 years shooting fashion, food, product, and portraits. The more you can do the better.

Everything is still so rough, but that's fine with me.

I mean, how are you supposed to get good at something without a lot of failure? I think that's what sabotages a lot of people in the beginning, the feeling that we should be at a certain level when we begin, or comparing ourselves to others. I mean, I get that's there's a certain industry standard when you're working commercially, but, no one is doing that at the beginning. And, even when you start working in art there's still a bit of leeway in everything. The beginning will really suck. I mean, where I started...wow...

The next one makes me cringe. But I'm still gonna show it. Why? Because I'm sick of artist hiding all of what goes on in the background. We screw up. We make things that look like crap. It's part of the process. Not everything a creative does is gold. Sure, most people advocate only showing the good stuff, and I guess in a portfolio I would, but this place is about the journey. Thus the name :)

After this drawing I had to take pause and regroup a bit. I could feel my head wasn't in the right place so I hit the reset button...

...and decided to let my brain flow now that my hands had warmed up a bit.

So much of this stuff is in its infancy. Basic skills, a vague idea, just trying to put things on to paper that look good, even if they don't make much sense. It's interesting how much the eye will deceive a viewer if things just look a certain way, hehe. The unconscious mind takes over and if it sees like and shadow in basically the right places, 'voila!' It looks good :)

This was also probably the funnest part of the night for me. I admit, I do some of these drawings to please y'all. I mean, I need to do them anyways, but that thought is always in the back of my mind, no matter how I try and rid myself of it, of, what do 'they' want to see? Which is something I'm on the edge about trying to keep or trying to rid myself of. I mean, the strongest work comes from people not caring what others think and letting their own ideas shine...but...money...

But with these I just drew.

I let my own ideas flow out. Starting from some simple lines I just let the ink do what it wanted to do. I had a few inspiration images up to get started, to keep a reference in mind, but I didn't let myself think on that too much. Our mind gets in the way too much anyways, I think. Instead of doing we start to question ourselves, our ability, our motives...and before you know it we've tripped ourselves up and bound our arms in unbreakable knots of doubt.

At this point some people reading this might thing, 'I could never do that!,' even though they really want to. Trust me, the only thing you need is the desire and will to do something. The only reason you're not, is because you're not doing. Not because you aren't good enough. I mean, yes, there are exceptions to that, but not as many as you think.

I think that some of these smaller head drawings are coming from this desire to create some stickers and patches that I can either sell or give to people.

Do you think any of them are cool enough for that? Would you buy or want one? I just sent out my first drawings the other day to my first customer...which was a super awesome, and I'm sending out more today. I admit these are going to be to my parents, but, still, cool :)

Hope you enjoyed last nights work. Gotta get started on today's :)
Wessel

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My creative journey 3
My creative journey 2
My creative journey 1

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