Appx. 2hrs max.
"The only time 'success' comes before 'work' is in the dictionary."
Really wanted to go to bed last night after work, but decided to get something done. It's usually not that difficult to know what we should be doing and it's not really a matter of forcing yourself to do it. It's more about coming up with a good enough excuse to want to do it. Lying down in a big comfy bed when you're tired seems to have immediate payoffs, whereas a blank canvas or sheet of paper can look uncertain or even scary. But often, we're just getting ahead of ourselves.
I'm definitely one who has had to struggle with fear and laziness. As students, I think some of us, like myself, get caught up in this sort of 'end goal' or vision of success that we want to see for ourselves. It's of course smart to have goals, but sometimes I find myself dwelling on it.
Thinking to yourself things like "ugh, look at my stuff, I have such a long way to go" or "It'll take me years to get that good! My work is so crappy right now" ....and I could go on and on. You get the idea. Thoughts like that can hinder you from even starting something.
Endurance is key, but thinking of all this 'becoming an artist' stuff as a race implies that your trying to get somewhere, or that there is a final result. There is no final result or point. You can keep learning until the day your 100 years old. The process that your going through at the present moment while you work on each new piece is what is important. The past and future don't even exist. Learning to savor each moment and not thinking about all your fear of the future, whether it's:
"Will this piece be any good?"
or
"How old will I be before I become a professional?", I believe these thoughts will only slow you down in the end. Instead, if we were more mindful of the present and turned these into:
"How can I make this better?"
or
"If I do another illustration right now, I'll get better right now." ...well then we'd be keeping that snowball effect going and we would keep getting better and learning more (and faster).
Anyways, this is what I'm going to try and keep mindful of in 2009.
Happy New Year to everyone!
5 comments:
yay! you did it! that man looks serious. did you use yellow?
yais, a little Indian Yellow.
very well put sir!
stumbled on your blog and wanted to say this is a pretty inspiring post! last night i did the going to bed thing because i was "so tired" but in the future will try to be more disciplined!
You pretty much read my mind - that's exactly what I need to be doing as well.
Thanks for the push.
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