Child with toy lamb. Quick sketch from this morning. 2B mechanical pencil with tortillion shading.

Thumbs Up. Quick sketch from this morning. 2B mechanical pencil with tortillion shading.

Being an artist is all about making art

It’s 10:44pm Monday night as I type. I’ve been in a weird mood all night. I watched a documentary on sensory deprivation which both fascinated and horrified me. I listened to a podcast (a sermon really) titled “Contemplation and Action.” I sat here playing refrains from songs I had written.

The documentary sort of took Julia Cameron’s idea of the empty well and took it to it’s most disturbing extreme. The podcast made me realise the folly of seeking perfection – spiritual, artistic, personal, otherwise. And the music made me realise I was still sad, still nursing old wounds. And then it all starts feeding back into each of these things. I realise I was reluctant to be sad because I didn’t want to be affected, I wanted to be perfect, I wanted to be untouchable. I wanted to be completely impervious to the criticism and rejection of others. But I’m not. Infact I suspect I might be more sensitive to its effects than most. I feel bad about this and beat myself up even more.

Then I check my email. There’s a message via YouTube. Someone has commented on a video I made some time ago in which I combined chocolate, biscuit and mini marshmallows. I’ve done all kinds of weird and wonderful things on YouTube but I’ll level with you – I had no concept of how deeply controversial my combining of chocolate, biscuit and mini marshmallows was. In my defense I am very open and matter-of-fact about the whole thing. I explain that I just woke up and that I had never combined those ingredients before. But at any rate this video irritates people. They call me names, they tell me an idiot (or worse). Mostly they just tell me that I’m (shudder!) doing it wrong.

This amuses me because, honestly, at the time I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t really care to be honest. I wanted to combine chocolate, biscuit and mini marshmallows and make a video while doing that. So I did. To the extent that I achieved everything I wanted to achieve makes me think this was a raging success. But no apparently I did it wrong! So these complete strangers who happened across my video for no better reason than it is monetized and appears higher in search results for s’mores or chocolate (or something) want to retroactively shame me for doing something I wanted to do… Never mind the fact that I’m being criticised for something as trivial as preparing a snack that was to be consumed by no one but myself.

The good news is that if someone tells you you’re doing it ‘wrong’ it means simply this: you’re doing it. You’re doing that thing you want to do, you’re creating that thing that you want to see exist in this world. That it even exists is a testament to your effort and your vision, to your constant battle to tell an inner critic (and a few outer ones too) to shut the hell up. Because at the end of the day you can look yourself in the eye (with the help of a mirror) and say, “I wrote this song and you know what – no one can take that away from me.”

A former lover made me doubt my self-worth. A sibling informed me that the only way to ‘make it’ in art was to die. I parted ways with an online community I was really hoping to become a valued member of. Random people have left less-than-inspirational feedback on my work. I’ve been depressed. I’ve been unnecessarily self-critical. But somehow I came through all this and I never gave up, I kept on creating, I kept on writing and drawing and composing. Through creating I was able to make sense of the highs and lows of my existence and realign with my own values and aspirations. Through creating I am delivered back to my own hand and not influenced by malevolent bystanders. The danger isn’t ‘doing it wrong’, so much as yielding to criticism and giving up and not doing it at all. So if you’re doing it, congratulations. I hope you keep doing it. I hope you can continue to create and share and that through doing so you become a more fully realised version of yourself.

I’m getting into the habit of doing a little artwork every single day. Hopefully I can keep this habit up.

Pencil sketch (2B pencil and 2B mechanical pencil) with tortillion blending.

This is the first time I’ve drawn on black paper. This is a combination of coloured charcoal, coloured pencils and metallic pencils. I’ve bought a few different pads (black, assorted colours, acrylic canvas pad) and am curious to see what I can do with them.

I’ve also been uploading some of my work to DeviantArt. Lots of people have added my works to their favourites on the site. This completely blew me away.

By rights I should know better. I mean I am always posting encouraging videos, I’m always quoting supportive passages of The Artist’s Way. But a part of me was beginning to think that the ability to create art was perhaps something you were born with, something you either had or didn’t have, and I was beginning to think I didn’t have it. I’ve had a frustrating couple of weeks, dissatisfied with the work I’ve been producing. A part of me was thinking about packing up my art supplies for good.

But last night I drew in my sketchbook. I thought back to Lee Hammond’s instructions regarding pencil blending, and with nothing more than a 2B pencil and a tortillion I drew this sketch. It is a picture of Dailybooth user @Albatrossd. Something about doing this completely re-energised me and filled me with a sense of possibility.

I’ve been told repeatedly by certain people that I’m probably being too critical of myself, but it isn’t just that. It is just incredibly frustrating to be chipping away at something and still be left feeling like you’re getting nowhere. I’ve always wanted to be a instinctive intuitive artist but you still need some technical grounding, and Lee Hammond’s instruction has been incredibly helpful.

The nice thing is that support has been coming in from all kinds of corners.

I particularly appreciated these comments from my dear friend David because they acknowledge the attempt, the struggle. Because that’s the first obstacle – just showing up – and I really appreciate that people notice that (whether the work is good or not) I’m keeping my promise to myself to keep trying.

This video seems very timely for me. As Margaret explains creative people are bombarded with ideas and projects they’d like to do and sometimes this can overwhelm us to the point where we don’t do anything at all. (I chuckled because like Margaret I sometimes play solitaire to distract myself.)

I’ve been dabbling in a lot of things lately. Playing with different types of art supplies has made the process fun, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to good results. Similarly I run the risk of spending more time shopping for novel art tools than I do on actually creating art. I’ve decided to narrow my interests a little for the time being. I’m going to put most of my energy and time into pencil sketching (inspired by DVD instruction from Lee Hammond) and acrylic painting. I’m going to work on those things and see where they end up. (Perhaps where I end up.) I’m going to work on developing specific skills relevant to these activities. And all other distractions – such as an interest in Chinese Calligraphy – will go into the ‘maybe someday’ pile.

There’s really quite a lot to be said about the momentum created through action and the pleasure of being lost in your own process. Happy creating!

[Thanks to Mo Mapes at Lovin' Mixed Media for bring this video to my attention.]

I’ve often been a little bemused watching some of Gary Reef’s videos. He’ll present something that, to my eyes, looks extraordinary. But sometimes you’ll detect a note of unease, a kind of restlessness in him. He isn’t crazy about what he’s produced, but by the same token he often doesn’t seem able to articulate exactly why. This confused me a little… until it started happening to me. And maybe that’s the downside to this “taking a step and then reacting to that and then reacting to that” approach. You’re not exactly sure what you’re building so you’re not sure when it’s done, or if it’s working out or if it’s gone completely off the rails. There’s a certain freedom in this but then freedom can be terrifying. And often you’re only working with your emotions, how you’re feeling in a given point in space and time. Is the painting wrong or are you annoyed or restless because of some completely unrelated piece of minutia from your life?

I was rather ill last week, but I managed to create this acrylic painting on canvas. I’ve been fascinated recently by palette knives and was keen to see what I could do to with one myself.

Though I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t know what it was or if it was finished or not. It was much too abstract, much too colourful, much too… something. Much too little something else.

I have a new found appreciation for this, unfortunately three or four coats of paint later it hardly seems to matter. What it was exists only in a handful of sketchy photographs. So I wonder, how do you know when to stop? How do you know something needs to be developed and how do you know you should just leave it alone?

Dropbox is a most remarkable service that allows you to sync your files between multiple computers and devices. This in itself is incredibly helpful for anyone who works on more than one computer or device. If you’re at the office and suddenly need a file that is only on your home computer you’re stuck. Or if, like me, one of your computers is suddenly struck down for one reason or another the ability to have your most important files accessible on other devices is a real life saver.

Even more than that Dropbox serves as an automatic remote way of backing up your files. Because the files exist ‘in the cloud’ if your home was to say burn to the ground at least your files would be stored somewhere off site where they can be retrieved later.

Here are some novel uses from Tinkernut of this great service.

I realise I’ve used some bleak sounding scenarios but when it comes to backing up it is always better to be safe than sorry! And for creative people the potential loss of work if say a manuscript file ‘disappeared’ is too scary not to take seriously. Get Dropbox today, the free option gives you 2GB storage to get you started. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Just checking in, really. This has been a frustrating week dogged by illness and inner-critics and technical problems. (My laptop has picked up a nasty piece of malware which should, in theory, be easy enough to remove except that the computer struggles to load Windows in safe mode for reasons that completely elude me.) I’ve thought often about this site and you – the kind handful of people who frequent it.

I’ve thought about penning posts about all manner of things. I wanted to celebrate that despite wretched feelings and frankly wretched results I still showed up to canvas and painting and drawing tools. I wanted to muse over synchronicity when after such bad drawing I walked into the library and there in front of me was a brand new DVD tutorial on creating realistic drawings. (Though with the laptop out of action it’s been hard to watch.)

I’ve been working on this canvas. I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know what it is now, or what it might be. I don’t know whether to leave it alone or to keep tinkering with it. I don’t know if I love it or if I hate it. Hell I don’t even know which way it should be orientated…

[Click to view larger version]

Some days it’s a tight rope walk, fraught with dangers on all sides. Am I going to not do any art and feel lousy? Am I going to do some art and be unhappy with the results and feel lousy (and imagine that it’ll never get any better)? Will I pour over eBay looking for new and exciting art supplies – because, somehow, new art supplies brings a promise of possibility. (Though it also tends to bring home the reality of current limitations when put into practice.)

I think to myself that I am a wordy person and probably have no business making visual representations, let alone visual art.

And yet some people have said some very nice things about my efforts, and I don’t think they’re just being polite. Clearly the average person isn’t as intent on salvaging my work as that little voice in my head is. There isn’t much to be done except to keep going. Some days might be better than others, but surely the only real failure is to give up completely…?

Anyway I hope you’re all working well on your own projects and creative impulses. I understand Mary has been doing some interesting things with video interviews via Skype and that Cindy has been enthralled with how astrology is helping her develop both character and her novel.