Frustration is a motherf*cker…
You’re trying to do something well — create a killer piece of art, sing a tune, balance your accounts, write an article (teehee!) and despite your most sincere efforts it is just not happening for you. You most likely feel the wrath of your inner demon screaming, wanting to devour small animals and you feel frustrated.
In my artistic career (rife with frustrations let me tell you!) when I was learning perspective in illustration, I mean learning it properly, not just the rudimentary stuff — I’m talking designing in three dimensions where so many things have to come together just perfectly for you to pull off something worth being proud of, I had a hard time. I distinctly remember what the cycle was like
Making something look good…Part 1
So…how do I make something look ‘good’ in art?
I have been asked this so many times that if I had 5c for every time that question was raised I’d…actually, I’d probably only have about 35c or something, so I guess that point goes out the window as a valid reason for me writing this post.
Different angle then…I know that as a young artist, it was a question that pervaded my developing mind every time I tried to illustrate something vaguely awesome like Venom totally kicking Spiderman’s skinny-gaudy-leotard-laden butt.
Replace that negative nagging asshole in your head…
We all have an inner self, in fact, many of us have a family of inner selves and like a family you have all kinds of personalities. Some are great and supportive, some would love to see you fail, some are nags, some are completely oblivious to you at all! For a long time, I had a negative inner self who presided over the rest and to whom I listened to most, he wouldn’t yell, just a snide comment every now and then, at the right moments and my confidence would come tumbling down. As an artist, whose creative output is influenced in a big way by my mental sphere, I came to the conclusion that this simply would not be good in the long-run. What to do!?
Enter the theory of auto-suggestion, a simple holistic technique that can help put you at an even keel and keep that negative self at bay
Want emotional stability? Validate yourself from within…
Very often for creative folks such as ourselves who identify so closely with the quality and quantity of our output, we can unwittingly become completely driven by the approval of others, leading to an absolute roller coaster ride of emotions. One moment accepted, the next rejected, this will almost certainly harm our ability to do well the thing that we love and tends to spill over into our private lives. This generally does not bode well for us in the long term as you could imagine.
I have personally found the best way to combat this is by
Lovin’ The Journey…
A quick post today, I wanted to just introduce the concept of a “Gratitude Journal” and the part it plays in keeping your mind on an even keel, something in my opinion that is required to focus on achievement of specified aims in your artistic life, particularly because the mental mindset can be such an important part of being creative.
A Directed Life.
In my opinion, life is very much like a blank canvas — a perfect daunting thing representing an infinite expanse of possibility. As we go about living our lives and applying our influence to it, the possibilities shrink at an exponential rate until there is only inevitability, borne of our preceding actions. This isn’t a revelation so much as it is an obvious truth that can often get lost in the minutia of every day living.
