The Winged Heart

After my money/art angst-vent the other day, I got real sad.  I tried to draw something and realized I couldn’t even put the pencil to the paper without a hundred doubts and thoughts going through my head.  Things like:

• What should I draw?
• I should practice drawing things people would want to buy as commissions.
• I should make sure to draw something that I will be proud of and can put on my DA gallery.
• I always draw people, but I get stuck when it comes to drawing their arms and legs.  I don’t want to draw anymore.
• I’m always drawing a random face, it’s so boring and cliche.
• If I draw a face, which I always do, it’s going to end up slanted and sideways.
• I wish I could draw like (insert artist’s name here).
• I can draw as good as (insert artist’s name here), I’ll prove it!
• I never finish any of my drawings, I’ll never be as good as (insert artist here).
• The important thing is networking and gaining followers on DA.  No matter how bad their art is, people with lots of followers can sell commissions.
• No, people get lots of followers because they have a distinct style that other people like.  Then they want a drawing in that distinct style.
• I’ve never developed my own style, it’s going to take so long, and I like too many different styles.
• The artists I admire draw about 4-6 hours a day, I don’t want to spend that much time.
• I shouldn’t be drawing for fun, I should be working on the web comic.
• Maybe I should practice and define my style more and start over on the web comic.
• Even if I draw something I like, it’s going to look awful when I scan it.  My lines are never clean.
• Why can’t I ink nicely?  Everything always looks stiff and boring.
• Blah blah blah blah.

And only after I get through all those thoughts can I actually even begin to draw something!  I realized what was happening the other night when I started to draw, and then said to myself “The only solution is just to stop thinking and draw right now!!”  So I did, but I stopped halfway through, unhappy with what I was creating.  Then I moped and was sad, and went to bed, and kept being sad until a giant cockroach crawled onto our bed and onto Nick’s hand and creeped the bejeesus out of both of us and we spent the rest of the night chasing it down and killing it and then slept in the living room.

Before the cockroach showed up, I told Nick that I knew in my heart of hearts that the only solution was to keep practicing drawing, to make a practice regimen and practice anatomy and stuff and just increase my skills.  That’s the only way I’ll get good enough to get rid of some of those annoying doubts every time I start to draw, and maybe get to the point where I actually like drawing again.  But the problem is, I told him, I’ve tried that so many times and failed over and over.  I say “I’m just going to draw one picture every day!  It doesn’t even have to be complete or good, I just have to put the pencil to the paper once a day.”  And then I do it for a week or two, and then fall off the wagon.  I don’t want to try and fail again, because it makes me feel like crap to fail.  But what if this is the time that I try and succeed, and if I hadn’t tried this time, I never would have succeeded?  Then the cockroach showed up.

But Nick came up with a good idea, which I didn’t like at first but have since warmed up to.  Instead of doing commissions right now, since I need to build up my gallery before I can really offer anything to people, I’m going to be kind of doing commissions for Nick.  I have to draw for 30 minutes every day.  If I draw for 30 minutes, I get $1!  And I get $1 every day I draw 30 minutes.  If I keep it up for one week, then the next week, I get $2 for every day I draw 30 minutes.  It keeps increasing by $1 every week, but if I miss a day it goes back down to $1.

At first I was like, no!  This is lame!  I don’t even go to work every day, I should be able to have the motivation to do something I want to do without you having to pay me to do it =(  But now I’m seeing it more as killing multiple birds with one stone.  This will help me in so many ways.  First of all, it gives me someone to be accountable to.  Nick is a great accountability partner, especially for something like art because he has no real eye for art, haha.  When I draw something, no matter what it is, I don’t expect for Nick to particularly like it.  He will probably even say it’s weird.  So I really have no quality expectations to live up to and I can just draw freely!

Secondly, it will give me something to strive for when it comes to a regimen.  It’s the same principle as Write or Die, where it’s hard to do things that have kind of a vague payoff somewhere in the distant future.  It’s much easier to do something when there is a sense of urgency, or a good tangible motivating force that isn’t so abstract.  ”If I draw today, I gain $3 and don’t break my chain and go back to $1!” is a lot better motivator than “If I draw today, and a whole bunch of other days, consistently, then eventually, I’ll get better at art which will hopefully make me feel happy and accomplished.”

Also, this partially remedies my money woes as I discussed last time.  It will make me feel like, in a small way, I’m earning my spending money.  Nick is giving me part of his salary willingly, but I only if I work for it.  Even though it’s not very much money, it is something.  If I can keep my chain for 5 weeks, and start making $5 a day, that’s $35 a week which is plenty for a trip to the fabric store, or maybe to buy supplies to renovate a piece of furniture.  It sounds a little ridiculous, a grown woman earning an allowance from her husband, but I need something to get my butt in gear!  And it will hopefully satisfy that need inside of me to feel like I’m earning money instead of just taking it.

And finally, Nick gets to stop hearing me complain about how bad I am at art and how I wish I could stick to it and become a good artist! =)  And I get to stop moping around and wasting time being sad about art!

I’m very excited about my new regimen, especially after writing about it here.  I started last night, with amazing results!  I really wasn’t expecting to draw anything good, and I still don’t expect to regularly, but last night  I happened to start a drawing and just really got into it and ended up with something I like and I’m proud of!  Nick even said it was “actually pretty cool” haha.

My first commission for my husband, priced at $1 =D  Woo-hoo!  And actually, I was having so much fun with this and wanted to complete it so badly, that I spent an hour and 18 minutes on it instead of 30!   And I drew arms, and hands, and legs, and feet, and even shoes!  Mega mega proud of myself =)

Also, thank you Greg for all the encouraging comments on my last post!  Hopefully I’ve found something I can stick to, and maybe in a month or two I’ll have enough of a portfolio to open up commissions for reals!  For real money!   Haha XD