Love the Work

There are things I blog about so that I can let others know, and there are things I put in my blog so I can help myself remember. Yesterday I discovered the site of Keri Smith via a post on ConceptArt.org that linked to her "Artist's Survival Kit." The kit itself is a delightful five PDF pages for the artist who is feeling down. I liked it so much I got to looking around the rest of her site. In my exploration I discovered "Seven Steps to Getting Published" and "How to Make a Living Doing What you Love." The point she makes about loving your work spoke to me most deeply. And this:

why is it that so many times we have difficulty seeing our own light?

I also found two of her books on Amazon that I'd sorely like to buy, the non-planner datebook especially.

I was playing around with the an online version of the Myers Briggs personality test (here). Looks like I'm an INFJ, which appears to be one of the rarest types. This nifty link on INFJ.org explains it pretty well.

The Ruby Apple

I've been working on my first personal piece in a while. The concept/title "Ruby Apple" comes from a neat little bag of fantasy-ish phrases I made up. I've actually done most of this in Painter X (which I just got). I'd say the program has come a ways since Painter 5, which was really the last time I used it.

A Startling Realization

So this morning, I checked my e-mail. Nothing. Or rather not the go-ahead I need to take the next step. You see, I'm still waiting for a response from the author to nail out details for the sketch (for my latest cover art project). And I thought: "there goes another day." But then I got to thinking (yes, more thinking!) and I realized something

...something very important that I've been missing.

Ever since graduating I've been focused on getting and doing paying illustration work. Art for other people. I've often gone months without doing anything (art-wise) just for myself. In fact, I did more of what I wanted when I was a student and that was with loads of classwork. And -a confession here- when the inevitable lolls came between jobs I'd would do a bit of illustration "business" work, but mostly I mess around.

But it isn't really the art for other people, the book covers, etc, that will get me to my dream situation, it's the art that I'm always "too busy" for: my own. Because, while I do aim to continue working on book covers, and want to keep getting bigger and better cover projects, what I really would like to do is spend more of my time doing pictures from my imagination. I'd like to write and illustrate my own children's books. In fact, I dare say I'd like to pump most of my effort into this.

So WHY if I want to do my own pictures for my own stories aren't I farther along with it? Why in all of this "down time" have I not completed all 3 of the sample images I planned for River of Dreams? Not sent it off to prospective publishers? If I want to work toward my dream... Why?

A good question.

Luckily, today I found something helpful: Bobby Chiu's YouTube podcasts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yit95pgZEeo

Here's an awesome digital painter/illustrator who has really inspiring philosophies on art & life which he shares as he paints a quick sketch. The man has me pumped. So much so, that instead of doing any goofing off today, I've made awesome progress in one of the aforementioned River of Dreams images. I'll not show it yet, least I jinx myself, but I'm pretty psyched! Thank you Bobby!