Damn You Murphy!

I seem to be living in Murphys Law, you know the everything that can go wrong will go wrong moment.
I have busted my foot which has left me unable to walk on it for too long today which in turn stops me from completing my original plan.

I'm not sulking *deep breath* I'm really not sulking.

Okay so I'm a bit sulky but that's probably more down to the fact that my heel and ankle are currently throbbing.
It's not exactly stopping me from doing artwork but in true fashion, it's postponed getting supplies... again.
Tomorrow, I will get these supplies! 4 weeks later than originally planned!

I'm just left bemused at how many times things have gotten in the way of something so small and simple which leads to a big pause. It's a learning curve and I'm laughing at it but I really can't wait to get back in control of what goes down!

But on the bright side, waiting for supplies has left me with time to do more digital designs. Which I seem to be going mad with lately!
My RedBubble portfolio has grown a third lately which I'm extremely pleased about so go check it out here!

I've been playing a lot which Photoshop which has been lots of fun as it's so easy to rearrange sizes and poses without the fun of erasers or having to repaint in arms and legs. It's a life saver at times!
One design I've had fun with lately is this guy...

A slow loris, one of the most adorable animals and the only venomous primate. Cute but deadly right?

I had fun drawing him as he's nothing like anything I've worked on before, his head and face are a completely different shape to that of the other animals I've drawn etc.

It's also fun for something so cute to also behave less cute, they are quite vicious when they hunt!

I guess I should now be working on more designs... and not glaring at my foot!

Sometimes you just need to stop for a moment.

Well every time I think I'm getting somewhere right now something pops up and snatches my plan from my hands and runs away laughing...

Not meaning to moan but it would be wonderful if I could finally follow through with this plan!!

On the brighter side of things, it has given me some extra time to just stop and think and to look over everything I have right now.
It allowed me to realise that a lot of my original plans involving me making a lot of products has left the plan entirely without me even noticing which of course is not fantastic!
I'm a crafter artist which means I don't just draw pretty pictures, I create with my hands a lot. I've done book binding, jewellery making, lino printing, papercraft... the list goes on and on and lately I've gotten very obsessed with RedBubble that I've assigned nearly all of my time to making designs to upload.
Of course RedBubble is going to be huge for me right now as I'm actually making money from it and getting noticed, that's a high in itself but perhaps the high is pulling me away from my real talents...
It sounds strange but I had this plan of all of these products to make and nearly all of them left the list because I was trying to do what other illustrators do.
They make gorgeous designs, get them printed and sell them.
Good for them.
I'm not just an illustrator and this is something I need to remember before I forget it all completely!

So yes, my etsy store has been put on hold once again. It's not a failure because there are very good reasons for this being the case. And so what if it's not up and running this moment. It doesn't mean it's not going to happen.
I'm a lot further than I was a year ago yet sometimes I just focus so much on the future that I forget how far I've come and how awesome the now is. Constantly focusing on I wish I had all of these prints and could be as good as that artist is the worst place to be.
I've tried to study what other people do to learn what to do and all that's happened is I'm trying to copy them with the types of products they sell and such and today, I'm just sitting here looking at my plan and thinking... how samey and dull I'm being.

I can already foretell that I will do this in a similar way to other people and get a big fat nothing from it as nothing will get noticed.

Not to mention the more I see myself replicating other people the more I despise myself, that's not something I normally do. I rarely conform let alone follow other peoples lead. Sure it works for some and I'm not hating anything that others do because it works for them and looks amazing but there's just something not right about my work when it gets too clean and loses the raw creativity.

So, I'm going back to my original plan and adding some new ideas. Of course I'm really happy with what I already have but it's just not the route I want to take, I want a much more hands on part of this and I want to create what I sell, some things completely by hand.

It's going to take a bit longer but the etsy store is already behind so it doesn't really matter, I can use this time to create lots more and focus on what I enjoy.
I'm a crafter at heart not a business women and trying to make what people want is bloody hard! Especially as I make things people want anyway, even when they're silly doodles. I just need to find the right people!

Look out people, things are about to get messy and creative!
This became a proper ramble but I had to get it out.

Have a wonderful week full of smiles and happy and if things feel horrid smile anyway, it makes things better, scientifically proven you know ;)

New Designs, too many ideas and a mega art block. Again.

So this week I've created two new designs! They are also both now up on my redbubble shop!

I had so much fun with these guys as they're both completely different even though they are done using similar techniques. Ziggy the lemur was sketched and inked traditionally before being scanned in to the computer and coloured. He was so much fun to do and I couldn't help but smile at his smug, cool dude face. He's available to buy here.

Papa bear is a second part to Mama bear (obviously) and is based on a black bear. He was sketched out traditionally before being scanned in and added to a blue background. I'm not sure whether I prefer the more traditional style or the 50/50.
Papa bear is now available here

I'm going to admit after completing these designs yesterday I'm left feeling a little overwhelmed. My mind is racing with what I'm guessing to be too many ideas that I can't keep up with.

I keep thinking about the business sides to things, finances, marketing, research, the list is a long one. 

I keep thinking about promotional things and how I'd love to be involved in an exhibition someday, group or solo. 

I keep thinking about selling prints of my work, looking at how to go about it.

You may notice in those ramblings that I'm missing something quite big out... Creating more artwork.

I'm suddenly realising that I need to build on that. I need to create as much as I possibly can. I need to focus myself on a subject or something similar.

There are so many things I need to do.

These things I need to do aren't horrible though, unlike many people I enjoy most parts of this job. I love the numbers and charts and records as much as the creating,

Just sometimes I get so buried in the business side that I forget I'm also meant to be creating!

And the worst thing right now... I have so much racing through my mind that when I sit down to create something I either sketch something my 15 year old self could manage or I find myself growling at a blank page unable to get what I want out.

Enter my fourth art block of the year! Hoo-ray. I am so pleased.

It's starting to get frustrating when I start getting creative and once I've gotten a few ideas out I run out of ability. The motivation is there, gosh is it there, like a roaring fire inside of me wanting to spend hours with ink and charcoal, making fun colourful sketches of animals and anything else.

I just can't get it out and it's frustrating me along with all of the ideas I have.

Art blocks suck. End of.

So now I'm left sitting here and wondering what I'm going to do. Of course there are a few things that take priority but those are mostly finance related. When it comes to art... I'm lost.

On the bright side the OH is feeding my fox obsession... Maybe I should work on foxes...

Fingers crossed I can start the creative buzz up once more!!

Also! Thank you to everyone who liked/shared my work for the wraptious competition. I didn't make it to the shortlist but some awesome artists did!! Go check them out!

Have a great week!!

Frustration and the thought of giving up.

Yes, it's currently half midnight here for me and I'm writing a post. I never do this.

I nearly gave up tonight. I nearly decided to just give up the art business.
I've become so stressed over the whole ordeal I'd lost the motivation and passion I originally started out with. I've felt sick and tired, lost my muse and just become this big ball of tetchy moo for the past month because it's all just gotten so big that I can't keep up or I hit walls.

Today was probably the worst day. I kept trying to be super positive and within seconds I hit a wall... so I'd carry on skirting around the wall, finding a different option and bang! Another wall. This happened persistently from midday onwards. I had this false, creepy grin on my face trying to hold on to the positives as they were being sucked away one by one.
Tonight... I fell in to despair. I thought I'd lost everything, I was stuck and my positive attitude was buried under a big fat eeyore cloud... which I was wallowing under. Hey, I guess everyone needs a moment to wallow :P
It was only then that I stopped to think what was causing this despair. I'm an extremely stubborn, determined, positive person. I rarely let negatives get me down and here I was, wallowing.

And I spent ages thinking over what was upsetting me, then asking myself why? and on and on we went and then it came to the conclusion.
I've been so wrapped up in trying to turn this in to something bigger, trying to be a better small business that I'd completely stopped doing artwork!
Any artwork I was managing was prints of work I've already made!

I call myself a freelance illustrator/artist and yet here I am not doing any artwork at all, instead I've become a business planner! Don't get me wrong I've done well but that's not what I want to do!
I want to create as well as the more boring stuff that goes along with it and I haven't been doing that.
Since when did being an artist not involve artwork!?
I know that it's common knowledge that an artist nowadays does more paperwork than artwork but I've messed up that balance. Right now I'm just doing the paperwork and it's draining my soul!
My muse must be mummified by now with the lack of creating I've been going through!

The worst thing here is that I'm meant to be making lots of designs for a future project... I should've started by now. Well, I should be at least halfway through by now! Instead I haven't even started the thing!

I guess it's a lesson to be learned. There needs to be a good balance between business and creativity. I had that balance but for some reason I lost it... I got so wrapped up in designs and products that I kinda forgot to actually make more designs!

So, the business side of things is on hold for the rest of this week so that I can catch up on all of the planned work I have!

I may mope and threaten to give up... usually because a small part of me is desperate for a break but I'm too ridiculously stubborn to give up.
I'm as stubborn as a hamster trying to fit broccoli in to it's pouch!

Mondays...

Today has not been the most productive, nor the most creative or exciting... I'm blaming this on a busy weekend which has left me feeling extremely knackered!
I'm not complaining, it was an awesome weekend, I'm just using it as a bad excuse for my sorry lack of work.

I have however played around with this sleeping beauty and he's now uploaded to my redbubble shop!

You may recognise him from last year when I entered him in to the Ohh Deer cushion competition. He needed a small bit o tweaking and I made him a more foxy red than he was before and am now much happier with him. He's currently available on everything.

I've spent so much of today starting sketches before tearing the pages out of my sketchbooks in pure frustration. I get an idea, try and go with it and then don't even get past the ugly sketchy stage, my heart really isn't in it today. I've been more in to working on previous works and getting them right.

It's really frustrating when you just can't muster the motivation to get ideas on to paper, they're not give up days they're just... blank days. 

They're annoying but they don't last forever and with all the work I've been churning out lately I have nothing to feel bad about. I just need to take things slow and actually enjoy a day where I'm not run off my feet... or more to the point there isn't steam coming out of my fingers! :P

Looking back over the past month I've realised that I'm slowly developing a style that's very focussed on nature and colour. It's the first time a theme has really begun to show itself and the whole traditional lineart followed by digital colouring makes life so much easier and is actually lots of fun.

I'm hoping to focus more on birds over the next few weeks, I'd taken a break from them and I'm really starting to miss the feathers! So I'm hoping to update this kinda thing...

A made this a while back for the background for this blog, gosh that was a while ago now! I'm really happy with the designs but I'd prefer the sketchy pencil outlines I'm doing now rather than the clean digital inking I've used here. I'm also loving doing repeat patterns so these will be another thing to focus on!

And then the reappearance of this baby...

I also made this a while ago, back when I was better at backgrounds that foregrounds. I absolutely love this piece, it's probably one of my favourites from the past few years but and there is a but, I'm not completely happy with the buzzards so I'm hoping to go back and recreate these beauties and actually make them more interesting. If this goes to plan I will be offering prints! 

Gosh I've rambled so much today! That just shows how with it I am not!

Hopefully my mind will be back to it's normal motivated, butt kicking self soon and I can churn out even more work!

Have a great week!

You didn't save!?

I love using Photoshop for my work, working in both traditional and digital media together has become one of my favourite styles to work in and adds an awesome variety to my working day, I can spend the morning sketching in a pad and the afternoon sat at my laptop, pen and tablet in hand.

That's always nice and freeing. It's always wonderful when you also have many projects on the go as you can just swap files and play around, mistakes are easily fixed with the press of ctrl + z (undo) and layers can be deleted if they're just that little bit too much.

But... and this is a big but... when your laptop decides to mess about and incorrectly save the piece you were working on, losing most of your hard work... you then want to ditch digital and go back to good old fashioned pen and paper!

I had been working on a raptor design for myself (and the OH, he jumped in too) and had put so many hours in... we're talking over 24 hours of work! So you can understand the sheer horror I experienced this morning as I started up Photoshop and tried to open the file that should have been saved as a .psd file... Instead I'm facing a .2 file that will do nothing.

I'm sure my laptop is sniggering to itself right now as I flap about in frustration knowing there's nothing I can actually do to get the file back.

Instead... It's time to start over.

Sure that sounds simple... except I'm currently staying with the OH and left my tablet at home... I'd have to do the painful mouse painting which is possible, after all I learnt to paint in photoshop with a mouse in the first place and am quite confident with the technique but it takes a lot longer to work on, at times doubling work time if not more.

So I need to decide what I'm going to do here, I must stop myself from glaring and growling at the laptop... it was having a fit when I was trying to save the file so I should've known really... not to mention I should have been saving a lot more frequently than I was!

There's a lesson to anybody who wants to get in to digital art! SAVE!! just repeatedly save until you're saving more than working! 

Well not that dramatic but you get what I mean.

Never underestimate the power of that save button. It's a very nice button. It keeps your sanity.

In more cheerful news I've been inspired by looking at bird paintings... Sounds strange but that's me. It's got me craving more traditional work (not brought on by the PS incident...) I haven't done an acrylic painting for quite some time.

The majority of my recent work is graphite on bristol board before being scanned and put in to Photoshop where it goes more digital. As I mentioned earlier this is something I enjoy but I do miss the mess and freedom you can have with good old traditional mediums.

The last real fun I had where I could just be free and do anything was the corvid speed paint challenge I gave myself last year (pictured above).

This challenge was done by giving myself 30 minutes and a very restricted paint palette. For most of these birds I have white and black with a small amount of blue apart from the chough which obviously had red and the jay which had an extra colour of brown.

It was lots of fun and I got messy which is always a good thing!

So seeing this new art work online and then going back over these guys has inspired me to give painting another go. I have colourful and wacky ideas filling my mind and I'm left with this strong urge to splat paint all over the place!

So lots of frustration mixed with fun plotting going on here! 

Really can't complain ;)

It's also my big fluffy dudes 6th Birthday today!!

He's changed in looks so much over the years but oh he's still the puppy he came home as... just a little less psychotic! 

My amazing boy who made me realise I'm a dog person and changed my life in so many ways. I got him for my 20th birthday (Not on a whim! took over a year of prep and thinking before we got him) and we're growing together... I'm 26 in exactly two weeks time! Oh golly gosh...

Time to get working!

Smile and be amazing :)