Life’s Too Short To Waste It Wishing.
I’m always trying to think of ways to put out more artwork. Sometimes just the FEELING of not putting out art consistently enough can make you feel overwhelmed to the point of burn out. But making nothing is certainly one surefire way to NOT create more stuff.
The thing that always resuscitates my output is the idea that you simply will not always have hours at your disposal to put out amazing artwork. Between work and family, and all of life’s myriad of obligations, it simply isn’t always a guarantee that you’ll find extraneous pockets of time to work on your own personal expressions. That is, if your artwork isn’t the primary money-earning gig in your life. So I always try to remember to look for little 15 minute windows of time that I could use to doodle something out very quickly. 15 minutes may not be the most generous amount of time, but if you view it as such an opportunity; a challenge even, you may find it can be just the right amount of time to throw down some nice little surprises.
When you know time is short yank out your sketchbook and a pencil and scribble something down. Even if it’s lousy, keep in mind that it still has room to be improved when you throw some ink down on top. Erase and pop in some color for good measure. Crayon, colored pencil, a splash of watercolor or markers. When you have to hurry, practice not being too precious. Comic artist Jake Parker has said, “finished, not perfect”, meaning- you got something made- you never said it was Michaelangelo’s David! Which I find to be a good motivating mantra for myself at times. Learn when to let it go!
Finally, I want to say, if you practice working quickly, you will learn that you would be surprised what you can knock out in a 15 minute window. And, more importantly, that even when you think you’re short on time, you would be surprised how often a quick 15 minute window can surprisingly grow into an hour of free time that you didn’t know you had!
-Ryan.
Wrangleshank! 