Doing it for the fun of it….
Hi. Building a business in art and design has always been a convoluted messy business; at least for me it has been.
You see I would post promotion after promotion and diligently post my blog entries, and even publicly share with people what I did.
That of course, is where I was failing - sharing with people what I did wasn’t working, because I myself didn’t truly understand what I was doing!
Crazy, right?
Turns out - my sharing that I drew cartoons, comic books, illustrated original images, made logos, and other graphic support for folks, designed landscapes, and architectural drawings (up to what would require a license anyway) - and all this in various styles if need be… this not only confused and confounded - it tended to send people running the other way towards calmer waters.
From these repeated experiences it took a move to another country, more artistic study personally, more reading, and a spiritual journey to teach me how to calm down- heh - and start looking inward at why I even wanted to do what I was chattering on about in the first place.
So upon taking this journey inwards I was, in fact, able to begin spotting things about myself, my art, and my relationship with others that really did begin to help me establish the who in the ‘I Am.’ And this was BIG.
Once you ask yourself enough times point blank (directly) what your purpose here on this planet you will get an answer - perhaps in full or maybe it will come in little pieces like breadcrumbs along a very interesting journey of your own.
Trust the process. It will deliver.
Let’s fast forward to today. In terms of reflection that I am now in the habit of doing all the time, I see now how consistency & persistence can prevail.
After about 6 months of building a rapport with various establishments I’d booked some events with them where I might demonstrate my skills in a fun and accessible way for the public to engage in; Caricatures being one of them, and illustrations for local authors being the other.
Today I had a really exciting time sharing a few things I’ve learned over the years to help encourage the younger audience to keep drawing with a method of warming up their minds so they might see the horizon of drawing amazing things through window of noodling doodles!
I’ll be frank - half of today’s workshop was by the seat of my pants. Forgive this cliche turn of phrase, but for lack of a better way of saying it I had no way of knowing at this point what kind of audience I would have so there really wasn’t a better way to strategize how to reach a classroom of all ages in drawing other than just “winging it”
I know it doesn’t sound professional, however many creative endeavors never have that professional aire about them. As an artist in most capacities you will find it is better to have an open mind.
That’s exactly what I had today, and encouraged my workshop attendees to do as well through a process of creating a whimsical doodle, adding to it (or as Brian Dodson puts it), noodling the doodle, and then moving into a step by step drawing beginning with whisper guide lines and basic shapes in random locations.
Check out my YouTube soon to see some of what went on. I may even post a couple videos in the Sketchbookers Members site!
