I broke my streak again. And I couldn’t lie to myself about the streak being broken. There wasn’t a way for me to “make it up.”
So I did what any self-deprecating creator does. Especially creative-type-A personalities. I beat the shit out of myself for dropping the ball.
“You don’t have enough discipline for this.”
“If Chris can do it, so can you! Why don’t you just suck it up and do the work?!”
“People have expectations here, why can’t you show up and deliver?”
What I was doing wasn’t working.
I try to live with a bit of empathy for myself, and I was ignoring the fact that what I was doing wasn’t working.
Hitting publish every day was NOT an option as a father of three, a husband, a tattoo artist, and a business owner.
Yes, I have a daily creative practice, but is it worth it to share that practice every day?
Probably not. I want to have an impact, and these little pebbles of unorganized thinking and visual clutter weren’t doing anything for anyone but myself.
I want to do something that helps people.
If what I was doing was only for ME, then how can I switch it up to help other people? And who is it that I want to help?
These were the questions that helped me start getting organized.
I want to help other creatives and other business owners (a creative pursuit in its own right) by showing my creative process and sharing my thinking on subjects ranging everywhere.
I may have an obsession with learning that I want to share, too.
I want a way to share everything.
It’s impossible for me to share everything I’m doing every day, but I can share the things that really matter (to me).
I had to re-evaluate what I was doing and set more reasonable expectations for myself.
I’m leaving things split the way they already are.
But my Creations will be for finished visual projects. Not a daily dump of everything I’m doing in the visual arts.
Creations will be a curated post for each finished project I put into the world. I will share my sketches, my comps, and the final result of every project.
I think this will be more valuable, and I feel confident that I can keep up with that!
Musings…well…I’ll be spending more time on these!
Some of you might know about “my curriculum.” I’m taking one “general education” course alongside an art course at all times. It could be business-related, parenting, creative thinking, critical thinking, or any other subject I find interesting.
Musings will turn into a place where I share ideas from those off-the-wall studies.
Which brings us to…now.
I’ve been asking a lot of questions of myself regarding who I want to help and how I want to help them.
I want to help creatives like me — the creatives that want to get better.
I want to help tattoo lovers and tattoo artists understand the process behind-the-scenes.
I want to help people who know they can grow.
I want to help parents be more creative with their kids.
I want to help leaders create change.
I want to help people with a creative spark that need to let it out.
If you’re one of those people, then you would love my email list. I only send emails when I have something noteworthy to share.
On that note, here’s my progress through the exercises from Lesson 2 from DrawaBox.com!
One of my favorite “aha” moments from these exercises was discovering how to make a realistic felt-tip brush in Krita — using the speed to adjust the flow of the brush.
If you move fast, it flows less. I thought it was brilliant.