The beginning of December was met with a sad goodbye to our beloved dog, Elsa. Even when you know the end is near, it's never easy. The sadness was intense and at times overwhelming. But I got through it. You can always get through it.
It took me a while to get back into art creation. A little longer than I thought, TBH. Looking back, the art block only lasted about 3 weeks. Maybe because there was a lot going on between the beginning of the month and end of year events, but it felt like months.
Here are the things I learned from that block (and that I'm still working on).
It's ok to do nothing. It's ok to just feel your feelings and not be productive.
Working with your hands is the best meditation. I did a lot of knitting and crocheting and cleaning.
When you're ready to start creating art again, do what's easy and doesn't need a lot of thinking - like drawing from observation or redraws of stuff you've already done before.
I was having a hard time thinking of new ideas to work on. Nothing that came to mind brought me joy. So I went back through my sketchbooks and Procreate gallery to gather motivation. But again nothing created any new sparks or ideas. But then I realized I have to pathway though the block already. I decided to redraw some of my old artwork from years ago. My style has changed and redrawing old ideas took away the pressure to create a new idea. And it's been really fun. I found myself going for my iPad more often than the last three months combined.
The thing for me to work on for 2024 is how to keep going when life events (good or bad) happen that throw off your mood. I've read so many motivation themed books over the years and the one thing that keeps coming up is consistency. Do your routine everyday so that when life does throw you a curve ball, you can easily get your focus back. Because motivation is fleeting. Habits are more sustainable.
Here are a few of the redraws I started last week that I'm still working on:
2018 >> 2023
This year I'll be building up a subscription blog - a lot like Patreon! But for now it's all free for whomever decides to read my sparse blog :)
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