Breeze Block Way
Have I been drawing everyday? Well, yes, starting a few days ago. I had a few big wedding orders and then there was Mother's Day and, you know, dishes, laundry, dinners to cook. Excuses, excuses, because we all know there were pockets of time I made available for scrolling... but I'm drawing again now.
I've been working on finishing up designs I started and never finished. One was something I thought would be nice to print on tea towels. I worked on it a little and then questioned it entirely. Do I really want to pay money to print this on a tea towel? I convinced myself to keep at it. Went back to work on it the next day. Getting better, little by little.
Since it was an old design that I started before I really understood the value of a well organized set of layers in Procreate, I was drawing all on one layer. Drawing, erasing, drawing over. Just like it were actual paint on canvas. Since I wasn't going to start the drawing from scratch, I just kept at it without allowing the lack of layers to irritate me. There was something so mesmerizing about that. Often when I'm drawing with layers, it becomes more about execution than drawing - using the tools to manipulate shape, color, effect. It's a game (which I love) of having this image in my head of what I want something to look like and then figuring out how to get that created. Which brush to use, clipping mask this, alpha lock that, gaussian blur magic, multipy that layer, luminosity that one. Reminds me of my AutoCAD days. Sure I'm drawing, but I'm also manipulating.
So when I was just drawing, it was nice how ideas began popping into my head. I went with the flow. I love how when I'm in that mental state an idea or a word or an image will come to mind and then I just can't let it go. Whatever I'm doing must stop. It's that important.
Breeze block. Oh yeah, breeze block! I love breeze block. Oooo, I want to draw some breeze block. Maybe that would make a nice pattern.
I consider myself so fortunate to live in the time of image searches. How easy it is to become completely immersed in a thought or idea with a collection of images from around the world on that very topic. I'm always putting together little mood boards like this:
So I started drawing that, and then it made it's way into the drawing I was working on before - and it made it so much better! I never knew it was missing this! When I'm working on something, it's so satisfying to add components that I know came directly from me. With each additional brush stroke, the drawing becomes more and more my own. Something only I could create. An original. Sometimes it's hard not to incorporate something I saw someone else use. In my own way, of course. But this little journey down Breeze Block Way (at my pace, in my own way... not trying to suggest that no one has thought about concrete block before!) gave my work something it was missing and taught me the value at sticking with it. Maybe I should revisit my abandoned "I WAS HERE" drawing after all. Never know! Maybe inspiration will strike on that one as well.
So the drawing was completed and the tea towel has been ordered. Can't wait to receive the sample. And that's actually thanks to some of my tiktok scrolling, so those moments maybe aren't entirely a waste of time (she says to herself). I watched a video about keeping yourself from over thinking. Step number four: The power of right now. Just send that email, make that call, do that thing you've been thinking of doing. Don't think about it anymore. There's no time like the present! What is there to lose? You could be the most talented artist in the world but what good is it if you convince yourself you're not that great and then never share your work with anybody? Talent is only part of the equation. Execution and getting the work created, shared, and/or printed on products is most of the equation.
"Real artists ship." -Steve Jobs
I hope this is the first step in establishing a tea towel line. It's something I've been wanting to do forever and just continued to get in my own way of doing. And now that I'm back to drawing daily, I can't stop. Can't lose this momentum.