Lessons on How to Drive the Struggle Bus (Or, One Trick Pony)

It seems as though another idea has failed to grab me the way I would have liked it to. After working all of last weekend and this past week on the character studies which were featured in my last blog, I've become disenchanted with that idea nearly as quickly as the others. I've become so afraid of my work being trite that it has seemingly crippled my ability to stick with an idea for more than a week. I feel like I'm bouncing around too much to have anything worth showing.

Struggles aside, at least I am trying. I want to get excited about something again. I want to get as excited about this next project as I got about Greyscale, or the print of the subway map I did recently. And I desperately want to stop complaining about how stuck I am.

So this is it. Complaining over.

During the peer critique on Monday the 3rd, Ting suggested that I listen to stories or to poetry and draw from the descriptions. I like this idea. So this next week, or at least for this next couple days, this is my plan. The theory is that the exercise will spark an interest and turn into something bigger.

Along with working on the character studies, this past week I began to illustrate the titles of books or television episodes (This is how I knew I was bored with the character studies). In my sketchbook, I drew one image for each of the seven Harry Potter books, an image that correlates to the theme of the novel or to the title, and one image for each Doctor Who episode from season 1-3 of the new series. I may turn these into small, well-rendered drawings on bristol, if the fancy strikes, but the idea was that I just needed to be doing something to get me through this block. Along that same vein, the past 24 hours of my life have been spent doing a portrait in marker on illustration board, because I missed my markers and I recently discovered that illustration board is the best drawing surface ever. Seriously I have no idea what the board even is but it is absolutely amazing.

At this point, I am just trying to explore every path I possible can, in order to find something that finally sticks. Because I know (roughly) what I am capable of. I know I can make good art. I have made it in the past, and I know I can do more.