Quitting your job for 8 months to make art is really awesome…..but………

One summer a few years ago, I was working a really stressful job for an agency for an hourly wage. I had left the full time world, and gone freelance and it was a pretty well paying gig littered with people quitting and yelling. Well as all gigs happen to end after a time, I was let go by the department head. The client had run out of work. It could also be that I was no longer as enthusiastic about the job after a time, and it served into the department head’s decision to let me go. In either case, it was the best thing that happened because I welcomed the opportunity to take a break. As was customary between gigs, I had also started to look for something new right away and realized I had saved a pretty penny. So instead, I decided to just take a break. I just stopped working. I thought to myself it wouldn’t be forever, it would just be for a few weeks, the break lasted for 8 months.

At the time I was so obsessed with learning how to draw and become a better artist, I spent 6 or 7 days out of the week drawing and painting things in order to get better. I thought I was super dedicated, and I was pretty diligent. I had signed up for the Oatley Academy of art’s online course, and was working on a longterm project for the class which is how I filed my time. 

Why not just take course for the 8 months and not work for as long as I could? [The look on people’s faces when I told them I was leaving the gig…. when they asked me what I was doing to do, and my answer was “nothing”…]

During the first month. I was on fire. I woke up everyday and would just got straight to the class exercises. When I was not doing the class exercises, I was drawing and painting my life away. It didn’t matter what, super heroes, monsters, people, comic book characters, etc. etc. it didn’t matter. 

Months 3 to 5

Months 3 through 5 were just as good. I was deliriously happy with my mini retirement. 

My delusion made me wonder why people even worked in the first place. I would go to summer movies when new releases came out, like a retiree. Incidentally there were other people in the theater as well. Perhaps that also quit their jobs and decided to hang out and not work.

Month 6

By month 6 I started to notice a few things that were slowly happening. I wasn’t interacting with people socially. I woke up and talked to my friends online but I wasn’t engaging with people or making connections or talking to anyone in real life. When the time came to talk to people it was a weird mental struggle. I had slowly started to lose the ability to connect with people verbally. 

It wasn’t irreparable, but it was something that I noticed. 

Months 7 to 8

Because I was not really engaged with other things besides drawing, I was not really drawing inspiration from a wide array of sources. I didn’t go the museum, or other social events. There were no other influence besides me and myself, and maybe the movies that I was seeing every few weeks. For me though it works better if you derive inspiration from a wide range of things. Things that you read and experience, places that you go, people that you talk to and what they* experience. If you don’t, then your range will be limited and so will your inspiration. 

I had started to run out of money. Opps there is that.  I didn’t really plan for taking time off and had limited funds, so I took no vacations and planned no trips, because that would deplete my funds even faster.  I wound up taking a gig eventually (it took me three moths to finally land it). 

This might have been shorter if I had built a network of folks to rely on and engage with, via going to social events, drinks, and connecting with folks. Connection.

The point that I am trying to make is, although it seems awesome to sit inside and draw all day (and it was, it really really was) you also benefit greatly from going outside and sharing ideas/engaging with people. Inspiration, mental health and networking are all by- products and good ones. It’s easier to find your next gig, jobs, client personal collaborative projects, etc. if you have a base of people that you can go to. Otherwise your're just rowing a lifeboat in an ocean with no shore in sight. Fun for a time, but tiresome and lonely. 

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Software Battle Part II (Putting it all together)

Last time, I explained there were several tools that I use when creating work. Photoshop, Paintstormsutdio and Corel Painter 11. Note that all versions of the software that I sue are old, except for Paintstorm studio. I don’t necessarily have access to all of the latest features, but that’s ok for me. When I use the tools above, I only need certain aspects of each program.

Here is how the work flow process usually begins for me.

Ideas (Strong Ones):

It all begins with a strong idea. Most of the time I spend drawing and experimenting with ideas or themes. I am constantly drawing from life, sketching on the train, jotting down words and thoughts to save for later. This is where carrying around a sketchbook proves to be super useful. For me sketching and drawing are the basic foundations for everything. I find if the drawing is weak, then the final piece is going to not come out great either. I then go home and edit the idea and do more thumbnails to see where I want the idea to go. Thumbnail, thumbnail, thumbnail is always the key. However, sometimes I will have such a strong visual already that I only need to spend so much time in the thumbnail phase. 

Do what you think works.

Convert to Digital:

-Then I scan the drawing into my desktop Mac (I have a computer that I only* use for drawing and painting - and a few other things, but I find that the less programs that I have on it, the better the computer functions in terms of performance.)

-I bring the sketch into Photoshop first to edit the drawing before I start doing anything else.

This is especially true with the symmetry of a drawing because I tend to draw favoring the right side of an image, so my drawings look a little right side heavy (because I am right handed).Viewing the symmetry and making sure that the drawing looks that right is the first thing that I do, that way I don’t have to spend time fixing it later on.

What Style Do I want to go for?

Think about what style you want to go for. Do I want a traditional painting look? Do I want a hi-res rendered look? Do I want something in the middle? It all depends on what I want to do with it. ie. What style of painting I want to go for. I jump around from program to program depending on what I want to accomplish or use them in combination. 

Photoshop: 

Is the best for accuracy and rendering effects. This is what makes it such a powerful program. However the brush engine renderings a lot like markers on a glass table, so you wind up having to do millions strokes just to get a swatch of color down. That was my reason for moving to other programs. So…

Corel Painter: 

is the program that I am using for most of my work. I really love the way that the brush strokes render. 

[For each of the programs I try to limit my tool set to a few brushes to avoid mental overload]. 

It’s always good to experiment with different brushes and bush types, because you never know what you will get out of it. For still lifes and work that I want to capture from real life, I will use Corel painter for most work. It even has a function that lets you create color palettes from an image and this I find especially useful.  The one downside is that the brushes are not that accurate for minute details. So I wind up bringing the work into Photoshop to final render and perfect the image.

Paintstorm Studio:

This is the program that I know the least about, and am still experimenting with.  What makes this program so great are it’s drawing tools, which surprisingly Photoshop and Corel painter don’t have*. If you want to draw a straight line in either of the other two programs, you can’t naturally do so (there are tools, and such, but I like my brush calligraphy work to feel as close to the real thing as possible).  I find that in Paintsorm, it’s not a problem. Just click on the ruler tool, and go to town. You can even draw ellipses and have perspective guides for 2 and 3 point perspective drawing. It’s pretty rad.

Once I am done with the painting and I feel the I have done all that I can do in either Painter or PSS, I always bring it back to Photoshop to finish. Where Photoshop shines is that fact that is was designed for editing images and accuracy with brightness, contrast and finishing effects. I make sure to bump up the saturation and the vibrancy to make the image resonate (but not too much). 

Lastly, I deliver the final piece, call it a day, take a break and then set up another (make sure to take breaks during and between projects).  Practice is key, and with each project you can experiment with the above or ignore it and find your own methods and tools.

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What I’m doing with my week off?

Instead of talking about software this week (I promise that I will), 

I wanted to talk about relaxing. Every seven weeks I take the week off. That means no working on new paintings, no setting up work. I do this because after a time, your brain needs a break, and you will burn out. Breaks are important, they recharge the mind, and combat idea fatigue. 

By the time the week is over, you are hopefully itching to get back to working with new inspirations and things to work on. To give you a sense of how I am spending my time here is a short list of things that I plan on doing with my “week off”.

Play Playstation or something else fun:

I love* playing games. So much so that I try to cut down on it and avoid doing it when I am doing work. 

It is a bit of a time suck. When I have the time, I love getting lost in an immersive story. Not to mention it’s fun. 

You don’t have to buy a Playstation, but the idea of “play” is really important and should not be overlooked. 

Try finding something you like doing, just as fun and do it all week. The hardest is not feeling guilty you are not “working” on something. You will get back to it eventually, and will attack work with renewed interest.

Sleep:

I read an article recently suggesting the body needs at least 7 hours of sleep to recharge, renew and reinvigorate itself. That is why then it is important you get as much sleep as possible. You can* feel the difference between 5 hours of sleep and 7 hours of sleep. The body is just ready to get up after a good nights rest instead of wanting to hit the snooze button. Even when working on projects you should try and get as much rest as possible it will help you to be ready to tackle those day job projects, night job projects and everything in between. 

Be with people/See your friends:

We’re all busy but when I am on break week, I find that is the best time to be with friends and see people.

Share a meal, talk on the phone, just catch up. It’s easy to let maintaining friendships slip when you and are in flow and are lost in projects. Hours go by before you know it. The opportunity is there to connect with folks and take care of the relationships that are important to you. You will then have a sense of comfort when you are back in work mode.

Make lists: 

I will write about this separately sometime, but one of the ways I get ideas down on paper for later is to make idea lists. This is a process where I carry a note pad, or a piece of paper and write down painting ideas that come to me. They most often come to me when I am doing something different like shopping or washing dishes. 

I think this is because my brain is not as crowded with “stuff”.  I can just exist in the pressure-free space and my brain will come up with ideas from things I see in life. They will just “pop” in there. When they do, I write them down and they will be there later when I decide to go back to the drawing board.

Draw from life:

Carry a sketch book and draw everything you see (this is still allowed). Drawing from life keeps the practice up and is a “pressure-free” way to keep up the observation skills, without a whole lot of pressure about it being perfect. In fact you can even practice “drawing badly”. Do something different like draw with your left hand, and see what you come up with.

Write:

I write everyday for 25 minutes. This is a good one, and I will expand on this at a different point and time.

Meditate:

I do this every morning for 5 minutes when I am working on projects. However, when I am not working on anything it works so much more. Meditating is a great excuse to relax, and achieve focus. I have been doing it now for a few months, and I plan on continuing with it. It helps me stay focused easier, and keeps me relaxed and less “on edge”. Relaxing takes practice, meditation is one of the ways to help you do that.

The suggestions above are just a few of the ideas that I have to help you relax. 

At the end of the week, I should feel ready to get back on the horse and jump back into project work. You don’t need to do the same as the above, in fact I suggest that you come up with your own list of relaxing to do items. Whatever you do, the important thing is that you give your mind space to wander and enjoy life so that you can attack the next project with inspiration from a good week off. What are some of your favorite ways to relax and give your brain a break?

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