Just Sketching And Reasseting

I think someone won this fight, I wonder who?

Last week was pretty stressful for me. I am not going to go into what cause the stress and all that. However, it had made me realized I hardly done much art and writing as I want and need to do. But, upside, it began to push me more into a clearer direction of where I want to be. That and the job market the politicians see is clearly not what Main Street is seeing. However, when I am stressed or nervous, I find just doing something mindless helps me out. Though, my doodle from yesterday is quite nice, especially now that I am getting used to these red correction pencils. I don't know yet if I will go ahead and ink these two or take advantage of the picture now on my computer to do a digital piece with them. This is actually one of my thoughtless sketching and I somehow got to manga-ish elves. Even though a drew them at different times, they oddly fit each other.

But, the biggest thing that happened to me last week(or should I say weekend) is went to a local writing and illustration guild meeting. I was very nervous, not knowing if I would be accepted or not. I was even working on my laptop and a draft of a fan comic I am working on for an experiment, just trying to calm down. However, as the meeting began, I found myself feeling a lot better. It was a very loose meeting, much like I was at the spinning and weaving guild I go to. When they looked at my portfolio(both my graphic design one and the few illustrations I had)... I was instantly relieved with finding they liked my work. I mean, really liked it. As we went on, I found myself talking with the other illustrators and it felt like I was always there to begin with, not just someone who was there for the first time. Next month, I will be joining this guild officially and I am seeing I am more geared towards being possibly an illustrator and writer than graphic designer. Sure, I can make good logos, but outside that, the only things I like to make graphic design wise is vector images and layout books. Though, I never knew at least if I had some talent in illustration since I never got much feedback online.

Real interactions with people is always better than what you get on social media and art websites. When you can see their faces as well as words... You can realize better what they are really saying than just the words they said. I am a very shy person. And it does not help I get nervous very easily when I am alone. That why I been trying to find friends and such, both online and real life, to have support and find out how other artists work. Sure, family can support you, but they only go so far in able to help you. Hence networking with other artists and such are so important... Though, over the last few weeks, I have discovered the term "networking" is not as scary as it seemed when I got out of college. In fact, Will Terrell's latest people sketching video, Episode #15 explains it so well. Networking, though some relationships you build in this network will be professional, most of them are actually friendships and allies with other artists. In fact, I find calling networking more like making friends than making business contacts much easier on me. When you have friends who are more experienced and less experienced than you in what you do, then you find yourself able to learn from those friends and also pass on what you know to them. So, why not find some people, both online and offline, and befriend them. Even if they are not of your job field, you never know what kind of inspiration you will get from even non-artist friends. And, when you have at least a few artist friends on your social media, you find a good bit of humor that will always brighten your day mixed in with some wise advice and great pieces to look at.