Inspiration has been a little lacking this week, motivation similarly hiding nowhere to be found. I had some bad news, work wise, this week and it's taken me a few days to get my mojo back.So what went wrong? Tell ya what, track me down and buy me a beer. I'll explain everything.
(Click... fizz...)
A corona? How did you know?! Right then...
I tried to run before I could walk. Took the stabilisers off too soon.
This blog (May 2007) marks the start of me trying to "make it" again as an Illustrator. Again. What happened the first time? Well...
I graduated 4 years ago and spent a couple years running around the industry like a headless chicken, pushing my drawings very badly but getting some (and some paying!) work but not enough to live and nothing with any ...profile. I drew some cartoon koi carp once. One was eating celery.
So, I quit Illustration. I kept drawing but stopped pushing my work. I moved into London and got a job as a Graphic Designer and Pre-press Operator which I hate. I concentrated on pouring out my rage into the pages of my sketchbook as I dealt with the long commute.
Then I moved further into town and cut down the commute. I found drawn. I started this blog and it gave me hope. Each post was and still is a victory. My attitude became "Even though I'm broke and my job sucks I achieved today because I posted a drawing".
Then, because I'm me, I started getting over confident. As an Illustrator, the style of my images are still newly borns, clumsy and unfocused collages and confused ink drawings. But I wanted to start getting out there again! So, a couple weeks ago I started sending out some brochures, printed at work for free, to agents and art directors, I entered Images 32 and figured I was a shoe-in.
I started getting the rejections immediately. Last week I found out I didn't make it into Images. Gutted? You betcha...
So I fished around for some inspiration and found this guy. Rory Blyth's writing is raw, crazed and angry in all the best ways. He made me realise that I've been missing a trick. Honesty. I should stop trying to be whatever I think I should be this week and concentrate on image making from me. How I see things, my interpretations. I decide what's finished and unfinished, what an image should and shouldn't be about.
My personal interpretation is all I have to sell and if I don't focus on that I have nothing. My rejections are a blessing.
I will work on me first. The outside world can wait for later.
Stabilisers back on, water wings re-inflated, I pick up my pen. There's work to be done.
