It can be so fucking frustrating doing anything creative.
Every time I wanna make something, I set out with such high hopes. I made a great thing yesterday, so I should have no problem making another great thing today, right?
But it’s never that easy.
I have this memory from when I was 6. I’d set out to draw a bunny, focusing all my mental power on imagining what a bunny looked like: the floppy ears, the fluffy fur… And I started to draw.
But no matter how hard I willed it to be, it never looked like a real bunny.
I got so frustrated. I couldn’t understand why my technical capabilities weren’t automagically matched up with my imagination. So I gave up.
I did a lot of tracing in the following years. It gave me instant gratification. So much perfection, rendered with such ease. But it didn’t teach me anything.
Fast forward to my 20s. I now understand that to be able to draw a really good-lookin’ bunny, it’d help if I practised observation & drawing techniques. And if I drew all kinds of bunnies from various reference images.
By doing all that, I just might manage to draw a near-perfect bunny. But that doesn’t mean I can also now draw a perfect car, or a perfect Cardi B.
I feel like being creative is sorta like physical training. I can’t just work out super hard one time and then ride on that forever. I have to keep showing up, day after day, week after week. Even on the days when I don’t feel motivated or inspired. I gotta maintain that spirit, feed it, and push it. There’s no magical finish line to reach where the hard work ends.
I gotta find joy in the process, in the struggle.
I actually find it healthy to laugh after making things that suck.
Or after spending 3 days making something that just doesn’t work.
Luba is always reminding me that no time is ever wasted: because every sketch, every layout, every idea, everything I try, everything I don’t use, it all adds up to practise, knowledge, and experience. All that bullshit I throw in the garbage is what allows me to make the good stuff.
It’s a battle of perseverance. If I keep showing up, the good shit will happen. It just takes time.
process &
behind-the-scenes
Sometimes I spend a few days labouring over something that just doesn’t work out how I’d imagined.
Above this text, you saw process work for this week’s post, which I made with black modelling clay, and painted with a gold accent.
You also saw my attempt at a different concept that I was originally working on. I wanted to cut the letters out of card, and press a sheet of aluminum foil on top to create a metallic effect.
Turns out that shit is really hard to capture in photo. (Thank you Luba for supporting and helping me when I was fully ready to give up on two or three separate occasions.)
I tried comping together a bunch of photos to get the lighting bright enough and the words readable. But even after trying to clean it up in Photoshop… it was total chaos. I gave up before getting an edit I was happy with, because honestly, I didn’t think it was going to happen.
The whole thing was stressful and draining. But in the end, I’m happy. The process for this post ended up providing the perfect backdrop to talk about its subject: the struggle that comes with creating and doing. So much of that usually stays hidden in the dark behind the polished, finished posts you end up seeing! So here I am, in all my messy, tacky, aluminum foil glory.