Just Another Break In The Wall

It is so easy with our busy daily lives (especially if you have day job along with being artist) that you just stop challenging yourself. And challenging yourself, and pushing your own boundaries as an artist is essential to keeping your skills sharp and fresh. So here is my list of how I challenge myself everyday.

1. Never Stop Learning

With this economy, no matter what industry you in, you need to always be expanding your skillset. The more marketable skills you have,  the better. This especially goes double if you are artist. So take a class, go read some books, do some tutorials.  If you stop learning, you stop challenging yourself, and that’s a very easy for you to go stagnate as an artist.

2. Visit Museums and Galleries

I primarily work in graphic design and photo manipulations, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be inspired by the great painters, and sculptors of past.  Although, I live in San Antonio, you wouldn’t think that we wouldn’t have a great art scene. However,  San Antonio have at least three museums (my favorite being the McNay museum) and is home to a vibrant art district ,called the King William’s District, which that hosts weekly art exhibits.  I am often get some of my best ideas after visiting the art district or museums.  So it’s a great way to brighten your horizons.

3. Do Something New

I personally think that one of the biggest secrets to becoming a good artist is having the courage to jump in and try something new.  I always try to push myself try something at least once a week. And yes, I sometimes fail, but the most important thing is that succeed or fail you will learn something new. And you have to remember, making mistakes is essential to growing as an artist.

4. Talk to Other Artists

Working as an artist of any medium be it painter or writer or even graphic designer can be a lonely business and no one knows our pain quite like other artists. If you near a major metropolitan city why not check out if they are some meetups or industry events near you? It’s a great way to network, but it’s also a good way to find a nice support system that will help keep your spirits up, especially when you have artist block.

5.  Blog About It

Seriously, I know this is reductant because you are in fact reading this from a blog. However, what challenging myself the most is blogging about art. Blogging helps me keep track of my successes and my failures and what I need to improve on.  However, if you too shy to blog, why not try write it down in a private journal or even an audio diary? I think almost every cell phone has a sound recording app.

So this is my list on how I challenge myself as artist, how do you challenge yourself?  Also, if you like what read here, please check out my portfolio, thanks!

Yeah, I need to stop counting days.  I keep forgetting to actually update this and it’s just messy. So I’m stopping with the counting of the days. I’m about a quarter through the Typography Workbook and oh my god, I’m learning so much. Seriously, my designs have like improved a thousand folds.  The downside of this is now I’m super parnoid about my typesetting and kerning. It takes me longer to finish because I’m nitpicking over every piece of type.  Now, I did a design for a Harry Potter inspired book cover and Oh my god it took me forever, but it came out so well. Seriously, I love it and it’s the best so far.

I need to work more on having more than one subject in my compositions which is going to be so hard let me tell you. Also, apparently I’m blowing up tumblr, because my book cover for ‘Red Queen to Overwatch’ went viral last week.  It’s like at 65 notes on tumblr, and 157 kudos on A03. It just blows my mind.

I also plan to do some articles on this blog, other than my personal whinging.  I also want to branch out into wallpapers (which you would think wouldn’t be so hard to do but it is). Oh! And I’m very close to getting my first paid commission *bounces in my seat* It’s a fanfic commison, and I was very leery of taking money to do fanfic book covers, because that shit can be beacon for lawyers to go after me, and I really don’t need that type of drama in my life.

However, this can be like my foot in the door to being a paid artist.  So I’m very excited, and I hope this comes to fruition *keeps fingers crossed*.