I’m not a very dedicated artist. Actually, I don’t even really feel comfortable calling myself an artist. Never have, even when others insist upon it. In my mind, true artists have a calling. They have images begging them for release, ideals to be portrayed, emotions that can be expressed no other way. I don’t. I just like to draw stuff sometimes, and even that doesn’t happen all that often.
Well, until this past April, that is. Ah, that glorious day when I finally got access to a (long coveted) copy of Adobe Creative Suites. Joyous momentous occasions!!
Oh, with the Suites I also received orders that I needed to use it to make a website, a logo, and invoices for a business, and a program page and t-shirt for a sports team.
Initial reaction? Nope. I can’t do that!
Luckily I’ve learned to push past the “can’ts”, and dove right in. For a week I was SO diligent about doing tutorials from the book, and online…then I kinda winged it. Those projects all got done though, and the results satisfied. Apparently my creativity just needed a little nudge.
That stuff was technically the first that I created, but this one is the first thing that I created with no tutorials, and with my own ideas:
Kinda fun, eh?
I could finally get the symmetry I so wanted in my work, but can’t do freehand, even with rulers and other tools. Maybe I’m just too off-kilter in general to be able to, who knows, but it made making mandalas annoying instead of soothing. It was really easy to get lost in creating, and the feedback I was getting made me start to think that maybe I could “do something with my art.” I’ve been told to do that many times, but didn’t really feel that what I created would get me anywhere (lol, as I was writing that sentence, the lyrics in the background were “come in here dear boy, have a cigar, you’re gonna go far”. Maybe I really am on the right path!), until I saw what I created in Illustrator. It’s not the best, but I think it’s pretty good.
I finally seemed to be going down a good path, gaining some momentum, and boom, last Friday, tragedy struck. All of a sudden, Illustrator was crashing the computer when I tried to open it. Error messaged pointed to possible RAM issues, so in trying to do a speed test, I downloaded something I apparently shouldn’t have, and the computer crashed, and refused to even boot into safe mode. I finally got the install disk and did a system restore and everything worked again…except Adobe products. Since the person who has the Install Disks for those is out of town, I tried a few more “fixes” and now that computer is down again. SQL error upon start up, which apparently is fixable when you can get into windows, but it won’t let me ctrl alt dlt to put in a password. I’m sure there’s a way to fix it that I just haven’t come across yet, but I’m letting that one sit awhile. I can’t use the programs I want to anyway. Definitely showing symptoms of withdrawal from them too. Restlessness, irritability, lack of motivation.
Heh, no, it’s not really that serious. Irritating, but not life ruining, by any means. The inspiration even seems to have carried over into my normal medium of markers. Roomie demands that a lunchbox love note accompanies any rent money that I give him. He was feeling low this week, so instead of my normal hastily scrawled “You’re awesome! Love you!” I wrote his name all pop arty on the envelope, and on index cards I illustrated some inspirational lyrics from musicals. He loved em! I think they’re going to have to be the norm from now on. Maybe “do something” on a larger scale with inspirational notes. Who’s to say where the wind will take me?
I just hope it takes me to a place that has Illustrator and Photoshop!
Soundtrack for this post: Pandora station shuffle. Pick any Steely Dan, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Foo Fighters, Talking Heads, Steve Ray Vaughn, Ray Charles, Elvis Costello, Grateful Dead, Queen, Cake, or Pink Floyd, and you should be in the mood.
Musings from a Lazy Goddess 
It took me a long time to feel comfortable calling myself an artist. It still feels a little odd even now because, like you, I just like to draw. There are many other things I could be doing with my life but drawing is the one thing that gives me the most feeling of accomplishment. Maybe there isn’t one sole way that an artist comes to her/his craft. Maybe for some it’s a calling, for others it might happen by accident and still for others it might just be a simple joy that turns into something much more. Either way, we all are still artists.
Thank you 🙂 It’s funny, I haven’t been on this blog for a long time, because I do the same thing with writing. I want to be a writer, but then I only write sporadically, cause “I’m just not good enough”
Gotta get out of this circle!
On good days, now, I can call myself an artist, thanks to the film “Turning The Art World Inside Out.”
The other day a friend said “If you put as much energy into your art as you did a job search, you’d be unstoppable.” I don’t feel accomplishment from what I do, but, doing it makes me…happyish. In the moment. Overall, I feel I’m wasting time…
Sorry, not a great day lol. Thanks for following, and commenting 🙂