Always wanting to give concrete steps along my journey in addition to journaling, here are the items on my immediate to-do list in response to where I’m at emotionally today. If you want to check out the journaling portion, scroll down to find my thoughts!

Creativity seems like it should be intuitive, and to a large extent it is (at least in my opinion). But creativity without direction can be chaotic. It can be hard to contain and focus, and not really convey the story the artist wants to tell. And this is where I find myself. I am starting to discover vestiges of the formerly creative person I was and through that process I feel like I’m playing wack-a-mole with both ideas and tasks.

But at the end of the day, if the art is not there then there’s no point in creating a website and videos and sending emails or doing any of the other hundreds of things I feel like I need to get done. So, though it goes against my every multi-tasking instinct, I’m going to have to slow things down. I need to stop, reassess, take inventory, and breath. I need to make sure the foundation is solid before I start building the house or this bus is never going anywhere (my metaphors might need a little work). So, for the next week-ish, my goals are going to be as follows:

• Research: the bane of my existence is to sit and look at patterns and not go and create my own. I know, I’ve tried. But one of two things ends up happening. The first is that I’m inspired and want to immediately go and get to work on my idea. The second is that I get distracted downloading patterns and trying to buy the fabrics that I like. Neither is good for my artwork or my wallet. So, I need to buckle down (a phrase I hate, btw) and focus. To do that I will:

  • Ensure that I have a pen and paper or my iPad handy so that I can jot down ideas as they come to me, but will not engage in full out illustration until research time is over.

  • I will not buy any fabric or patterned paper because I already own too much and I was looking at minimalism this week and thought that might be a good idea and I don’t think minimalists would look kindly on my hoard of patterned things.

  • I can bookmark pages with interested patterns for further exploration at a later date. I will take screenshots of things I want to remember and place them in a designated folder on my desktop for later perusal. It will be like my own personal Pinterest without all the annoying ads and getting distracted by other pretty things.

  • I will study my own library of patterned fabrics and paper to hone in on what it is I loved about them to start (hoard, library, tomato, toe-ma-toe).

• Classes: I like taking classes but as you may have guess from the rules from above, my adult ADD inhibits my ability to focus and follow through on the tasks at hand. I have a lot of classes saved on Skillshare to take at a later date, but have yet to conquer any of them. But this is imperative to my journey because I am self-taught and not confident in my artistic ability, and the only way to improve that is to practice and learn. So I’m going to do that.

• Plan: much like research, I easily get distracted by the planning phase of things. I just realized this week that I don’t even really sketch things out. I just jump right in there. I think it’s important to plan my individual illustrations/motifs, patterns, and collections so that I can focus on the task at hand. Sketching will also allow me to more fully develop my illustrations and patterns without floundering around trying to make it up on the spot. Typically I will end up dissatisfied with much of what I do and redo it anyway, which is a waste of time. So, the game plan here is:

  • Write one to two lines about the collection - what it’s inspired by, what I want to convey, the emotions of the inspiration - you know, the flowery bit. This step will also include the first draft name of the collection. Additionally, identify 10-20 words/ideas/items that I relate to this collection (this can include famous artwork, books, songs, baked goods, or other things that inspire).

  • Create a mood board for the collection. This is a step I have no problem with and rather enjoy.

  • Sketch thumbnail ideas for the collection - quick 30 second ideas for patterns.

  • Identify 8-10 thumbnails to focus on and sketch. Refine the sketches until I’m satisfied with the idea.

  • Begin the artwork, either in Procreate or Illustrator. Refine until completed.

I know it may sound ridiculous that I’ve made this list and it has kinda obvious steps with too much detail, but I seriously need the focus (I wasn’t really kidding about the ADD). I know that I get easily distracted and really think that if I work through these steps then I will be able to be more productive in my work and be more successful in my work as well.

I don’t know how long this phase will be, but I’m going to have to learn to have some grace with myself in this regard. I have learned that if I believe that I am capable of the skills needed for a task then I should be able to do them - full stop. This applies to artwork just as much as it does to working out. I was once very fit and could do lots of fit things. I’m not so fit anymore, but that doesn’t mean my brain understands that I cannot run a mile in under 7 minutes anymore. But just like I need to put the Oreos down and get off the couch first before I start running marathons, I need to step back from planning my surface pattern design empire and start with the very first steps.

And I made my list for the journey, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

Journaling

I’m signed up to take another surface pattern design class. A part of me knows that I don’t really need to take a lot of classes because people have been doing this without classes for a while, but another part of me thinks that maybe by learning from others who have done this then maybe I will get a leg up on the how-tos and be able to get ahead.

As part of this latest class that I’m in, our work was reviewed by the teacher and an art director. I was excited to finally get some feedback on what I have put so much time into for the past 7 months. Luckily my work was selected to review and it was…underwhelming. The reality was that I didn’t get much feedback one way or the other. It wasn’t praised, and it wasn’t disparaged. It was just kinda blah.

And really, being blah is not where I want to be right now. I would rather have been told that my designs are not right, that I really need to go back to the drawing board and rework things, I need to work to express myself more…I would have rather been told that I would never get hired as a designer as it stands now rather than really get no feedback at all. And make no mistake, it would have hurt a lot to hear those things, but instead I’m left questioning all the things: have I picked the right industry to focus on? will my work be laughed out the door as it stands right now? is everyone better at this than me? am I just spinning my wheels pouring myself into this with no payoff in sight? is my work really just blah?

But, as frustrated as I am with feeling like I didn’t really get a good picture of what opinions of my art are, I feel motivated to action. Not the action I expected, but action all the same. Having professionals look at my work and have nothing really to say about it one way or another made me realize that I’m not going to stand out from the crowd, I am not currently on a trajectory to have a stellar career at this without a change. I can do change.

And as I have thought more and more about what I need to do to make my work distinguishable, I have come to realize that I need to…do research. Everyone in these classes that I have taken says that you need to do research, but I don’t really want to do research. I want to dive right in a get things moving, but I don’t think that’s working out for me. And if I’m really being honest here, I don’t feel that I need to do research. I’ve been quilting for 11 years and memory keeping for 6 years, and I think that I have a handle on the patterns those industries want. But the reality is that when I sit down and try to articulate what that might be - I come up blank. I love quilt fabric and I own A LOT of it, but have I ever sat down to really study it? Then answer there is no. Do I really, really know what it takes to create fabric collections? Again, the answer is no. I don’t. I ordered my first attempt at a collection and, truthfully, I didn’t like it when I sewed strips together in a simple block. I like some of my patterns, sure, but I don’t think they work together.

So, it’s back to the drawing board for me. But I won’t be starting from scratch. I do think there are good things in my work and those can be translated into useable patterns. But I need to study the industry I want to start with and really begin to understand what it is a company might be looking for.

It’s tough to acknowledge, but I again can’t help but realize that there’s no part of me that wants to give up whereas I would have done so already if we were talking about any other endeavor. Instead I’m doubling down and committing to doing what I need to do to be successful at this because I want it that much. And that, more than anything, shows me that this is not some flighty whim I’m chasing, but rather my truest passion. So I can stand some tough love if that means that it will eventually get me to where I need to go.