However, I haven’t been entirely useless. I managed to make my first etching in close to ten years! It felt good to work with copper, and to finally run a plate through my printing press! This etching was done for a charity event for Locks of Love, the organization that collects hair to create wigs for disadvantaged children who have lost their hair for medical reasons. I am in the process of growing out my hair and am hoping that it will be long enough in a couple of months to donate the ten inches they require.

Below are the various states I needed to get the plate to a point that I was happy with. The final print was on Arches paper and approximately 8″ x 10″ with a plate size of 5″ x 3″. The print is an edition size of 16 and is a combination of hard and soft ground techniques. It was a lot of fun!

The first state was a simple hardground line drawing.

State 2 involved a softground texture with cheesecloth. Unfortunately my stop-out was a little thick and hard to control so some texture and open biting occurred on my hardground lines.

State 3 required burnishing away some of the unwanted lines and textures created by state 2, then re-etching the figure with another hardground bite. I also drew more lines for the heart/hair wings of the heart.

State 4 was more burnishing and more etching of lines that I wanted to stand out.

The final state... for now anyway... Not the best print since I sent that out for the charity/show. This print in particular was over-wiped. Oh well, I'm out of practice.

A fun & whimsical doodle:

Tree creature with owl.

These figure sketches were done the day after my dog passed away. I didn’t have much sleep but I knew I needed to draw so I got myself to my figure drawing class. These sketches showed my lack of concentration but hey, I think showing up to the class was half the battle!

Quick figure study - I was trying to focus on the hands. My concentration was off that night!

Anothe quick study ~30 minutes. Again, my lack of concentration felt obvious.

More quick, unfocused studies. But it's the effort that counts right?

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I did a couple of figure drawings but both my camera and scanner are too inadequate to capture some of the large gesture drawings that I did. Oh well. I did manage to photograph the long study I did. The photo is of the full figure and the detail image is a scan of the drawing.

Photo of the full figure study of Stephanie

Scan of the full figure study - I need a bigger scanner to capture some of the larger drawings I make.

Quick charcoal sketch of Siwa. We had a rough night last night: Siwa's mouth bled for almost 30 minutes until a lemon-sized part of her tumor dislodged. It was nasty but she feels better today. She ate all her food & had a full tail wag on our short little walk.

Back to doodling - I don't know what's up with her hair - it just wanted to get big!

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I'm learning to expand beyond my trusty ball point pen and am practicing drawing with carbon pencil. Trees are tough but with enough practice, I hope to understand the essence of trees. Whether or not this tree succeeds is not the question - I'm just drawing and if it takes me 10,000 drawings of trees to get it right - then 10,000 drawings of trees it shall be!

I’m a member of Danny Gregory‘s Everyday Matters Yahoo Group and recently, Louise, one of the members posted an email regarding doubt. More specifically, she asked how members of the group overcome those days when the creativity doesn’t seem to flow and the insecurity is at an all time high.

How does one continue to promote one’s art without the self-consciousness and the fear of being labeled pretentious?

I am very familiar with these feelings so I shared with her some of the ways that I get through those days.

Being confident isn’t everything but it helps.

Having confidence is certainly key to a creative person’s success – whether it’s believing that you’ll eventually be able to paint the way you want to or be able to make a good living from your own creative work. After all, if you don’t believe in yourself, why should others?

Having written that, I also believe that it’s not as essential as some other traits. Because like the ability to draw and paint, I believe confidence can be acquired and strengthened with practice. It’s like a muscle – without the daily exercise, the daily practice, the daily doing – your confidence muscle can atrophy.

So, how to overcome the insecurities and gain confidence?

Being unafraid to fail is more important than confidence.

One of my creative goals is to be able to illustrate the ideas I have floating around in my head so I've taken to doodling in my journal to find my style. I don't know if I suck or am perceived as pretentious but it ultimately doesn't matter. I am sharing my process of finding my own style. For instance, The Locks of Love illustration is an idea for an upcoming charity event, and the devil-child & cat was Halloween inspiration.

Gain more confidence by doing, painting, drawing, getting yourself out there, participating in conversations, blogging about it, then failing, then learning, and keeping on going.

Learn not to be afraid to make the mistakes. And if there is fear, acknowledge the fear but don’t let your actions be controlled by it. That is at the heart of confidence.

Here are a couple of quotes that I absolutely love and keep close to my heart:

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

~Ambrose Redmoon

And my all-time favorite Thomas Edison quote:

I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

~Thomas Edison

Ack! But what if I suck? What if my work is seen as pretentious?

Recent mark-makings in my sketchbook & playing with color.

Yes, I’ve heard those words in my own head many times. Here’s my take on it:

So what if I suck? Yes, I am going to suck, I am going to fail, I am going to make mistakes. See the above paragraph on how to overcome the suckiness and failures.

But eventually, I will figure it out by continuing to draw and create and practice. In the drawing and creating and practicing, my work might come off as pretentious, but that is all a part of figuring out who I am as an artist. The same thing applies to you.

And on the subject of pretentiousness – I think that comes through when a person isn’t being authentically themselves, pretending to be someone they are not. But that is a judgment call and is so subjective.  You can’t control what others think about you anyway so go ahead and just be yourself and have fun doing it!

Maybe you just need a break from the creativity.

So when the doubts hit, and the anxiety, stress and worries start to kick in, maybe you just need to go for a nice long walk. Just like with physical exercise and rest, your creativity muscles also need to relax.

For me, the external world can sometimes get so loud that I can’t hear myself think, let alone be creative. Those are the days when I shut off my computer, I throw the dogs in the car, and take a nice long hike up in the hills. I will come back feeling rejuvenated, and more ready to face that blank piece of paper or canvas.

What have you done that’s worked for you?

Other members of the EDM group suggested switching from one’s media of choice to another that one doesn’t always work with. And others suggested just doodling and making marks in one’s sketchbook (another one of my personal favorites).

What do you do to overcome doubt?

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I also did a self-portrait for the first time in about a year. It turned out ok. I was a bit frustrated with the ball point pen because it was not making the marks I had anticipated. I think it’s time to invest in a good mechanical pencil. Anyone out there have a favorite they can recommend?

Day 23

My tool of choice for my journal is a papermate ball point pen. I'm starting to feel its limitation, particularly when I make a mistake and need to rework a section. It gets messy and trying to redraw over erased pen marks smudges the ink. I think it may be time to find another tool. On another note, Jon doesn't think this portrait looks like me. Oh well.

Day 22

Jon's arm while on the phone & Jon watching TV. He looks a bit stiff in the TV watching mode, maybe because I kept chiding him about moving too much so he overcompensated ~ at least that was my interpretation.

Jon wasn't really posing because he was tired of posing for me so I had to draw him as quickly as I could in the amount of time he would give me.

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Here are the drawings from most recent to earliest:

Day 21

Jon reading a book & patiently posing

Diemos & Jon sleeping

Day 20:

Sleeping Sammy

Sleeping cat

Day 19:

Veronique - life drawing

Montage of doodles & sketches

Day 18:

doodles & sketches

Day 17:

Copying from the master, George Bridgman

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Day 16:

Day 15:

Day 14:

Day 13:

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Day 12:

Day 11:

Day 10:

Day 9:

Day 8:

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Day 7:

Day 6:

Day 5:

Apparently, I’ve been thinking a lot about clowns and other weird creatures.  I don’t know where these doodles come from but they have been a lot of fun!!

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Here’s Day 3:

Vulcan / Elf / Keanu Reeves - like person

Day 4:

Flying Bear Cloud

I don’t know where these doodles come from, which is half the fun. Sometimes I just start with a random mark that ends up reminding me of something that I then just play with.

It will be very interesting to see how these doodles progress on Day 30…

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Anyway, here she is. I don’t know where she came from, nor why she ended being a cross between a harlequin clown and that woman with the fruit on her head – although that’s not quite fruit on her head.

She came out of nowhere

Drawing without a reference (whether from life or photos) is new territory for me. A little scary even though this one was quite fun!

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