My Journey: Making time to Have Fun!

Making Time to Have Fun!

Being a successful artist is a wonderful balancing act. Amidst all the work, it is important to make time to have fun. Similar to daily practice the benefits are:

• Increased creativity

• Improved quality of jobs or assignments I have taken on

• Generates better ideas

• Decreased stress

Having fun can take the form of many things. It can be daily drawing that is not connected to assignments. It can be doing other creative projects or doing something that is not related to your art. 

I see great benefit in participating in projects like Inktober, Mermay, Dinovember, Dueling Banjo Pigs, and similar drawing challenges. They are great opportunities to play while still practicing your art. You can even create your own. I have participated in Dueling Banjo Pigs and hope to participate in some of the others in the future. The key with these is to not let them dominate your time. They are to have fun and increase creativity, not to stress over.

I also enjoy the 100 something challenge which pushes your ideas beyond the obvious solution. In the past I have drawn 100 bow tie guys in 100 days, created 100 elephant characters, designed 100 logos of one word, created 100 different grilled cheese sandwiches and taken 100 different photos of my bowler hat. (I am trying to figure out my next 100 somethings challenge.)

Having fun does not always need to be art related. Here are some examples of what I have been doing over the past few weeks.

I recently completed the SixFanArts challenge as a drawing and creativity exercise. I had a wonderful time taking it in a completely different direction than others. 

Here is an example of the progress of my most recent lego creation, The Gump 3.0. I am still working on it here and there. I will post the completed one when I am finished. 

Julia and hikes around Franconia Notch a few weeks ago. It was beautiful. 

On Monday, My daughter and I biked around Joe's Pond. It was so peaceful and relaxing.

I also find great satisfaction in reading. I am currently working on reading all the Shakespeare plays and reading a few other books. I love gardening and playing games with my family. Last night I lost another game of Bogle.

In every instance I have been able to come back to my art refreshed with less stress and better able to solve the art problems I have been facing.

Something that just needed to be illustrated

I had some time to have some fun. This started as one of my roughs for the Animation Festival Poster. In the end it wasn’t Vermonty enough. I really liked the idea and wanted to see it completed. I also explored some different techniques with the clouds

#whaleillustration #bluewhale #octopus #balloon #accordian #bubbles #reading #kite #puppet #rubberduck #clouds #illustration

Weekly Bow Tie Guy

Zebra (ˈzēbrə)

For my last post of the year I am showing the second of the illustrations for the Christmas bookmarks. My oldest daughter's favorite animal is a Zebra. I struggle with the stripes, but I have found I really enjoy the main of a zebra. 

Weekly Bow Tie Guy–Dolphin

Dolphin (ˈdälfin)

This year for Christmas I made a book mark for my three oldest children with their favorite animal on it. (the youngest can't read yet.) My youngest daughter had just announced that the dolphin was her favorite. This is a change from the leopard. I was grateful for the change in that drawing the leopard with the spots was not something I was looking forward to. I had been avoiding it. Dolphins on the other hand are really fun to draw. Each book mark had their name and one word that Julia and I felt described them well.