enduring the painful and boring parts of the art process: ways I motivate myself beforehand & respirit myself afterwards
how to avoid creative burnout & art block
first things first: the process sucks
I first referenced its brutality about a week ago.
in intangible ways
I stand by my statements…:
the psychologically exhausting days — when you extrapolate your incapability to communicate coherently in the arts to, like, why you haven’t achieved your enduring childhood dream of marrying lance bass …art process absurdities, no?
& in concrete ways
real-life shit —like,
making a mess (which you hate)
with charcoal (which you hate)
(and, also, messes specifically of the charcoal variety are the fucking worst because the particles are like cockroaches, everlasting, so you’ll ruin everything for forever)
pencils, charcoal pencils
(which you always hated: pencils, full stop;
unlike messes, pencils specifically of the charcoal variety are equal with pencils, full stop, when it comes to the depths of your hatred)
when sharpening (which you hate)
them
moreover manually sharpening them— is another opportunity to be suffocated by the art process
showing what you've not seen before
I’m still editing my, if you will, “mission statement,” but (then comes the rush of thoughts that I still need to cohere) it captures how:
I endeavor to illuminate all facets of the art process
From the cerebral (e.g., making sense of my thoughts — or in case of the last sentence, not making sense of my thoughts) to the hyperliteral (e.g., streaming live my manual pencil sharpening) in the spirit of:
you want to see the real world of male modeling -- the one they don’t show you in magazines or the E! channel
With that in mind, I present to you this video. I horribly sharpen charcoal pencils in real-time—
—for the sake of creating the opportunity in the universe for one to literally “see” this hyperliteral facet of the art process
ergo, art process absurdities, no?
creating no value & no value in creating
circling back to the concept of not resenting the worst parts of the process because, with some mental gymnastics, you can see how the worst parts nonetheless provably contributed benefit
however, when it comes to something like sharpening abhorred pencils, something that just grates you viscerally…
there’s nothing to learn, to learn really, from suffering through doing it
I tried to —my trying is compulsive— to find something to learn, some new piece of information to glean, something to make the ordeal “feel” less torturous, more worthwhile
Paraphrased below, I exclaimed this insight in sincerity at the point in time I blurted it out:
well, fyi, the likelihood didn’t seem materially affected after all
not putting a spoiler alert on that —it is what it is
with that, I underscore my whole point here: it just sucks sometimes; sometimes, it just sucks
how to prepare for and how to recover from — when the art process just sucks
please note this presupposes one already did the thought work to sufficiently characterize what meets the “when-the-art-process-sucks” criterion
below are specific actions to troubleshoot the problem, whatever meets the criterion
my approach
I use these tips to get me revved up enough to face the soul-sucking parts of the art process, as well as hearten myself out of consequential despondency
for kids who can’t read good
before I—
start a literal task that’s mundane enough that I’m demoralized, or
revisit something that already discouraged me mentally at least once
—I make a conscious effort to get in a good mood
For example, I was up to sharpening my charcoal pencils (see #1 above) [and revisiting this whole other thing that’s been eating away at me (see #2 above), the thing that lead me to buy a pill crusher to powder pigments, etc. etc.] by having fun drawing my junk mail, which I know I always have fun doing, and in ballpoint pens, which I know I always love using.
I streamed on March 11 on twitch & posted the replay as a video-on-demand on youtube just now — the below button will bring you to the exact timestamp I began drawing
anyway, my art process’s order of operations is a stylistic choice made consciously: — I took on the charcoal pencils immediately & only after getting super jazzed from doing the ballpoint pen portrait sketch (note, though, that I edited out the section of misery to put in its own video, posted at the top)
and who wanna learn to do other stuff good too
after I—
was demoralized by doing a mundane enough literal task, or
summoned emotional wounds by revisiting something that had previously discouraged me mentally
—I make a conscious effort to boost my self-esteem
after lamenting that nothing ever goes according to plan, I whipped out a bunch of my works that are going well, that I’m excited to continue
my works-in-progress (“WIP”) capture the vastness of all the unlearned I lust after
looking at them re-energizes my craving to bring to life my vision — in general, as well as in regards to each piece as its own concept
I’m reminded of techniques and ideas I’m in midst of exploring — which I marry up with subjects I’ve queued up to tackle, blooming perpetually new ways to think and to see
also, I’ll be surprised by how good I think something I did is, which is always awesome
you need a way to process manage the art process itself! there’s a feng shui to it
what works for you?
there’s more than one right way to do things, & I’d love to know what’s on your mind
I’m sure you got things I’ve never thought of!
please let me know if you have any questions or anything on anything
otherwise, more to come
yours,
jansen