Removing Artist's Block

Closing in on a style.

After having noodled around with a few drawing and painting styles, I have come to some major conclusions. Conclusion one: college convinced me that my home-grown approach to drawing was somehow inferior to what they had to teach. As a result, I switched styles repeatedly in college. But my original approach still results in both a process and product that I prefer.

Conclusion two: my strength is in drawing. By choosing opaque finishing mediums, chiefly acrylic and oil paints, I was making a ton of unnecessary work for myself, because the bulk of my time spent painting went into tediously protecting my drawing. And the times when bad painting obliterated a good drawing were heartbreaking, and unavoidable.

Conclusion three: worrying about the archival properties of mediums has held me back. I always saw watercolor as less permanent, and therefore less worthy of my time.

Conclusion four: somewhere along the way I got the notion that a good grasp of anatomy is both entirely necessary, and can only be maintained with an endless stream of life drawings. These ideas gave me an underlying feeling that due to my lack of willingness to be a 24-hour art machine, I could never succeed as an illustrator. In reality, had I spent a little time reading children's picture books or viewing other professional illustration outside of my narrow range of interest, I would have seen how bogus these ideas are.

These blocks will not hold me back any longer.