30 Day Art Challenge - Beginning August 1st.

Since I started my job as a full-time graphic designer, I feel I've neglected my illustration and fine art practice. Now is the time to challenge myself, to loosen those elbows and really work at some new techniques. 

I'm going in this with three main goals:

1) To make art-making a daily practice, moreso than it already is.

2) To broaden my colour pallette.

3) To improve my composition by not neglecting background elements.

I will try to post my results every day. Can I do it? Will I manage? I suppose we'll see!

If you care to join this challenge, do the same, and post a link to your progress in the comments.

The Studio / Artspace

This may be one of the most flattering perspectives of my little studio. In my three bedroom house, only one bedroom actually has a bed in it. The smallest room has been refashioned into a classy bookshelved office (his space), and the middlest room is where I plant my rear down and try to make artwork. Cleverly left out of the image above is my messy corner dual-monitor workspace, my big-ass storage wardrobe cupboard thing, and my bookshelf/standing laptop desk. I feel guilty that I spend so much of my time in here faffing about online rather than creating. So guilty. Right now, that unfinished painting back there is bothering me, asking to be fixed, and here I am with my butt planted in my spinny chair, a cup of coffee, and an open facebook page in front of me. It's not just facebook, of course...

The top 5 productive things I do to procrastinate:

1. Clean anything I can get my hands on, the house, the studio, even the garden. Laundry goes in the washing machine, dishes in the dishwasher, papers in the filing bins. Maybe if I make sure everything around me is clean, my mind will feel less cluttered? (Of course, by then, I will have no more time left to do the thing that I'm procrastinating.)
2. Write a blog entry / update the website / "internet research".
3. Cook an elaborate meal and give myself a good long time to eat it.
4. Go to the store and run some errands.
5. Exercise.

All of these things are worthwhile pursuits except when there is something more pressing that needs to be completed. In a few hours from now, Future-me will be crunched for time and rightfully pissed off at Present-me. I suppose I'll have to make some huevos rancheros while I wait for that moment.