When Life Throw You Curveballs...

Hello friend!

I think we can all agree that life throws some pretty big curveballs sometimes. Now, I’m gonna’ let you in on a secret: I’m not the biggest fan of change (aka, I crumble when things throw off my routine).

This is a character flaw I fully recognize in myself, and one that I’ve been working to overcome.

In last week’s newsletter, we left things with a messy sketch for the Trains theme, a hopeful attitude to begin the painting process, and the word “Meraki” backing each action. But as I began the painting, I decided to challenge myself. A challenge to intentionally throw off my routine by eliminating one of the fundamental steps in my illustration process.

I want to share a little piece of my journal with you from the day I started painting the Train illustration: “Today I’m beginning a new painting with a little bit less than a plan. Yes, there’s a clean sketch, a rough value comp, and a few key colors in mind. But I want to challenge myself to embrace more spontaneity. To relinquish my control over the creative process. To venture into what is risky and uncomfortable, and to be okay with it. To find magic in it. I have millions more mistakes to make in this life, and I’m sure at least a few will be made during this process. But I hope and pray that perhaps some magic will be made in it too by stepping into the unknown and trusting my artistic intuition.”

My character flaw of collapsing when life throws curveballs and my routine gets thrown off GREATLY impairs how I deal with things. The reality is, life’s just gonna’ keep throwing those curveballs, and I have to find a way to navigate that. So, I’ve been intentionally incorporating Uncomfortable Things™ into both my daily life and my creative practice. Now, I’m not jumping into the deep end and making life miserable for myself, but simply doing small things that are a bit uncomfortable for me. Taking cold showers (trust me, this helps!) and sitting with my thoughts for longer instead of filling my time with mindless social media scrolling (I still fail at this one a lot, tbh). Deciding to throw off my routine for my creative practice was a bit more nerve-wracking, though. I decided to forgo creating a color key, and jumped right into the painting. Like I said in my journal, I had a few general colors in mind, but no idea how the end piece would look. But I decided to trust my artistic intuition, and let go of the need for a complete 37-Step Plan.

It was scary.

There were many moments of “but do I ACTUALLY know what I’m doing?”

But this painting ended up being one of my absolute favorites this year. And I found JOY in making it! It was such a beautiful lesson for me that uncomfortable doesn’t have to equal unenjoyable. That not having a plan doesn’t mean you’ll automatically fail. I had to choose to embrace the discomfort, respect the possibility of failure, and jump in anyway. Rarely in life or in art do we have a clear plan for how the future looks. And even when we DO have a plan, there’s no guarantee that plan won’t be thrown off.

This illustration grew me as an artist. I don’t at all think that every piece has to have a challenge like this one (there’s absolutely NOTHING WRONG with making art that’s easy for you, and I talk a lot about the importance of easy art in this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/dkV5zZ2YeXo ) But I do believe that doing uncomfortable things sometimes is the only way to expand your comfort zone.

So with that, I wanted YOU to be the first to see the finished Train illustration. Because you were there with me in the beginning, and you’ve come along the journey to its end.

I’ll be sharing more about the story behind this illustration in an upcoming YouTube video, but for now, thank you for coming along this little train ride.