dear dave,

Things turned around design-wise last night, after blogging despair.  I've been so frustrated with this one commission design.  What to do??  How to come up with an idea out of thin air.  I had a small germ of an idea, but every time I worked on it things just went south, and I could never find anything good or worthy of keeping and pursuing.

It's such a crazy process.  I feel completely out of control of my own drawing abilities.  I really have no idea how things are going to go until I try, and 9 times out of 10 they go badly.  I have to find the discipline to try and try and try.  Drawing after drawing until something seems to work.  Then I scan it, and the editing process starts.

But editing is fun! I'm over the hump, and just improving things and improvising.  All the hard work is over once the key drawing is made.  That is usually when I can start feeling creative.

Every once in a blue moon the drawing is easy.  First try.  I'll sit down, whip something out, like it, scan it, and it just works.  That is the sweet spot.  I LOVE when that happens, but it's rare.


ANYWAY - back to last night.  I started working on this other design, and it wasn't so hard.  Things were flowing, and I was out of my bad negative head space.  Plus I was working directly on the photo of the yellow shirt (below), which gave me the key idea.  The breakthrough!  AHHHH.  I'm still happy about it, a day later.

I can move on (assuming my client likes it too), and that feels so good.