Understand the Process

To understand what it take to make a living with your art you need to understand what the whole process looks like. Art as in life flows through four stages.



The stages are:



OVER COMMIT

CRY

PRAY

MEET YOUR DEADLINE



To understand this is crucial. You see once you commit to a issue, plan, concept, or idea that decision will be followed by panic. The bigger the commitment the bigger the panic. Industries have put names to this phenomenon like "Buyer's Remorse", "Stage Fright", "Artist or Writers Block" etc. You ask the one you love to marry you and at some point you reconsider. This is all natural. What we do with this is where the free will or choices come in.



So from here I have learned to accept the panic feeling and quickly move to stage three- Pray.. This is the stage where we calm the panic and start to create a plan. This is where we honestly break the project or goal into obtainable pieces. Basic theory here is divide and conquer. It is where looking at eating the whole turkey can overwhelm you, so you look at it as bite sized pieces and maybe several sittings.



Once this is complete you can work into the final stage- Meet Your Deadline. All we do here is execute the plan. Do the work and reach our destination.



I once took on a book job to illustrate 110 drawings in 45 days. To make this more of a challenge I had a full time job at the time. I was so excited about illustrating a book that I failed to look at what I was being asked to do but just after I signed the contract (Committed) it hit me.



105 DRAWINGS? What was I thinking? OMG how was I going to do this? etc......



Then I figured that if I did 3 drawings a day for 5 days a week I would hit my goal. If I fell behind then I had the weekend to catch up. This gave me a sense that this was not a insurmountable task so I started to execute this plan. I stopped a couple of times along the way to access how I was doing but I stuck to the plan and finished the book...... on time.



So the next time you make a commitment and feel that uneasiness. Smile, say I am half way there, pray, and meet your deadline....