The Day Without Art

So I was getting some bad art-anxiety. I'd sit down at my desk and feel dizzy, I'd pick up a pencil and feel this pang in my gut. So I decided, since I was slowly painting myself into a box and nothing I was doing was looking any good, that maybe I should step back from art for a little while and come back to it again with a different perspective. Which is pretty normal for the creative world, to stop what your doing for a while and calm the heck down.

So I decided I would go 24 hours without doing any art, and what I discovered is that I have almost nothing else to do. By getting rid of all my usaul distractions I pinpointed what has been bothering me this whole time, and I compare it to a little voice in my ear that talks in all caps, saying

"LETS DRAW GEORGE WASHINGTON FIGHTING A ZEBRA ON A FLYING SHARK WITH A BOOMERANG!" (yes, these are the thoughts which often drift through my mind) and I'd have to tell myself
"No. I am taking a break from art."
"C'MON C'MON! WE'LL STICK IN SOME NARWHALS! YOU LIKE NARWHALS!"
"I will draw Narwhals tomorrow. Today I am taking a break from art."
"BUT IF YOU DON'T DO IT TODAY THE IDEA WILL BE GONE FOREVERRRRR."

and thankfully the idea is gone forever because what the hell?

So, to try and starve the little stupid little voice I did some more excercise than I usaully do and tried to take a couple of naps. I played piano (which I decided wasn't visual art so it was OK) until my pinkies hurt. It was really really boring and I thought to myself "Is this what normal people do when they have a day off of work? This sucks."

Throughout it all I kept getting these pangs of guilt saying

"WE HAVE NOT DRAWN ANY CATS TODAY. SURELY YOU CAN DRAW JUST ONE CAT." and I'd ignore it to read this book on Russian Communism (which is some reasearch for a pet project of mine that might not go anywhere if my History is incorrect) and my guilt would say

"ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO GO A FULL DAY WITHOUT FIGURING OUT HOW MUCH CLEANING SUPPLIES CAN BE MADE INTO A PAPER LANTERN? A FULL DAY WITHOUT PAINTING THESE COOL CLOUDS?"

and I'd say "Oh crap those are really cool clouds." but decided I would just admire the clouds and let them go. Like normal people let clouds go.

and so I thought the best thing to quell my inner super-ADD art-anxiety voice was to go back to learning programming. So I was reading through my Flash Actionscript 3.0 book and I was still having problems

"CAN WE NOT MAKE AN IPHONE APPLICATION WITH THIS KNOWLEDGE? THATS NOT A TINAC OR ART, HUH? CUZ IT'LL ONLY NEED LIKE ONE OR MAYBE TWO PICTURES, RIGHT?"

and I was going to give in to the stupid little voice, until Apple and it's horrible Monopoly stopped me, because in order to make an Iphone App you must 1.) Own a Mac 2.) Own an expensive program for the mac 3.) Own an Iphone 4.) Give them some more money and 5.) write it in XCode because Iphones apparently don't take Flash.

And so I went to watch TV, and it was at the moment when I was watching Cops that I heard the voice die

"AAAAAAAMUSTDRAWSOMETHINGTHATLOOKSLIKEAPINEAPPLEBUTISACTUALLYARACCCOOOOOOOOOOOOONAAAAAAA"

and it was dead. And so now I'm back and I feel so much better! I'm totally ready to go back to work. Yay!

And I still drew George Washington, but in a way that is a lot more senseable and less havoc than on a narwhall fighting a zebra.