It really has been. Not that last week, or the weekend were particularly bad. It has just been better.
Last weekend had been hard. Not bad, not busy, just hard for a bunch of small, stupid, mostly self inflicted reasons that aren’t important. The point is, by the time Monday morning came around I was a tightly wound ball of frustration. In a little Internet hissy fit I posted to Twitter that I had high hopes for my morning coffee, and that I wanted to hide and just make art.
It wasn’t long before my phone jingles that I had a response. A tweet back from a friend saying simply:
@Moonsweetie Allow me to be the angel on your shoulder that says: Do it! #ArtistsGottaArt
I cried. Sobbed really, but with relief, not sadness. After a short bit I pulled myself back together and thought that maybe if I reacted like that to that statement of permission from a friend, then maybe I really did need some time like that. Time to do what I needed to do without so many distractions.
I posted back a thank you, and did something I don’t normally do. I sat down at my laptop to work, in a little nest made on the couch with my thumb drives and wacom tablet near by, and I closed my email, twitter, Facebook, and even my chat program off. I usually chat with friends all day while I am working, and I do admit I missed that time with them. But, in a way it was also so amazing to have this time free of everything else! I still had my phone on, and still checked twitter occasionally while I was thinking (or waiting for photoshop), but for the most part, I was just doing art for that large chunk of time. And you know what? It was amazing! I fixed two images that were just never quite right, I created four new images that I think are off to a good start, I created a page layout and found a font for the book I’m making, and updated images on my website. When I finally resurfaced late afternoon, I couldn’t believe how much I had accomplished.
I think I need to give myself permission to do that a bit more often.
I hope those that I usually chat with during the day understand why I may be absent a bit more. I love being connected to friends all day, but some days, artists just gotta art.
It was a great start to the week, and it made many other days seem pretty great as well.
Until next time,
~Peace~