A Creative Exercise Challenge

I cue up "Change the World" by Eric Clapton and Babyface on iTunes, and fire up a fresh TextEdit page because it's my favorite part of the week Sunday night... Blog time. What a week, my region of the world has experienced an earthquake and a hurricane. Frantic, trips to the supermarket on a quest for food and water, going to my 9 to 5, and doing my freelance client work. This weekend everywhere we went was out of water except for The Water Shoppe (thank goodness) but that's another story.

Ok enough of the update, now let's move to my recent imaginings, and thoughts. As my client base continues to grow, I am faced with the desire to create more work at a faster pace without compromising the quality of my services.

I think back to a time when I lived in Canarsie, Brooklyn. My long running partner-in-art Dwayne - RT, and I challenged each other to do one drawing a night, over the course of time our nightly drawing sessions grew to a 7 drawings per night standard. We worked diligently to have fresh ideas, execute them and have a strong sense of maintaining quality while meeting the quota. It was an incredible exercise. It eventually became natural, it was a place where the heartbeat and workflow sync up. Eventually, we moved too far from each other to continue the drawing sessions, but I never forgot the standard we had accomplished.

Now I try to channel that energy when addressing my latest design/illustration challenges. I want to work faster, more effectively, and at a high standard. I desire to be Bionic! (sorry, I grew up in the 70's watching "The Six Million Dollar Man") Lol!

The dilemma, I often face...
I have client work to schedule, and make happen in a timely manner, and keeping my clients happy. I have a promotion I am running on facebook, where two wonderful contestants get a chance to win a free portrait, it involves me doing 16 portraits in all (great project - but it requires time to complete). And last but not least, I need to continue creating relevant inspired art that will be made available in my online store (the really fun stuff).

The issue at hand is accomplishing all these things harmoniously. It's important as creatives that we take the time out necessary to do the personal projects that reflect the untamed inspirations when they come. That fiery Mexican muse, that has to be captured in an explosive illustration. That make-up artist from Chile who lives in Vegas that you must draw to survive. Those creative ideas that have to be explored, the list goes on. Its unhealthy for an artist to ignore creative passions. All work and no play... well you know the rest.

My new challenge to myself is to get one piece created from the heart per week. This project will be called INSPIRATA. It's not a collection, it's more of an incentive. The quality of my other works benefit from the existence of an exercise like this. I challenge other artists and designers to do this for themselves as well, you won't regret it. Create something weekly that stems from somewhere deep inside.

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JNESS GRAPHICS
Bigger Art Is Better!™
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