“I Love You Just The Way You Are”***Creatives talk about the “journey&rdqu

“I Love You Just The Way You Are”

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Creatives talk about the “journey”, and “creative processes” and techniques. We also have the tendency to stress over details and, unless one is particulary well-conditioned to leave well enough alone, we can be prone to over-work our pieces. We freely express what we’re not particular well-practiced in (“Oh, I’m just HORRIBLE at drawing HANDS!”).

Despite the fact that we have it drilled into our heads, “Don’t compare your work to others’!”, we still do it despite ourselves. We get swept up in realistic approaches to art, just as quickly as we get swept up into graphic, bold “styles.”

We have occasional accidents where we may spill in onto a piece that we have come SO FAR to finishing, only to end up trashing it because it’s beyond salvaging.

Hours and hours of digital work can be lost in a sudden program freeze, computer crash, or power outage, unless we have conditioned ourselves to compulsively hit the keyboard shortcuts to “Save” our work every two minutes.
We lose sleep trying to better ourselves, to meet deadlines, and make everyone happy. We feel guilty when we take five minutes to NOT draw something. Sometimes we feel like we’ve reached a plateau of skill–a lack of improvement. Everything looks awful We come upon “art blocks”, and suffer from burnout.
Art Stops Being Fun.

But one day, a few months ago, my sister texted me while we both were at work with an image, and a simple caption, “I did the thing.” I flipped out. I showed it to everyone around me–whether they cared or not–this magnanimous highlighter doodle of a triceratops that she did. …And, knowing the way she is, she probably did it in less than two minutes.

My sister isn’t much of an illustrator, or visual artist, despite having a very strong interest in fashion design for many, many years when she was younger. So, when she decides to draw ANYTHING, the WHOLE WORLD comes to a halt. For me, at least.

I told her, “You better bring this home, cuz it’s GOING ON THE FRIDGE.” And it’s been displayed there ever since, and probably will be forever.

I’ve kept all the art she’s done over the years.

Earlier this week, I scanned this gem, and I gave it a once over:

Torn upper edges where she ripped it out of the notepad…of ruled paper, of course…which scanned crooked, despite my efforts… A few splattered coffee stains. Lots of wrinkles.

I just sat there and smiled. I told myself, “No. No, there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s perfect.”

And thus, the piece had a name: “I Love You Just The Way You Are.”

S6||RB