Reflections and a Reminder to Take July Off
A reminder, one of the biggest lessons from My Year of TED was that I should have given myself a scheduled break in the middle - and yet! I know this project is significantly different to that one, but in future I think any year-long project needs to have the rule "take July off".
I've been going through the posts to consolidate a list of the courses I've done and come up with a mid-project review. And I have to admit that I haven't been nearly as disciplined with this as I had planned. Now, I'm being kind to myself because when I envisioned this project I was not prepared for coronavirus or making the decision to shift my business.
But still, we are up to Week 30 and there are 10 weeks without course posts. I may have tried to do the courses in those weeks and decided not to share, or wasn't focused enough on them - there are at least a dozen that have not made it into posts.
Let's get to reflecting
Enough about judging myself on commitment and let's talk about how I'm feeling at this point. Overall, I'm really happy with how it's all been going. I feel more connected to my creativity, as long as words aren't involved - seriously struggling with words at the moment.
If I think about the impact of this all and what I've taken from the courses and have been applying, I get the following list.
I know my basic style and probably have known for a while, but it's fun to play with new mediums to see how I can add to it.
I should have turned my handwriting into a font years ago!
I need to get my butt in gear and do some real animation courses - Procreate was fun but I need to get into After Effects.
I need to make more time for creating the things I've really enjoyed doing - zines and pop ups are the main ones that come to mind.
There are so many career options I hadn't considered around patterns and products that I can introduce into my new business.
The big takeaway
This section has taken too long and had too many rewrites. I shouldn't struggle to say nice things about my creative work, but here we are.
I can say that I feel pretty good about the creative work I'm doing in general. I'm really happy with some of the work I've produced for this project, even more so for the Brooklyn Art Library sketchbook I completed and the professional illustration work I've been doing for clients. And I'm elated to be shifting my business into illustration and visual communication.
I do realise that my discomfort in complimenting myself may not bode well for a creative business, since I apparently need to be able to tell people I'm great (insert eyeroll). This is something I guess I need to work on.
And next...
We are about to go into Week 31 of the project, I've screwed weeks up somewhere and got ahead of myself. I've revamped my office space to give myself more surface area to create and do that work - once a piece of furniture can return to the bedroom when Lily has properly recuperated from her leg surgery.
I know six other areas of creativity I want to do courses in, and there is a whole list of 'maybes' that I've saved to have a look at. Since I haven't had as much time/focus as I planned, I am thinking of giving myself every fourth week off. That still gives me 17 weeks to fill between now and the end of the year - which should be plenty.