Continuity and Planning

When I was painting every day and selling my paintings online, I was successful. I built up a small following. That was hard to keep up, and with a couple of international moves I lost direction.

Every time I stop painting for a while, it is hard to get back into the flow. The longer I don't paint, the harder it is to get back into it. When I started working in property management, I painted less and less. After a while I got very depressed and wasn't painting anymore at all.

When I quit that job, I tried to start painting again. But I just couldn't get into it at first. It took a couple of years to get to the point where I am now - eager to get up early in the morning and start working on art.

I made two changes in my attitude towards art.

The first is I changed my medium. My art is mostly created through Inkscape, an illustration program. I also use a painting program called Krita. These are both free and open-source programs.

I also decided to design specifically for products. Instead of doing paintings and then trying to make them fit on products, I'm designing in a way that the elements can be combined in different ways to fit on different products.

The most important thing is that I can't stop. I don't want to go through that period again where I am trying to create art and feeling like there is only a sad cloud in my head. So I decided to do art every day. In case of any moves/travel/disruptions where I can't work on my computer, I have a drawing program on my tablet and a sketchbook.

 Ego Etiam Vivo means I am still alive. I was inspired to make this because someone named Tree said they were still alive on a message board I go to every morning. I am still alive too, and that is a good thing to remember.