Shaking Off Perfectionism

I've had a really rough time reclaiming my creativity lately, especially when it comes to painting. I look at different artist's sketchbooks on various social media and they all seem so perfect. Intellectually I know that it is unlikely that every page they have produced is perfection, but it's left me being too afraid to lay paintbrush to paper.

Filling some new pans with paint

But what could I do? You only get better by practicing and I am now afraid of practicing.

Empty Meeden watercolor tins

Eventually I realized that what I was most afraid of was not having any masterpieces to share. So I've taken a new approach.

Holbein, M. Graham, and Grumbacher tubes. Not shown is Daniel Smith. I'm most fond of M. Graham at the moment.

Even if I paint a masterpiece, I am not going to share any paintings online for a while.

Moleskine Art Plus sketchbook

I think it will be much healthier for me to reclaim painting as something I do for myself rather than something I do to earn accolades.

I got an adhesive magnet tape, cut it into little rectangles and adhered it to the bottom of the pans so they would magnetically stick to my tin.

In the meantime, I'd like to share some artists I greatly admire.
Missy Dunaway paints the most beautiful journal entries. Even she will tell you that she paints over some of her paintings repeatedly before she has something she likes.
Chandler O Leary has some awesome travel sketchbooks. She was kind enough to share what materials she uses. It helped me get a better idea of what I could use that would hold up to heavy use.
James Gurney regularly shares his plein air paintings. And still one better, he often releases videos showing how he did it.

The Comic Lives

Connor and I have been reading "The Road Back To You" together. It is a book about the Enneagram. What's the Enneagram you ask? It is a system of 9 personalities. The theory is that in childhood you develop one particular type to help you cope with life's difficulties. Here is a list if you want to have a look.

It's been clear that Connor is a solid 9. He is easy-going, peaceful, but also can get lost going to a place he has been to a hundred times. We've had a harder time pegging me. First I thought I was a 3 (The Achiever). Then Mum read the book and thought I was a 4 (The Individualist)... then Connor got ahead of me and thought I was a 1 (The Reformer, but also The Perfectionist). I think Connor might be right. I read the chapter on the 1 hesitantly. (I didn't want to be a 1.) Guys, I think I'm a 1. I have trouble putting work out into the world unless it is perfect. In some areas that is great, like with writing knitting patterns. In other arenas this is terrible, like with the daily comic.

I don't want to reveal something that is less than perfect and this comic is just that. The lines aren't perfectly formed, the lettering is not all even, and I am not perfectly confident that it will be well received. I do think the stories are good, though... so there is that. So, even though I have not got all the comics up, I think it is time share that the daily comic site is up.  I'm not quite brave enough to post the announcement up on any of my other social media locations this time. This will just be between us, here on the blog. The site is called Audry Without An E and can be found at http://audrywithoutane.com/.

The site is still being tweaked, but thanks to Connor, it is largely where I hoped to have it. In the long term I hope to have a comic strip post once a day, although the strip will be from exactly a year ago. As of this writing, we have posted July, August, September, and a wee bit of October of 2015.

It's no small job. I've had to scan 160+ pages, clean up the lettering in areas where it was illegible (which takes a silly amount of time to do), then cut up and format each strip. In the original form, there are 4 strips per page, but for the online version, I have to break them down to one strip per page. After all that, I hand the strips over to Connor and he uploads them, titles them, adds tags, and makes sure they post to the correct date. Last night we sat together for three hours just to get 34 strips up.

Currently, I have processed strips through mid-February 2016, but there are still so many more to do. I'm not quite half way done even after spending every spare moment I've had in the last month. I guess what I'm saying is that it is a really big job and I really could use some positive feedback.