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09.13.2010 Questioning Everything
So I made the mistake of going online to look at others’ lettering illustration. Why did I do this?? It always makes me question my desires for the next steps of my career and leads me to believe I’ll never get there. And it’s not worth it. I’m just setting up another roadblock.
It just so happens I’m not the only one to do this, though. You do it, too, RIGHT? You think, oh, I want to get inspired so I think I’ll wander around on the internet to look at others’ art and creations. If you’re not careful, though, this can turn into a hole you dig for yourself. It’s fine to look. But it’s BAD to compare, to start to question, to tell yourself you SUCK.
I’ve received a couple of emails lately that were so wonderful, yet made me a little sad. They told me they loved my work (wonderful part) but that they can’t doodle or journal like I do (the bad part). Admiring can turn into comparing, writing yourself off, and eventually becoming dreadfully blocked.
WHY do we do this to ourselves? It’s a way to procrastinate, to give into the fear we have. What fear is that? The fear of succeeding. The fear of trying and possibly NOT succeeding, or creating the way we want to. We need to give this up. We need to stop doing this to ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with admiring others’ work, but we can’t start comparing. And don’t say to yourself, “I’ll never journal like so-and-so.” Truthfully, why would you WANT to?
Honestly, I see so many journal artists that really have their own styles. I see their pages and I can immediately identify whose they are. As a former magazine art director, I used to do that with illustrators, too. I can still do it to an extent, but not as well since I don’t keep up on the market like I used to. Anyways, if you’re looking at your pages and thinking you want them to look like so-and-so’s, you need to do some re-evaluating of why you’re art journaling.
I see many journal artists who are blatantly copying other journal artists’ styles and that makes me sad. If you can’t be your TRUE self in your art journal, where CAN you be true? Our art journals are where we spill OURSELVES, our dreams, our hopes, our ideas, our visions, thoughts, etc. If we simply emulate someone else’s journal style, our pages tend to feel a little flat. It’s possible to emulate styles when we start out, just while we’re learning, and that’s OK. But to continuously do that and not grow, not evolve, not become your OWN voice, that’s not TRUE art journaling.
One of my mentors (I will not name names) once said she feels art journaling is more than just documenting our days in our journals. I don’t agree with that. I think we can get to something deeper through documentation, that documentation is the ROAD to baring our souls. So if you’re starting out, don’t feel pressure to journal “deep, soul-baring” pages. It’s too much stress.
And if you’re a doodler, like I am, and you start comparing your doodles to someone else’s, STOP IT! They are DOODLES!!! There are no BAD doodles!!! There are no BAD art journal pages!!!
I may have covered this topic before, I may have already said some of the very same things before, but I feel it deserves another post. I always need to remind myself of this, and I think other artists do, too. Thanks for reading my pep talk to myself. I needed that.
Art, Art Journals, Doodling, Life
Reader Comments (20)
I think it's a perfect lesson to repeat. WE ALL need to hear it time & time again. We don't need to compare ourselves with anyone else but ourselves! I said ti in one of my videos on YT. Ya don't need anyones permission to create art. Ya dont' need validation by anyone to create art. ALL WE DO NEED is to JUST CREATE! Do what's in out heart. What makes our heart soar? I don't care if it's just a line on a piece of paper. IF YOU say it's ART Then it's ART! We don't need to have it blessed by the world to claim we are an artist.
I can't understand why anyone would want to be a copy-cat artist. I do love ya work but it's YOUR Work! I can admire it, read my Doodle Diary and enjoy the hard work ya put into it. But to sit down and copy line for line & stroke for stroke, what ya did in your book wouldn't make it mine.
Thanks for re-blogging this topic. The world should know we need to quit putting so much stress on ourselves and just go for it! We each can create, we just need to take the first step.
Love & Hugs, Poe
I don't even like to read other's comments on the same blog posts, because I do get a little self-critical. Isn't that a sad commentary on this day and age?
I will not compare myself to others because I am unique, and they are unique, and to expect equality is to cast dispersion on our unique creation.
Awesome post! I like to doodle, on everything. Most of the time it's not even a conscious thing, I just doodle while on the phone, while waiting, or anytime! I've kept a sketch book for many years and as I look at them I see serious sketches, I see object studies, snippets of a scene, doodles, scribbles, grocery lists, words/feelings. When I started looking at these as "art journals" (and looking at blogs, books, magazines) it froze up my creative drive because I saw what other artists were doing and my stuff looked childish. I've since gone back to what I love which is sketching, doodling, and a little painting. It's nice to be inspired as long as we don't allow ourselves to use it to compare our work to someone else's!
Thank you for the reminder this morning. ~Lanie J.
It's so easy to do this as an artist, I think, and it's really easy to forget than anything can be art - we spend so much time looking at our work in comparison to other people's and thinking "Mine is not good enough," but really, where are we getting that standard? Where is it told that some art is good and some is bad?
This is a great pep talk, and one that we ALL need to hear at least every once in awhile. Thanks!
I agree. It is so hard to see other people's work and JUST be inspired by it. Often for me, too, inspiration can turn into self-criticism. There are some places where I can let it go. I can let it go in my art journal. But when it comes to illustration projects or illustrations I would eventually like to sell, the self-doubt is there always. I don't care if the drawings I do in my journal aren't as perfect as I would have liked to or see on the pages of others, but when it comes to illustration - I freeze. It is so useless and such a shame. Perhaps we should all agree to lock ourselves in a room without art books or the internet and just work on what WE want to do?
Wow! Perfect timing! Thanks for the great words.
Thanks so much for this reminder! I am having a week where I desperatey need to hear this. I have just begun a graphic design/web design degree program and just yesterday I was beating myself up comparing my efforts to those of my fellow students. You made me relaize that I need to accept my work as it is and grow into it and not someone else's idea of what it should be!
Melanie
i love looking online for inspiration, but you're right, you have to be careful. Several months back i ended up spending most of my time looking at others' art but making very little of my own. Somewhere in all the looking i silenced my own voice for a bit. When i sat down to journal, i couldn't pull anything out of myself. i felt defeated. i've realized i need a nice balance between looking at other artists' work a little, but going to the studio more often.
And i'm also seeing lots of copying of other people's styles. Not only is it boring to see the same things over and over, but what about your own voice? Like you said, if not in an art journal (your own voice), then where?
A wonderful post. Thank you!
Dawn, thank you for posting this -- I think it's a message we need to be reminded of over and over again. Sometimes the work of others inspires me, sometimes it shuts me down. The trick is to notice your response and BACK AWAY when it's closing you down (as you well know). That's easier than it sounds.
I find that there are times when I just can't look at anybody's work, because I'm still discovering something that wants to be expressed inside me. I want to hear that internal voice clearly, and I can't when I'm listening to everybody else's at the same time.
As far as other people's styles...I think it is okay to try out different styles, but know that is what you are doing. Try it out to see if you want to adapt it to your own style and expand your repertoire -- don't try it because your own work "isn't good enough." Because it is. Personally, I my work shows a variety of styles, yet I imagine someone else would still know that it all comes from the same source. I can't see the thread that ties it all together; it's the nature of my style that it is invisible only to me, LOL!
Dawn,
You just stepped right into my head! Yesterday was a bad day for me and I kept saying to myself "Why bother? Everything I do looks the same." I WAS trolling the blogs looking for inspiration, but as you said, ended up comparing wondering why I can't do something as inspiring as what I was seeing, kicking myself. Even though I know I am doing it, how do I stop? How do YOU stop? In my head I know I am ME, but in my heart I am still comparing myself and my creations to others. As Alix said above, backing away IS easier than it sounds, WAY easier than it sounds. Thank you for posting!
its so easy to compare yourself to other great artists out there and feel not good, enough. I try to have my own style, but it seems Iam always self critical of my work....but its mine and its my journal and I do it for me
I learned the "art" of art journaling through mimicking the art journaling of those I admire...but as I progressed with my own art journals, I took the techniques and bits that I liked, added my OWN spin on things and therein is where I believe my own style has come from. With many things, we often begin by imitating that which we admire...it's when we fail to move beyond that imitation that we fail to grow.
I love your post here. Awesome, Dawn!
Peace & Love,
Barb
Great thoughts Dawn and inspiring too! Thanks!
Well said! Thanks for putting everything I have always felt since I started journaling and have never been able to express, into clear and concise thoughts! I need to have your words hanging over my desk:) THANK YOU!!
thanks for the reminder. it's something that can't be said enough :)
Thanks for this post! And reminding all of us. I know I need this reminder a lot!!
Thank you for feeling this, saying this, and sharing it. I LOVE to play and work in my art journals. It feels so incredibly wonderful. Sometimes, though, I wonder about my personal style and what other art journalers think. But then I catch myself and know that all that matters is that they're mine and I have wonderful paint all over my fingers and piles of papers everywhere and I am real.
As someone who is currently working to define her own personal style, I could not agree more with you. This is a lesson that bears repeating. Tomorrow I'll spend less time looking at others work and more time in my own journal!!!
Hi Dawn. I LOVE this post! I came to your blog from the 21 Secrets page. I'm doing a session in there too. I can so relate to this whole post, but specifically to what you said here: "So if you’re starting out, don’t feel pressure to journal “deep, soul-baring” pages. It’s too much stress." THAT is what hung me on up on art journaling initially. I'm a pretty simple girl! I don't really care to share my "deep, soul-baring" thoughts that much. I even mention this in the intro to my segment of 21 Secrets. I want art journaling to be fun. I don't want it to be a place where I unleash all the garbage that may be happening in my life. That, my friend, is what my running shoes are for. :-)
I'll be checking in regularly! Kelly