When a person embarks on a creative endeavor, the first thing that happens is the envisioning of the project. You get an idea weather it seems concrete or a little abstract of how the project turns out and you just think to yourself "Oh man! It's going to be so great when this thing materializes into the thing I see in my head." Yet something that doesn't often come to mind when we get these visions for a project are logistical questions like "How much work will this take?", "Do I have the time to do this?", "Am I even at the skill level to achieve this vision that I see in my head?" Sometimes the fantasy of the result that we see in our heads binds us from from what we actually have to do in order to make it a reality.
So Why am I picking this for a topic for a blog? BECAUSE I'M SUPER GUILTY OF IT! This happens all to me all the time. I get a vision for doing something cool (mainly drawings or illustrations) and I either underestimate how much effort needs to go into it, or I just outright don't take it into account. This will then lead into much frustration to be had. Either in the tumbnail process, or the the bulk of the main project, or BOTH that I try to work out the kinks of the project and I'll think to myself "What's going on here?! Why is this thing not turning out like this super high quality version of it in my head?!" Then I'll either begrudgingly quit the project or finish it with a less than satisfied feeling for it. It's hard for me to name a time when I'm drawing or painting where it doesn't play out closely to this.
So what's happening? Is there something wrong with me? Should I get help for this? No, not really. I used to the term 'fantasy' in the earlier paragraph for a reason. The definition of the word is: "The faculty or activity of imagining things, esp. things that are impossible or improbable." That's what a lot of these flashes of inspiration are. They're an unrealistic expectation of what the result of our project should be. I said that these ideas can can be concrete or abstract, but when you boil them down, all ideas are abstract. We are chasing after a feeling we have and scramble to find a physical way to translate that into the real world, and no matter how much effort we put into it, our desired result can't overcome the limitations of reality. A picture is worth a thousand words but the feelings that they can make us feel can sometimes be wordless.
Now is the moral of this blog that all of our trails to achieve dreams are futile and not worth trying? No, not at all. There would be no progress if people weren't trying to push themselves to a higher ideal. We need to work to get closer to our ideal, but the issue with that is that you need to finish something at some point. You can't just keep polishing something for an undetermined amount of time or else who knows when you'll have something to show for your work. So while it's good for you to do better, it's also good to set limits or deadlines to it as well. If something turned out a little less than desirable, then just brush off your shoulder and try better on the next venture.
Am I right? Or am I some anomaly living in north west Ohio who thinks this?
Keep working towards that "perfect piece"!
-TiMBo