Stable Thought #2

A step away from my Manic Episode 4 thoughts this week, because I want to share and explore one that just came up… …am I stable? Is it a ‘stable’ thought..? …I am still drugged on olanzapine, but I guess I am stable-er than the average of the last few months… anyway, I digress…

On the day of this writing, I just posted three more portraits to Reddit on r/redditgetsdrawn, (including my favorite so far, and one that is definitely not my favorite). I have been practicing and posting portraits as frequently as I can for the last month or so, which started as a part of my introductory education about NFTs, and what it takes to make them (to ‘mint’ an NFT, they call it). I like some of my portraits more than others, but I post them all regardless. I trust that the more I do, the better I will get at doing them (a wild idea!).

I just posted one that I don’t like. The proportions are just not right, the teeth and mouth are still hella hard and gross. I don’t like it and I posted it. I posted something I don’t like. Why?

I did this because I want to get better. I have told myself that I will post my work, regardless of how I personally judge its quality. I am doing this because I want to lean on the promise that many people make about art, or getting good at anything: The process is more important than the result. Instead of only posting stuff that I think is good enough already, I want to be able to see my own progress, and to share my journey of learning a new skill with those who choose to turn in to my content. I want to be an example of someone who trusts the process of improving, regardless of the result.

So I posted my (imho) mediocre work. Then something expected happened. I started thinking, “What have I done!”, and started feeling tempted to take it down before anyone else would see it… but then I thought of something unexpected. Instead of taking it down, and slowing down my own output to… I don’t know… re-do it or something, I decided instead to lean into the production of my next thing. Stop thinking about how I didn’t meet my own expectations for the current piece, and move on to the next. I LOVE starting new things, so why dwell on one sub-standard piece, instead of plowing forward to the next? That is when I rendered and illustrated “The Hulk Cheats at Chess“, and slapped it on my front page. Now I don’t feel as self conscious, but I didn’t remove the mediocre portrait, I just buried it with more content!

I think I’ll keep this idea (for this stage): Speed and volume is more important than self-perceived ‘quality’ in content. When I produce stuff I don’t like, I will just post it, and move on, and keep posting, and posting, and posting…

See you next week!