Uh-oh

I submit this little sketch that I did a while ago (while in line at the super market) as an illustration of my current mental state: blissfully unaware. Actually, it's more like "brain-dead".

I'm having an artistic crisis of confidence. Having been out of school for a while now and having not landed the job that I want yet has started to take it's toll. Fear not though! I am taking steps to stay on track! It's really tough but I have some great help. It's been suggested that I show more of my work more often so that I can get different perspectives on what I'm doing wrong and what I'm doing right. I have never been very comfortable showing work that I feel isn't a good representation of my abilties, which is a bad way to learn. School totally helped me get over that and to realize that not every day is a great drawing day, and not every single drawing that I make is going to be the best one ever. Having not had as much contact with artistic friends since school, I feel like I'm in a bit of a creative void. It's been tough to push myself lately and I'm finding that I've begun to fall back on old and very bad ways of thinking and doing things, like only showing drawings that I think are good. Crappy drawings have their merits too!

Recently when I sit down to draw just for the sake of drawing, I feel kind of guilty. It's like the act of sitting quietly in front of a computer or a piece of paper is counter-productive. Now that finding a job is my "full-time" job any time spent not looking for work is not good. The strangest part about it all is that in order to create new work I need to spend time to create it and get better because I'm still a newb. However, it usually takes more time than I would like because I'm a newb. Since I'm working part-time and looking for work full-time, it's difficult to make the necessary time, and since that time isn't being spent looking for work the idea that I'm doing something bad or falling behind is often at the front of my mind, which doesn't help my confidence.

This is a very weird time for me...stranger than any other I can think of. Even though that's the case, I am not going to stop continuing forward, and I won't let anything stand in my way. Not even me. As bad as things might seem I have a lot to be thankful for and I need to keep that firmly in mind and take advantage of the advantages that I have right now because they might not always be there. I also need to stop second guessing everything I do (like actually submitting this post)!

UPDATE:

Just knocked this out. The line work is by Joe Olson, who works at Avalanche Studios (who is owned by Disney). The line work was posted on the Avalanche art blog and after seeing all the different ways that other people had coloured it, I decided that I wanted to have a go at it as well. Some parts are better than others, but I'm still a newb when it comes to digital painting. I'm going to step away from it for a while and then when I have a fresh perspective of it I'll go ahead and fix up the stuff that needs fixing. I'm definately going to be reworking the background, but for now I'm just glad that the guy isn't floating in a white void.