When I draw something magical, I almost feel that magic. Later on I learned that when an illustration conveys this kind of magic in a way that awakens some sort of curiosity, you can describe it as whimsical.
Storytelling, playful magic, a quaint character… that’s whimsy. I remember looking at old illustrated books when I was around six years old and feeling that magic.
Later on, at around 13 or 14, I loved fairies. I almost drew them exclusively for a few years. Those magical little creatures.
Then it was elves…
One day, randomly this scene came to mind and while I was drawing it I felt that childhood magic. Like if when I was drawing it, I was copying it from real life– is this what inspiration actually means?
Process
Whimsical friendship – pencil sketch Artwork by Cynthia LaraWhimsical friendship – background base Artwork by Cynthia LaraWhimsical friendship – color process Artwork by Cynthia LaraWhimsical friendship – color process and details Artwork by Cynthia LaraWhimsical friendship – final Artwork by Cynthia Lara
Whimsical creatures seem to be my “muse”. What about yours?
We all aspire to greatness. Some more than others–and it often leads to dissatisfaction, frustration, and burnout. Less pressure works better than pushing to your limits at all times.
I’ve always been a tryharder and often, I felt proud of it. My approach to everything was just to try harder. I made a mistake? Try harder. My client wasn’t as happy? Try harder. My drawing wasn’t perfect? Yes, you guessed it: Try harder.
We love to think that life is simple like that, that we can have a formula for success and follow it to get the results we want every time, but growing up means realizing that isn’t true. Life sometimes gets nasty, and even when we “do everything right”, results can lead to failure. It is ok to try hard but not for everything, at all moments.
I published a video about how the flow has been my friend lately:
Maybe the answer is to not push ourselves all the time. I know that there are moments in life where there’s no way around it, but unlearning the “tryhardiness” has been one of the most difficult tasks of my 30’s.
Final Thoughts
Be nice to yourself and allow yourself to be OK. Not perfect. Sometimes we can’t control the outcome even if we push ourselves to the limit, so let go of that expectation to be better all the time. You’re a human being that is human just for being. To be or not to be….amiright?
Yesterday I seized the strong art wave that presented itself and created three whimsical forest watercolor paintings. But wait a minute… It really didn’t present on it’s own. I told my kid “Hey, let’s set up and paint”, “Let’s listen to Riverside. It is the best music I’ve found for focus”.
Looking for Inspiration
What they say about art inspiration is true: it doesn’t really present itself on it’s own and you have to summon it. I was decided to get in the mindset of art, and I think music really helped too. I started looking at my Pinterest home feed and there are some great aritsts out there! I discovered a few great artists and got super inspired. One that really stood out to me was Matt Rockefeller. He really is inspiring!
From Inspiration to Action
Once I was filled with art ideas I had just so much going on in my head and I didn’t want to lose any time. I didn’t yet knew what to draw so I quickly just drew three frames for the illustrations. Once in the flow, I guess it didn’t really took a lot of effort, just let the pencil flow from one panel to the next until I had all three sketches. I’ve been following the carefree attitude I described in my most recent post to let go of my perfectionism and I must say that all things came so much better because I didn’t have a plan for the artwork in mind, all I knew at this point was that I wanted to create three forest watercolor paintings.
Behind the Scenes / WIP
Without any more words (I struggle). Here are a few photos of the doing!
Fable, first layersFable, backgrounds almost doneFable, finished
Adding the shinny hearts to all animals came as a surprise (more of the enjoy the process, let go): While painting the bodies, I added the shadows first and more blending colors until the center of the animal, where the heart would be, was lighter. It just instantly reminded me of Vasil Woodland’s art. One common topic in their art is the presence of a heart in animals and magic that happens around it. In my version it represents the spirit of their habitats 🙂
Tools Are Super Important, But Not Everything
I bought a few cheap brushes at Michaels a few weeks ago and I thought they were ok, until I took my 30 year old brush (that belonged to my dad) and painting became so much better. About 90% of them were made using cheap crap brushes I wanted to test tho LOL.. anyway back to the magic brush…No wonder why it was my favorite when I was in college. I wish I new what brand it is. It is old, it’s not fancy, it is only the best brush ever.
Final Thoughts
Allowing yourself to make mistakes, to think about having fun, enjoy the process and just pass time doing something you love, it may result in creating something super good. So far, I feel my art is so much better lately, because I don’t care!
By the way, I created a Riverside playlist for all artsy folks. For those who don’t know the band it is prog metal but no growls or shouts or anything like that. The guitar player kind of sounds like he “stole” (inspired from) Al Di Meola and it really puts me in the mood for ultra focus-
What a good day! This is just a short story about pushing myself to be more creative and engaging with my loved ones as a path to overcoming burnout. I don’t have any answers, but I want to be happy.
I last painted or drew something at the start of this year. I had a few days off in December 2022 and when this year began I had all this motivation and energy to restart my art in 2023. I found this 1 Year Calendar for Art on Youtube, printed the schedules, and was ready to commit to getting better at my craft and being more creative. I didn’t want to share anything as they were mostly just ugly doodles, but I was getting things done.
Err– you might notice that this blog has been abandoned for over a year and that my social media is also being dead for some time. Well… yeah… I won’t go into details but let’s just summarize that my plans went down the toilet, I drew for like a week, and I’ve been feeling a little bit burned out on life.
Overcoming Burnout and Pushing Myself to Be Creative Again
Anyway. Today I went online with a friend on Zoom and we had coffee, chatted, and painted for a few hours. It was so much fun and refreshing! That was the start of my day and honestly, it really energized me more than I imagined it would. After my painting session, my husband and me went out to buy some stuff, and got myself a cheap table to have a dedicated place for creativity. As an introvert, sometimes going out and doing things on the weekend is dreadful– I’m so tired and drained from my work week that I just want to be in a cave and nap. This time it was so different, even with the rain and the chore-shopping! Art really energized me and I hope that doing just a small thing every day will change my life going forward. I think I need to push myself a little to do one creative thing per day. Even if it is writing a line, drawing a quick 5-minute doodle, or singing a song.
Before going out shopping, I told my husband about a video from Boby Chiu I watched a few years ago (sorry, I couldn’t find it but there are many helpful short videos of his in this playlist and maybe this is in that list somewhere). I don’t remember the details very well but it was mostly about doing better at art and that he changed his setup to make his art accessible. We go and do things that are easy and handy, so that’s almost always watching TV or playing video games, but art (almost always) has an extra step to prepare your area, set up, get all your supplies, and then start doing your thing. So we procrastinate. Hubby told me we had to get me a table to get all my artsy shit there accessible in our room. So we did and now I have a small space in our bedroom that is my art corner. Nothing fancy, and I have to improve it, but no more painting on the kitchen counter, YAY!
I’m just restarting this art journey (again) but I guess that’s life, right? Trying and not giving up on what we love.
Cute animals! Just tiny watercolor minis I did back in 2017. Another drop-off project from someone who jumps around between ideas too much.
The deer was adopted by a friend and it gave me that idea of adobtables. I had a Patreon – which at some point I had like 7 supporters :O and they could claim one, and no one ever did again haha
Summary for this story (and probably more to come) is that I suck at commitment. I was talking to my husband the other day, about things I enjoy doing like drawing, painting, playing video games, etc. And I was telling him that I just don’t play a lot of my favorite video games anymore. For example, Zelda, because I feel I need at least 3hr of quiet and no interruptions. He told me I need to chill out and stop turning everything into a project!
I guess he’s right. If I want to do something, I hate interruptions. I won’t watch a movie unless I know N O T H I N G will come and interrupt it. So this is one of my demons and why I never start doing things, or why I loose inertia and track of projects I once was interested and passionate about. Once I need to hard stop, is really hard to pick up things. But I’m working on that hehehe..
