08-14-2015, 09:02 AM
Same as Adam, I was working full time for 8 hours. I was also commuting for 2 hours each day so by the time I got home it was 7.30pm. I would mad rush eat and give myself an hour until 8 or 8.30pm to start painting. I would paint at least until 12, sometimes until 2 am. Wake up at 6.15 and do it again.
I probably did this for about a year, maybe a bit longer. This is very very bad for your health, but I was driven at that period. I had no social life (still don't really, though improving), just got out of a long term relationship, living in a house on my own so the conditions were good for me to just focus. I would also paint on weekends, though for some reason, the drudgery of going to work and not being able to be creative, really stimulated my juices for the evenings. Tiredness even stopped being a factor, I would just power through because the motivation (and enjoyment) was high.
Downside was that every 6 weeks or so I would totally crash. I would wake up at noon the next day, having slept through my alarms, and realise it was a work day haha.
Best thing I did for myself while working, was to drop down to a 4 day week at work when I could. I made no savings for years, but it was worth it. I also took a 3 month hiatus from work to just focus on my art, which didn't go as expected but was a good thing to do.
I also went to every design/illustration workshop near me that I could afford to..there weren't many, but there were some. These really helped invigorate me each time, so definitely worth it to save up for that if you can.
The worst thing about self-teaching is not knowing whether you are on the right path, so you can start to second guess yourself. Because we tend to spend a lot of time online looking at/for resources etc, I feel that the influence of other artists actually can become detrimental if you aren't careful. For a while I thought I should be doing mechs, and vehicles and soldiers, just because everyone else was, even though I really didn't care about them at all!
During this time I also started learning more about Taoism and Zen, and I was going through some crazy uncertainty angst with art so I disconnected from all social media and art sites at that point and didn't paint anything for 7 months and just learned to listen to myself. Only came back when my head was on straight, and the things that have happened since then have been amazing to me really.
I probably did this for about a year, maybe a bit longer. This is very very bad for your health, but I was driven at that period. I had no social life (still don't really, though improving), just got out of a long term relationship, living in a house on my own so the conditions were good for me to just focus. I would also paint on weekends, though for some reason, the drudgery of going to work and not being able to be creative, really stimulated my juices for the evenings. Tiredness even stopped being a factor, I would just power through because the motivation (and enjoyment) was high.
Downside was that every 6 weeks or so I would totally crash. I would wake up at noon the next day, having slept through my alarms, and realise it was a work day haha.
Best thing I did for myself while working, was to drop down to a 4 day week at work when I could. I made no savings for years, but it was worth it. I also took a 3 month hiatus from work to just focus on my art, which didn't go as expected but was a good thing to do.
I also went to every design/illustration workshop near me that I could afford to..there weren't many, but there were some. These really helped invigorate me each time, so definitely worth it to save up for that if you can.
The worst thing about self-teaching is not knowing whether you are on the right path, so you can start to second guess yourself. Because we tend to spend a lot of time online looking at/for resources etc, I feel that the influence of other artists actually can become detrimental if you aren't careful. For a while I thought I should be doing mechs, and vehicles and soldiers, just because everyone else was, even though I really didn't care about them at all!
During this time I also started learning more about Taoism and Zen, and I was going through some crazy uncertainty angst with art so I disconnected from all social media and art sites at that point and didn't paint anything for 7 months and just learned to listen to myself. Only came back when my head was on straight, and the things that have happened since then have been amazing to me really.