I've had some negative opinions about setting goals in the past. Really the only reason for these opinions was my own failure to meet past goals I had made for myself. Either I always came up short on my expectations or I forgot about the goals and moved on with my life, only to reflect on them later with self-reproach. My S.M.A.R.T. goals from the 2017-2018 school year were hardly met and that was something I wanted to change this year. I totally changed my attitude towards making goals and I'm proud to say that I really stuck with them last semester.
As far as getting better with cartooning has gone (my academic goal), I did fall short on the frequency of my sketching. However, I have been consistently working in my sketchbook, developing a style that I love and vastly improving my skills in drawing the human form. I always struggled with drawing full-body poses and avoided it like the plague, but I've found myself now regularly drawing full bodies and even making my own poses without references. I've had many friends comment on the improvement they've seen in my recent cartoon drawings and it's truly built my confidence in my skills. For my personal goal I wanted to procrastinate less. This entailed using the Google apps for making lists, notes and setting dates and reminders on a calendar. I was slightly unsure of my ability at first to follow through with this goal, since I've tried many, many times to quit procrastinating and nothing has worked. Lucky for me, unlike a physical planner, the Google apps harass me (in the very best way) and give me the satisfaction of watching tasks disappear as I actually complete them on time. I've taken great joy in setting out tasks for myself on the calendar and list apps, hour by hour on days when I need to get things done. It's helped me find the motivation I need to complete tasks bit by bit, long before the coming due dates, rather than the whole task the night before. I faced and overcame many challenges as an artist last semester, both personally and academically. While, yes, having achieved my goals to a standard I'm proud of, none of this came without difficulty. Early in the semester I began drawing more cartoon-style pieces in accordance with my academic goal. This goal, however, was partially personal, too, expanding far further than the academy for me, as drawing in a cartoon style has been what I've done since the sixth grade, back when I lacked the confidence to draw realism. It wasn't long after setting the goal for myself that I began to doubt my ability to improve. The only time I was happy with the pose and composition of a drawing was when it was reimagined from a comic book screenshot. So, from there, in an attempt to further my skills, I started using a posing app that allowed me to create poses on blank figures. I made countless drawings with this app, all of which I was significantly proud of. Now, with this practice, I've gained a better understanding of drawing poses and I can sketch proportionate figures without any reference. Overcoming this challenge taught me a lot about the gradual process of improvement and the influence of inspirations in my work. In the past, I've touched on the fact that I draw mainly fan-art, depicting my favourite movie and comic book characters in my own style. I didn't realize the importance before of having these inspirations to help me gradually learn the basics until I can reach the point of developing my own style and skills. This has led me to creating a new goal for the current semester. I want to publish a series, here on this blog, recording my monthly inspirations. These can include comics, games, books, other artists, etc. I think it's important to reflect on what inspires us and how it plays into what we create, and I want to do that here. This will entail writing a brief blog post each month including visuals about what inspired me the previous month. I believe that writing these posts will help me better understand myself as an artist and watch my growth as I look back on them later. Last semester was filled with growth, challenges, great moments with friends, and landmark achievements, such as getting hired at my first proper job. I know that the goal I have set for myself will bring more challenges and, more importantly, more growth this semester. I also hope to continue achieving my goals from last semester and growing in those areas as I still, of course, have room for improvement there. I'm incredibly excited to begin this new blog series and have confidence that it will become a vital part of my journey as an artist.
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Last year, when creating our S.M.A.R.T. goals, I described them as, "terrifying." I thought that they were just something you set to make yourself feel better or just to say that you did. To say the least, my relationship with goal setting is a bit different now. After a school year of missing deadlines, making new ones, and writing a lot of blog posts, I've come to like making goals for myself. Although it took some time, I eventually met both of my S.M.A.R.T. goals last year. My academic goal was to improve how I present my art online. I didn't truly meet this goal until August, after giving my website a total makeover and starting a YouTube channel. My personal goal was to have forty designs in my Redbubble shop. I didn't meet this goal in time either, but I eventually did meet it, and I learned a lot along the way. All of this said, I'm excited to create my S.M.A.R.T. goals this year.
My goal for the V.A.M. Academy this semester is to improve my animated style. I've recently started drawing in my personal sketchbook again. Inspired by the many graphic novels I read over the summer, I decided to do a thirty-day challenge, using cartoon styles for each drawing. I've seen so much improvement already from doing this challenge, that I'm going to achieve this goal by doing something similar. I'll do a cartoon drawing of a person or animal each day, for five days a week. These drawings may be in my personal sketchbook or my school sketchbook, depending on when and where I have the availability to draw. Even if I can't complete this goal to the standard I expected, there is no doubt that even just attempting to complete this goal will improve my drawing skills. Not only will I be forced to get creative with references and come up with new ways to draw backgrounds, I'll also learn how to draw accurate anatomy, unique facial features, and keep a consistent style, which will translate to realism. When completed on January 31, 2019, I will have developed skills that I'll carry into the next semester and even further. The personal goal I plan to complete this semester is to procrastinate less. It's a common goal, but an important one nonetheless. I have a tendency to calculate exactly how long I can put something off for, then proceed to put it off for exactly that long, if not longer. This is a habit I tried to quit last year and it proved very possible. I had an agenda that I kept every day, writing down due dates, event times and checklists. It was very successful at keeping me on track until about April when I stopped having time to keep the agenda going daily. I have a solution to this, which will be how I achieve this goal. Google Drive now has three widgets on the side of any document: "Tasks," "Calendar," and, "Keep." "Tasks," is a checklist widget, where I can make a to-do list and check off completed activities. "Keep," is for taking notes, which I've already been using in certain classes and, "Calendar," is self-explanatory. I specifically plan to use the checklist and calendar, as, used together, they act similarly to the agenda I had last year. The crucial difference is the accessibility of using Google widgets, rather than a physical agenda. I use Google Drive daily, whether it's a document, drawing or slideshow. Rather than having to set apart time to fill out a physical agenda, I'll have my scheduled activities and due dates in front of me as I'm working, and will even be warned as a due date is approaching. This kind of visual resource will help to keep me on track, as I'll always know what my workload looks like and how much time I have for a given assignment. I'll also be motivated by the checklist, out of the simple satisfaction I get from checking things off of a list once it's complete. I will check and update my tasks and calendar daily until the deadline on January 31, 2019. I'm hoping that achieving this goal will help me long-term with scheduling and time-management. Less terrifying than they seem, goals are necessary parts of life, on a small scale or a large scale. We set them for ourselves and achieve or fail them every day without even realizing. I believe that any change is a good change when it comes to goals because it shows you what works. I know that working towards these goals will bring obstacles my way, but I also know that getting past them or getting defeated by them will teach me something about myself, one way or another. For those reasons, I'm ready to start achieving my specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound goals. Although the school year is long over and the next one is coming up in only a few weeks, I feel I've still carried my VAM goal with me throughout the summer. Recently, as I've been consistently uploading videos on my YouTube channel, I've been working on my website more as well, in order to promote these videos. I've made a lot of adjustments to make my website more efficient, organized, and aesthetically pleasing. Because I've done so much work on my website, I've also become more inclined to blog about things. All that said, I think I've really made progress as far as improving my online image as an artist goes. I believe that this improvement in online image will help me succeed more as an artist, whether that be with Redbubble sales or YouTube growth. I want to continue blogging this month and I hope to blog more consistently.
And now for... exciting news! My friend Angelina and I are painting a bench, which will be displayed at Airdrie Fest on September seventh and will then be placed in an Airdrie community! We pitched a design idea to the providers of the bench, and were granted the supplies to start painting. I'll leave the design a surprise, but it will be named "#PeaceAndLoveBench." We're approximately a quarter of the way through painting, and we're both very excited to be given this opportunity. In particular, I'm really glad that I'm getting to contribute to my city with art once again. Last year my classmates and I were given the opportunity to paint a tile each for the Canada 150 mural in Airdrie. I can't wait to see the bench get placed in a community where so many people will be able to enjoy it. Stay tuned for more bench updates in the near future. It has been seven months since I made my S.M.A.R.T. goals blog post. My academic goal was to improve how I present my art online. My time frame was six months, and as that time has passed, I would say I achieved my goal. Although I came up short on some specifics (having roughly 50 gallery posts, working for half an hour on the site each week), I have most certainly made an online image as an artist that I'm proud of.
Since posting my original goal, I have added a slideshow to my gallery with more of my VAM work, I have made social media to link to my Redbubble and my website, and I have—especially recently—made more blog posts, even aside from assignments. This website now feels like it properly represents me and my goals as an artist. It's something I feel proud to show my peers, which is avery important part of anything I make in VAM Academy. I can't wait to continue improving this website more, this year and into next year. I will continue to add to my gallery and blog with work I can take pride in! I'm back already with a positive update! As I've been on spring break for the past ten days, I've been doing some painting. I started with a commission, and I was so happy with the finished product, I made an identical painting for myself. Last night I even made another painting for myself, and put both on my wall today. I have done many acrylic paintings before and have been told countless times that I should put them on Redbubble, but never felt confident enough to do so. However, with these paintings, that changed. I took some time today to make two of the paintings into designs and uploaded them to my Redbubble portfolio. I feel very proud of the two designs in the series so far, and hope to add more, or even separate acrylic designs. Let's see where this goes!
If you look back to December, you'll see a goal to have "perhaps fifty-five" Redbubble designs in my shop portfolio by March. Well, more than halfway through March, and I have added (from forty-four) a whopping two designs! Why is this? I assure you it's not a lack of ideas. I have lots of ideas that I want to put into designs. It most certainly isn't a distain for the design process, as I actually find it to be pretty satisfying to line up each "png" on the product format.
You see, there are a couple of reasons I haven't really added to my shop. One reason is time. Semester two has come with a fair amount of homework, even on the weekends, and I find that if I haven't simply forgotten about Redbubble by the time I'm finished homework, I'm too tired to make a design. The other reason is that a lot of my drawings and design ideas lately have centered around Star Wars, which I don't have permission to make designs out of, which is a complete bummer. How can I make time for Redbubble? How can I get back to making designs that are sellable? These are questions I never thought I would be asking myself when I started selling on Redbubble nearly nine months ago. At the time I wasn't doing school, and I had plenty of drawings waiting to be uploaded before my account was even made. It was easy, and I didn't think of balancing being a student and an artist. It's certainly a thought now. However, I think this may be giving me insight into what it looks like to be a career artist. I think. Is it difficult raising a family and seeing friends when you need to brainstorm and sketch at home? Is it hard having a boss or client who tells you do to one thing, when your pencil wants to do another? If I go on to a career in art and face these questions, I won't know how to answer them then, if I don't answer the questions I'm facing now. So, how will I fix my Redbubble dilemma? I'll start by beginning a new series, and setting a goal of having at least three designs in the series. I'll sit down on a free weekend or on Spring Break and get a few pieces for this series done in a single day. This one is hard for me, as a bit of a "fangirl," but another goal will be to upload more non-fanart designs. I think it'll make me more proud to make a sale on these designs, and with this pride, give me motivation to add more. Hopefully, the next time I check in with a goal update, I will have gotten back up on my feet for motivation, and maybe have even made a few more sales. Let's surpass that fifty-five! As my second Redbubble payment comes rolling in, I think now is an appropriate time to make an update on my progress with my shop. To begin, I've already surpassed forty designs (44) in my portfolio, my most popular designs being a "Stranger Things" pixel series. Adding a series, along with a large amount of other products to my portfolio has greatly helped me get my work out there and seen, which has brought me great success in sales. As of this month's payment, I will have made sixty-six sales, making a total of over one hundred dollars. I feel proud of my designs knowing that there are so many people out there who want to own it on various products, and I'll be sure to continue adding designs in the new year—perhaps fifty-five by March.
Goals are terrifying. They come with looming pressure to stay in line with whatever it is you have yourself convinced you'll achieve. This year, one of our tasks is to make and maintain a S.M.A.R.T. goal for the academy, and for ourselves. Of course, I'm terrible at maintaining goals, plus I'm pretty sure this is graded so I might just be doomed. Nevertheless, I'll try this, because it could seriously benefit me as an artist.
Now, originally, my VAM goal was to, "Try new things with my art." However, it seemed the goal I chose was far too general to be clearly achieved, so I changed it up. The goal I've chosen is to improve how I present my art online. I plan to achieve this by working on this here website half an hour at home each week for six months, in order to have a website that can accurately represent me as an artist. This means regularly uploading new work, improving the aesthetic of the website, and making more blog posts. When logging into Weebly to begin editing, I will have in mind a picture of what I want my image as an artist to look like. I want to be filling my gallery with my most proud work that I believe I've put my best effort to, and that best represents who I am as an artist. I'll know I've met this goal when my website is at its cleanest, most organized state, and filled with at least fifty pieces of my best artwork and photographs. I deeply hope as I continue to work on achieving this goal, that my presentation and professionalism as an artist will improve. As for a personal goal... nope. Nope, nope, nope. When told I had to make a personal goal, my first thought was to get more sleep, but I strongly believe there is no perceivable universe where I can consistently get eight hours of sleep. I began to think I just couldn't make a goal for myself that would actually be achievable. However, as I was working on my Redbubble shop I thought: this. This. Currently, I am not employed in a job with a consistent income; but I do sell art. Thus far, I have sold a shirt and a sticker, making a total of $3.29. As a teen who wants to buy more art supplies than she likely needs, this is what I want to change. And so, my goal is to have forty (from twenty-seven) designs in my shop, and thirty (from six) posts on my promotion Instagram page, by March. To achieve this, I will try to have a new design in my shop for every other week and will post at least once or twice a week promoting my products on my Instagram. Following these habits, I may even be able to surpass my personal goals. From these goals, I hope I will be able to improve my designs and products and learn more about what will help me make sales on the site. Ultimately, I know my academy and personal goals will teach me a lot about professionalism in art, and my style and message as an artist. Despite the overwhelming fear the word, "goal," strikes into my heart, I am excited to see where my attempts to meet these goals will take me. |
About this blogOn this blog page I'll be posting about my progress in achieving art goals, and how I'm learning new things and improving as an artist. Archives
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AuthorLeah is an eighteen-year-old aspiring Canadian artist who enjoys drawing, painting, and photography. |