Bottleneck

[secondlina]

For those of you who wonder what Work Creatures are, it's this weird representation of my work load I started drawing a while back. I've re-drawn them several times since, but it's actually been a while since I drew them! Since I finished my big ROSE comic in fact. Well, now, it seems like a good time to bring them back out.

Work as a part-time artist is difficult. I work all day 9 to 5 at a tech support job. It's good, because it does take my mind off drawing and does allow me not to worry every month about where my money is coming from. And not having that "oh god, what am I going to eat!" stress is very, very good.

Art doesn't bring in that much money. It's sad to say, but true. A lot of people assume that art is not worth that much money. Many others disagree. But often, those you draw for will be those that don't value art as much since they just need your stuff to decorate an article or a cover.

So having a full time job is good. It allows me to take very little contracts and commissions, allowing me to focus most of my drawing time on projects that don't really pay, but have great artistic fufillement.

The downside to this is that my number of drawing hours have become very limited. they basically correspond to my free time. And as such, my art needs to share this time with my social life, my family life, my fandom life and my basic everyday chores and needs.

So once in a while, I get into something called a bottleneck.

A bottleneck happens when a) my social life is too dynamic to allow me to work or b) I picked up too much drawing work.

Usually when that happens, I cut down on my social life for about 2 to 3 weeks, seeing about one person per week, if any, and mostly just drawing.

Going thru bottlenecks is sometimes very stressful, other times, really fun. It's fun to draw so much. But having so many deadlines collapse at once is hard.

I'll probably still be online, but expect my answers to be a bit slow since i'll be drawing. And to all my "real-life" friends, apologies! I still want to see you guys a lot. I just need a bit of pencil time right now.

My priorities are currently kinda going like this :

• Finish skydoll exhibit poster
• Finish contracts and don't pick up any new ones for a few months
• Finish commissions (sorry, bonemarch)
• Work on comics like Namesake and Psychopomps
• Update journal
• Other stuff for "fun" (art trades, fanart, etc)

Time is really precious. But it seems that you always have to choose between getting money or getting time. Gah. Life. Amiriight?

Despite the bottleneck, i'm doing well, so don't worry about me!

Going to Ottawa this weekend for brother's birthday. Due to time constraints, it's going to be a quick visit late friday to mid-sunday.

- Isa

Comments

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

I shouldn't like them so much for what they represent, but Work Creatures are too adorable. I still have never sewn any for myself... (I ought to make some though. They're actually really therapeutic to sew. Probably because they're nice and simple, yet cute!)

Go slay those art projects. I'll be mostly offline for the next few weeks myself. We can gripe and talk about anything later. ^_-;

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Why are you going to be offline? The family gathering thing?

Send me an email why don't'cha! :D

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

Work, family gathering, sewing, needing to work on makeup work for school...stuff, stuff, and more stuff. And don't worry, I'll e-mail you when I have time and noteworthy news. ^_^; Still in limbo at the moment, so in the meantime I'm going to sew some itty bitty hemlines so naked dolls will be clothed dolls...

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Send me in an email even if you don't have "noteworthy news". I miss talking to you and if you're stressed, I want to help. :D

We still don't catch each other online often due to the time zones, but please feel free to talk to me in other ways anytime!

[engelen.livejournal.com]

... still... I wish I could have some art work...

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Mine doesn't pay well. It barely does actually. I never could live off it, not without dropping all the comic stuff, which is technically what I really want to do.

So I do tech support.

[spankingfemme.livejournal.com]

"
The downside to this is that my number of drawing hours have become very limited. they basically correspond to my free time. And as such, my art needs to share this time with my social life, my family life, my fandom life and my basic everyday chores and needs."


Can I say I totally hear you! I always feel like I'm fighting against the grain... especially with this new position as it leaves me drained most of the time to even get in the right frame of mind when I actually have the free time to draw, and this makes me very sad :( I used to draw a piece daily, and now I'm lucky to get out 1 or 2 a week *sigh*

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

I know! You always feel like a fish jumping upstream!

[spankingfemme.livejournal.com]

I'm working to get a new position and hoping the change will make the upstream rapids a little less rough ;) We will see eh?

[savageknight.livejournal.com]

heh. imagine tossing in a family into that mix :) I've got 3 novels sitting on my hard drive waiting for completed edits for publication and i just can't make the time to get to them. oy.

don't you work downtown? maybe we could grab a coffee or something at lunch one day. help clear the cobwebs.

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

You work downtown? That could be fun!

I don't exactly work downtown. I work next to the Place St-Henri subway station. I don't know how far/close that is to where you work.

.....oh, you brave person you. I have to admit the idea of throwing family in there terrifies me. But i'm the type of person that wants to give her 100% is everything. Which is probably why I get bottlenecks. Instead of really splitting the time, I invest myself too much in too many things.

[savageknight.livejournal.com]

I'm right next to the Peel station. I guess we're a little ways off so it would take a little planning :) Unless you one day decide you want a new tech job and come work here ;)

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. If i'm going to work a tech job, I kinda prefer this one. I get to multitask and do web design. So bit more artsy.

We'll definitely have to try to do lunch or something one day. Maybe after the bottleneck! That would be cool.

Hey, thinking of going to see Despicable me?

[jason-register.livejournal.com]

Aye, the constraints of trying to shove so much into our tiny lifespans, eh? This comic made me laugh, good job. ;)

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, life. Watcha gonna do XD

And thanks!

[angelchan-2004.livejournal.com]

There needs to be more time in the day. D:

I can totally understand the art vs social life time. I haven't had much time to write/draw because I've been doing other things lately. Makes me sad when I don't have time to do them, too.

[(Anonymous)]

Choosing between life and art is weird. Because both take up so much room and are so very fun *pats pats*