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