Hello ! How are you doing today?

Today is the 2nd part of:
“Are you making these excuses to procrastinate at drawing?”
(You can find the PART 1 here.)

As an inspiring designer,
you dream is to create a better life for people.
You want to draw your own ideas and show them to the world !
You want to make awesome products!
You want to join companies you dream working for!

But you never really dare to start drawing.
You are not alone in that case.  Too many beginners will never take action…
Procrastinating for days, weeks, month or even years to never…

You may feel too worried, too afraid, too busy, too intimidated… too… too… too… preoccupied of what people may say ? What if I fail ? Who am i to make it…

Don’t let yourself fouled by negativity.

I want to show you that if you stop making excuses, you can succeed.
Excuses are just stories that are irrelevant to the reality.

Yes, success needs persistence, passion, dedication. Yes, the path won’t be easy.
But it will be full of excitement and rewards!

What matter to succeed is not weither it is difficult or not.
But how much your journey makes you happy to become a designer.

If it makes you happy, you will make it with success!
It is as simple as that.

Remember to focus on positive vibes.

Let’s start with the first Excuse that may stop you from getting started.
And let’s see how to help you unlock that situation and gain the future rewards you’ll deserve.

Note: I can’t possibly cover all excuses.
Please, share with everyone your own excuses in the comments
or let me know privately by email at choutac@thedesignsketchbook.com :).

1. “Others can draw. I can’t.”

We have an addiction to compare ourselves to others.
And a temptation to feel discouraged seeing others people’s great sketches on internet while ours looks like potatoes.

Do you feel that way too ?

If so, remember you can aquire the skills too. Like they did before you!
So, whenever you see a great sketcher, artist, designer. Feel inspired. Honour his past work and swet to reach there.

Action the good vibes.

Do not let that gap of experience stopping you.
Success is also a matter of time, of maturity. As everyone started as a beginner.

Make the first step asap.
Soon, you’ll be the one who inspire the “next generation of beginners”.

TIP: Surround yourself with artists and designers you admire.

Be inspired by your succesful classmates, teachers, friends… Hang out with them, sit at their table, ask them questions, observe them. Don’t be shy. Organize drawing meet-up with them after school or week-ends… ask for help.

No one succeed alone.
Friendship and respect will help you grow.

2. “Being an artist is not a career” (Really?)

First,
before listening to people advices, take a couple of minutes to weight their authority and credibility.

Ask yourself who is giving you advice on your career projects.

Would you ask advice about your car mechanics to your baker?
It doesn’t sounds logic right ?
But we often do that mistake about our studies, career opportunities and future.

We ask mom, dad, friends, girl/boy friend, neighbours…
who can’t differenciate an artist from a designer.

Guess what,
most people in your surroundings don’t know anything about design. No matter how much your mom, fiance(e), or neighbours may care about you, they may give you wrong advices.

You say you wanna become a designer.

They will picture a designer as the devastated artist who gotta be sad and poor all his life to make arts – and will end to cut off his ear… (Van Gogh)

Before I enroll my design school, I knew nobody. My friends and relatives were in business, marketing, finance, IT… they wear all so called “mainstream path”.

But I knew nobody in the creative field.
To get information, I had to make my own investigation.

TIP: Visit design schools.

Make sure to ask to right people. Ask advices to people who already succeed in the design industry. Go visit designs school and ask questions with enthusiasm to students and teachers.

A school will never blame you for asking for information. They will see in you a motivated candidate. If you are lucky, people you’ll meet may part of the jury if you decide to apply and maybe get interviewed.

TIP: Ask advices to design professionals.

Look for contacts in websites of portfolio such as www.coroflot.com, www.behance.net. Students, alumni and professionals are there. Contact 5, 20, 50 of designers you admire, and see how many will answer your questions to help you. 🙂 They will lift you up with quality information. You may try to look also for students or alumni from the school you want to apply for.

NOTE: A designer is working for the industry. We call them Industrial designers or product designers. They are the most essential key for a company that is product oriented such as Apple, Decathlon, Ikea, Philips, Toyota, Adidas…

I invite you to watch more on the Design sketchbook blog with for example Michael Ditullo’s design interview.

“If ony I have money…”

Art and design supplies are expensive. That’s true. : /
For designers, buying a tablet, Pantone markers, layout paper, … can cost pretty much.

The good news is that 90% of what you really need is a simple ball point pen. The main skill you need as a designer is the sketching skill.

For the rest, look for alternatives. If you can’t afford a screen tablet, start with a bamboo Wacom tablet. It’s all fine. Get free software such as Sketchbook Pro.

TIP: Focus on learning with a ball point pen. (cost 1$)

Focus on basic tools first, so you’ll progress even faster.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying you should stop experimenting other tools. Master the ball point pen, and you’ll get the maximum of results.

“I have no tablet !”

One day I chit chat with a friend around a beer.
He told me he was interested in learning drawing. But he was waiting for buying the perfect graphic tablet.

Because he had no experience about it, he didn’t know which tablet would be perfect for him. One year later, I met him again. He has not started to draw anything yet…

I asked him why getting a tablet was so important ?
He said he would draw better with it. And would learn faster on that.

But my friend was actually not looking for perfection.
He was procrastinating. He simply lost 1 year.

If you want to learn how to draw, just draw.
Prehistoric people didn’t wait for a graphic tablet to start. : p

TIP: DON’T WAIT. START NOW!

A tablet will NOT magically make you draw better if you can’t draw on paper. Only when you have a minimum of skills, the tablet will help you enhance your drawings.

“I need more likes!”

Nowadays, Facebook, Instagram… are the kingdom of the likes.
Everything got to be published fast and rewarded with the maximum of likes and followers.

I remember my friend’s 6 years old daughter who made a drawing on paper. Instead of asking for our opinion. She came to us one by one with a pen asking us to “Add a LIKE” on her drawing.

If you are a beginner, that race for likes may bring frustration.
You will want the fame, skipping the basics and feedbacks.

You may not looking for sketching your own stuff that resonnate in you, but what you know will get more likes.

A photographer on Instagram confessed that, she started to take more pictures with red colour, as she noticed these pictures get more likes.

Overall, the artistic message she wanted to convey in her pictures became secondary. She innovated less, but produced some kind of “fast-food pictures” for popularity. She gained more likes and poularity, but she enjoyed her work less. As it became meaningless.

She lost herself and sold her artistic soul to “The Devil Instagram”. : P

TIP: Off your phone. Lock your door. Draw.

Learn to be disconnected. Feelling peace being alone.
This is when without any distraction, in a deep feel of solitude that you will deploy your wings of creativity.

Re-learn to be patient. It may be look like a rehab.

But if you rush on your phone every time you feel “bored” or lack of inspiration. You may think twice about your addiction.

Off your phone. Put it in the kitchen or elsewhere. Far away from you. So you will feel too lazy to get it. And refocus on your drawings.

You don’t draw for the likes. But for digging ideas from your heart like gems. And that needs solitude.

“Be driven innerly.”

“I feel shame of drawing in public!”

Do you hide your drawings ?
Are you afraid of drawing in public ?

That’s ok.

It’s actually like the same feeling I have about singing in public. I never intended to practice my vocal skills, so no surprise I sing bad like a sheep singing Taylor Swift.

And I know that because of my fear of being ridiculous, I will never be able to sing. It is ok, as I don’t intend to make a carreer of it, but just enjoying singing under the shower. (The bathroom has the best acoustic in the house)

Remembber: if you wanna become a designer, and if you don’t draw.
How will you master the skill of visual communication?

That’s simply impossible.
You trap yourself in a vicious circle. 

The only way to break it, you gotta start learning to not give a damn to others’s reaction.

TIP: Sit in a public space, bring a sketching pad, a pen and draw things you see.

You’ll realise people will be amazed to see someone enjoying the present moment. No matter what you draw. People are kind.

Even if your drawings may be clumsy, it’s an admirable act to take the effort to go out and sketch.

It will be your first moment of encouragement. People may gather around you.
Then, you will learn to do not pay attention anymore to your surrounding.

Who am I to succeed?

In the book Maximum Achievement, the author Brian Tracy tells a story about a student who made a test when he joined his university.

He scored 99 percentile.
Which means, he did better than 99% of all the candidates.

But the student read wrongly his score sheet, and thought he scored 99 points – which is below average of the population.

The immedidate consequence was that his first semester was catastrophic.

However, the day he realised his mistake, that he had actually a rare intelligence, his results went up from medicore to exceptionnal!

Just to tell you that the limit is not intellectual but mental.
“We are not capable to accomplish something we believe impossible.”

TIP: Act like you can do it, so you will take the necessary actions to make it. 

Whitin all these excuses to procrastinate, which do you feel the closest to? And when do you plan to start drawing?

Let me know you thoughts, and obstacle you face! : )

Cheers,
Chou-Tac