16: A Look Back At Old Art Skills

Whatever I think I've learned now ...is definitely going to feel primitive when I look back. I'm reminded of this epiphany every single time I stumble upon my old art. Today I'm going back to not so long ago when I started this journey.

I've always loved drawing, but until my 30s it never progressed beyond small doodles. But when we were stationed in Paris in 2018, I took up a drawing with a passion. It helped that there was a heck of a lot of people-watching available. On the way to school, gym, or getting groceries, I would sometimes surreptitiously snap pictures so I could use them as references to draw. Those pictures were immensely helpful to study shapes, and practice hand-eye coordination and line fidelity. (Probably wasn't legal then to take pictures, but I never posted any of them, so I hope it was ok.)

Black and white illustration of an old diva in fur coat by Smarti.

Black and white illustration of a man feeding the pigeons at the park by Smarti.

Black and white illustration of a woman walking away and a man walking forwards by Smarti.

Black and white illustration of a woman holding a finger to her lips in thought by Smarti.

Black and white illustration of a woman talking on her cell with her bag between her feet by Smarti.

Black and white illustration of a skinny man scrolling through his phone by Smarti.

Illustrations @thesmarti

After half a year of these drawings, I got obsessed with line thickness and photo-editing to maximize the black/white contrast. My work became more stylized and it was probably the most freedom I felt while drawing. I love how sloppy and expressive my lines started to be. (You can see more of these type of minimalist drawings here.)

Black ink sketch of a woman in a winter coat walking her dog.

Black ink sketch of a man in beard and chest hair by Smarti.

Black sketch of a teen boy with backpack on by Smarti

Black ink sketch of a toothy little kid by Smarti.

Black ink sketch of a woman on the bus listening to music by Smarti.

Black ink sketch of a woman with bun and sunglasses by Smarti.

Illustrations @thesmarti

After that, I started testing out my drawing skills with pencil only. There's something about feeling the pressure of the lead and how it can create softness and depth with textures and weight. I made a little travel paper pack and it made drawing-on-the-go a lot easier when visiting museums and being about town.

Illustrations @thesmarti

In the lead up to corona virus in 2020, I started transferring images and playing with my iPad's procreate app drawing tools and playing with layouts. I had a lot more time on my hands without errands outside of the house. So I started trying to be more serious with my instagram postings and sharing curated storylines. And gosh, I had so much fun creating these series and pushing my creativity. The ability to tell a bigger story felt like an 'aha' moment for me.

Pencil sketch of a portrait piece of Momola by Smarti.

Graphic line sketch portrait of a man with beard and fedora by Smarti.

Graphic illustration comic composite of Parisians by Smarti.

Illustrations @thesmarti

And well, that's enough navel gazing for now. What I'd like to share is that I'm not one of those people who ALWAYS had the skill. Nope, I learned and erred and practiced. And then through everyday exercise in learning, playing, experimenting, I started to trust myself.

Yes, there's cringe when I look back sometimes. But I also have so much compassion for wherever I was then. I'm grateful Paris gave me time and space to explore this.

I read somewhere that if you don't look back at your art with dismay, then you really haven't learned anything. I'm still learning a lot, but it's fun to look back and see how my skills change each time I try something new.

here's to hoping you find some joy looking back on your own progress,

smarti

15: Two Ways I Mucked My Blog

So I'm still very new at blogging. And I've done something really stupid things in the process. Things like overwhelm myself with grandiose ideas, failing to plan, forgetting to schedule, stacking my website like an overloaded Publix sub sandwich that I can't fit in my mouth! Silly me. But these things will happen if one is trying new things. Here's to hoping this post helps someone from making the same mistakes!

NOT PLANNING FOR PROCESS OR SCHEDULE

Whoo, boy. This is embarrassing to share. But I've come right to the edge of the blog diving board several times without taking the plunge. The first time, I came in around new years all gung-ho for the idea of a blog. [Ah, new years and the resolution hype gets me every time!] So I wrote a whole bunch of idealistic notions and ideas down in one inspired journal entry. And then did nothing for about a year. When new year came around again I kickstarted with one introductory post in January. And then did nothing for 8 months. ::sigh:: Like a fickle teenager, oscillating from obsession and abandonment - I just couldn't willpower myself into consistency.

Eventually, I returned back to the goal and wrote down each stage of the process in detail. Write the entry. Edit the words. Sketch the accompanying illustrations. Draw the illustrations in color. Polish the post. Automate for publishing. 6 stages - Write, Edit, Sketch, Draw, Polish, Publish. And once I figured that out, I could finally do the responsible planner thing and blocked it into my calendar. Every first Tuesday of the month, I open up a google doc stacked with a list of ideas to review them and add new ideas. Every Friday, I block an hour of time to do a stream of conscious first draft. I use the last week of the month to sketch, draw and color the blog opening illustrations. The first week of the month I polish and upload the images and then set the blog date to automatically publish. And then I move on to the next post.

Sometimes I have to tweak the system so that I give a little more wiggle room. I pushed my publishing date to mid-month because I find the first of the month too initmidating. I sometimes sketch when I get the idea because I'm more inspired by the illustration than the post. Sometimes it goes the opposite way. I'm not die-hard about the schedule and I will shift it if I need to. The more important thing is to have them on the schedule in small bits so that I can shift forward on that diving board.

TAKEAWAYS:

• Don't set up a goal without a system.

• Don't set up a system without a calendar.

• Be assertive in making up a system, try it, test it, tweak it. Don't give up.

• If you get squished for time, do less (shorter writing time, smaller illus) to still make it work.

NOT LEARNING ABOUT WEB OPTIMIZATION

I'm still in the process of learning how to make my website. When we moved to Windhoek, Namibia my internet access diminished considerably. The service just isn't as fast or as consistent. And I kept loading more and more blog posts into the system with really large illustrations. I was in that exciting and productive stage.

And then one day I tried to share one of my blog posts with a friend but she couldn't get the page to load. So I tried to do it myself and whadayaknow - each page was too heavy to load. So I started researching different ways to make the pages load faster. And I realized I had loaded up my website with big illustrations that weren't reduced for the screen size, and that hadn't been through a lossy compressor app or plug-in. So my website sandwich was too thick to bite. Who knew you had to go through that process?

So now I'm going back through and fixing each illustration. (Shout out to Igniting Business for publishing the blog post on this exact problem so I could fix it. But there are also so many other videos and online resources about this if you're curious.) Now I'm resizing each finished illustrations small enough to fit on a regular screen without losing sharpness and then compressing them enough to take up less weight on the page.

TAKEAWAYS:

• Resize illustrations to fit the maximum screen size of a laptop.

• Compress images (tinypng, eeew, imageoptim) and save it in a separate file.

• Test the blog pages by using a website optimizer.

I wish I could say that I have licked all my blogging problems. But I'm still making plenty of mistakes - like not linking social media enough (I ghosted LinkedIn years ago, it makes my skin itch to blog blast on Facebook, and I barely share my blog posts on Insta). Or not optimizing SEO. (I have so little idea what SEO means. But I've set aside time on Fridays to start researching it little by little). And I'm sure there are other things that I don't even realize are wrong yet.

But I'm plunging in anyway.

Because a) I like sharing stories, b) I love organizing things, c) I'm a persistent girl, and more importantly, d) I imagine that I'm somehow in service to my own perfectionist healing by just sharing. I can still be too precious about everything and either overdo it or just abandon it altogether. As I'm getting older, I'm trying to be more accepting of human error and just fail anyway. Because in the process, I'm often failing forward.

It's so embarrassing and I have to make room for the emotions of anxiety and shame. But I know it's good healing for my mind and my heart. And in the journey, I learn something new, I become more robust and more willing to experiment - which is great for being an artist. And honestly, I hope it can make it easier for someone else to find their way, too. But that's maybe going a bit too far?

cheers for failing forward,

smarti

14: Pencil Case Holder with Momola

Pencil case folded up under the title Pencil Case Carrier by Smarti.

Pencil case carrier rolled out and hanging on a peg showing the rainbow of colored pencils.

Pencil case carrier opened to show the ribbons and placement for pencils.

Carry the rainbow, my friends! There is an oft-touted stereotype that artists being messy. [...] I'm not one of those. I like my spaces neat and tidy, and I struggle when all my tools are in weird places. Everyone has a different system. For me, I need something that's easily transportable. So, I'd like to share a little bit about my pencil pack design in case it might be useful to others. (Especially if you want to make handmade gifts for the holiday season for an artsy friend.) This wrap pencil case carrier is one of my favorite things now, and I love how it makes my office look colorful, fun, tidy and ready for an adventure.

Let me just be honest and start with explaining a) I'm a minimalist, b) I live an expat life, and c) I find colors tricky. So experimenting with colors is a struggle. I will turtle into black-and-white at the slightest problem. The investment to learn about color is so freakin' intimidating that I often fail to make use of my supplies. And not using my supplies makes me feel like the investment of further learning isn't worthwhile. On and on. It's a vicious circle, friends.

I'm still pushing against this problem. But I've knocked one conclusion in my head: I'm never going to grow if I won't even try. So I paired up with Momola to make a custom wrap ​pencil case carrier to make the experience more enjoyable. Nothing special going on here. Just a roll-up design based on other designs that I've seen before. And this is not the first time we've paired up to make something (click here to see our dress-making adventure) so you know it's got ​some step logic​ and magic​ making​.

Let me back up and explain that as a kid, I was once gifted a pencil case booklet. When I zipped it open, it had little bungee​ rings all lined up on either side. The bungee rings were perfectly sized for pencils, pens, scissors, erasers, etc. Because it was flat, it slid neatly inside my backpack alongside folders and binders. Genius. As an adult, I lusted after artist​ studio ​photoshoots with beautiful colors and art material​ piled all around. But I also knew that wasn't for me because minimalist/expat/color-avoidance. But boy I did love the amount of playful abundance that other people were experiencing.

Then a couple of years ago, I read Atomic Habits by James Clear and the Four Laws of Behavior sparked a new idea for the pencil case. These Four Laws are a set of rules to build better habits. They include: (1) make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying. Using these rules, I came up with a plan:

(1) make it obvious - it must be visible storage that allows for full viewing, with an ability to hook up somehow

(2) make it attractive - lined with shimmery satin sash, thick muslin, tidy bungee line for storing pencils with generous pencil tip cover so the colors look gorgeous and none of the mess is shown

(3) make it easy - make hooks that can hold weight, maybe even line up the pencils in order of color so they are easy to find

(4) make it satisfying - make it sophisticated and neat enough that it can serve both as storage of art, and as art itself

I​ frankensteinend this idea and brought home fabric to Momola. I actually bought too much at first​ (project enthusiasm/naiveté) ​but Momola opted to teach me how to ​minimize by using what I have. We made bias tape - cutting the fabric on 45 degree angle and folding it inward for a better and stretchier material.​ We made cords. We made muslin straps. We even measured out the space for the pencils and cut the backing material, the muslim, and the bungee ring elastic.

Fabric, bias strap, zippered section and thread for the pencil carrier case project.

Close up on how to measure the placement for each pencil on the pencil carrier case.

Close-up on first bungee loop for the pencils in the pencil carrier case.

​Then we assembled the pieces and slowly sewed them together and crafted the pencil case carrier. As you can see, it quickly took shape, and the sewing was rather straightforward. The section on the bottom is for miscellaneous art supplies that don't fit in the other sections - like my chunky USB, tiny ruler, pencil sharpener. The middle section has the bungees for the pencils and brushes. And the top has loops to slide a pencil through for hanging on a hook, OR a cord to tie itself upon my shoulder if needed.

Close-up of pins holding the top loops on the display straps of the pencil carrier case.

Close-up on the snap pins used for the pencil case carrier pencil tip protection flap.

Close-up of the sewing machine sewing in every bungee loop for the pencil carrier case.

The end result came out marvelous. Wrap pencil case travels with me on some longer trips for a quick display of all my colors. I can strap it to my shoulder, or to a bag when I'm doodling live in a museum or in a place where I don't have a desk. And on my studio wall, it hangs as an easy and accessible categorization of my colored pencils and brushes. Seeing it out makes me way more likely to experiment with colors. And that makes a dramatic change in my courage!

Having tools that I like is an important way to keep the inspiration fresh. This is why the moment one walks into an art store feels exhilarating. Each row of brushes, paper, pencils, tubes of paint elicits a squeal of joy! Honestly, half the excitement is in purchasing the darn tools, which is why it's really lovely to be able to get joy from them as much as possible. Displaying them serves several functions - keeps things easily accessible, helps them maintain their inspirational role, and ensures that they get used more often. After all, it's just hanging right there, ripe for the picking.

Happy art-supply-organizing, dear friends, smarti