Over my time here at SCCA I have had to pivot multiple times! I will be talking about the most recent (and significant) one which happened last week. Picture this, it is your first project of the quarter for Jason’s class. You are very excited because you can finally use color and know how to use Illustrator. What can go wrong? Well let me tell you about it.
For this quarter’s Project 1 for Jason’s class, we were challenged to make and illustration using only characters in a seven letter word of a plant or animal. I chose a Water Lilly because they are majestic to look at. Part 1 was to choose a font that shared characteristics of the word. Well this was my first mistake, I chose a font that looked good yet I didn’t think about the fact that I would have to create a piece of art and the characters of the letter would be my only tool.
I initially had a vision in my mind about the illustration. I even tried to manifest it by journaling about it, I wrote “Claude Monet vibes”. I searched for the perfect image of a Water Lilly and started to create my brushes of the characters. When I began things were looking janky. I kept going because i thought it would eventually get better. One week later and 3 more days until the project was due I realized it had nothing cute about it. “What do I do?!”
I decided that I couldn’t start over with the short amount of time I had. I tried and tried to fix it but then came to the realization that I had to erase all my hard work and start over. As panic rose, little did I know that adrenaline and pressure was going to be beneficial and get my creative juices flowing. I decided I no longer wanted to mimic a photo or and artist (because that is harder than just creating) I then completed my project to the best of my ability. I actually really loved the result. I wish I would have had some more time to work on it but I learned how important trial and error is in this field.
