Accepting Struggles

Last Thursday I was nominated for a Buzz Youth Award and made it in the top three of the Outstanding Achievements category. I didn’t win but it was an amazing experience just being there and I was placed on the best and loudest table, who cheered for each nominee that they knew and also me.

Over the last few weeks I have lost my creative flow and I’ve been struggling with stress and insecurities. This week I took it to refresh, allowing myself to take a break and sort out what I needed to so I can get back to my usual self. I miss being positive and bubbly because it’s always easier being happy rather than sad. I’m going to try and push myself a bit more to help out at DISC and at home.

I haven’t been fully uncreative, I have been reworking on an old project from 3 years ago, it’s actually been the most fun I’ve had on a personal project in a while. The biggest thing is keeping away from computers and digital in general, this whole art project has been paper and pencil!

With me not using computers and technology as much it has cleared my mind so much, I reorganised my phone to make it show I have less screen time on it and don’t do anything that wastes space or isn’t useful to my growth.

It’s been a very different week to what I’m used to but I’m still growing into who I want to be in life. Despite my lack of creativity and my insecurities of my disability I know I have an amazing social life, I haven’t asked for help because I don’t know what I need yet but I’ve been with people when I get stuck in my own head and have learnt that I can be my positive and bubbly self when I’m not so focused on what I can’t do right now.

Progression

On Monday I worked on a newer client for me, doing a email footer, this was new to me so had to experiment and learn on the spot, still have to work on it a bit more so it can work for the client. When I got home I started learning 3D, I’ve been slowly teaching myself the last few weeks, I’m making great improvements!

Tuesday I wasn’t in but I did study more into brand books and InDesign as these are skills I need for two projects and later projects down the line. It’s all so interesting and I’m more excited to work on the brand books for these clients and any future ones.

Wednesday was a fantastic day! We have a new girl joining that I’ve known about for a week or so but didn’t meet her until Wednesday. All the staff has been catching us up to each other and when I finally met her she was amazing, we instantly clicked and found we had so much in common, we also have lived scarily similar lives too, I’m really excited for her to start because she’s a brilliant and talented artist, great fun to be around, I think she’ll be a great addition to DISC!

Later on Wednesday I had the gym, it’s been really good going because I’ve been making great progress on my physical health, it’s actually getting easier as I’m using my arms to use them and while working out. I’m honestly so proud of myself, after being dropped by my physiotherapist I was worried my health would completely drop, I was lucky to find J7 gym because the trainers there don’t treat me like I can’t do anything, their goal is to get me past my disability as much as possible which wasn’t even what my physio wanted for me, they kept saying that I’m too far gone whereas my gym trainer pushes me past those limits that I thought I had

Use NoMad here

Nomad is a sculpting & painting mobile app, available on Android and iOS.

30 Day Challenge & Projects

All of us at DISC have started a 30 Day challenge where we have to do something once a day for 30 days, mine was to sketch at least one page in my digital sketch book to help build on my speed (time management), style and skill. So far I’ve been doing well, it takes me a while to fill a page because I’ve not been very creative lately but it’s helped in the last few days already!

Over the next few weeks I’ll be working a brand book and some colour palettes plus visuals for two projects. I’ve honestly been struggling in the beginning knowing how to balance everything but I’m proud to say I’m learning how to get faster. I’m also relearning softwares I haven’t used in a few years like Illustrator and Photoshop.

I learnt it’s really important to ask for help if you need it, or even if you don’t realise you need it, I spent all day Wednesday tracing every small branch of a photo of a tree in Illustrator because it was the only way I knew how to, in the back of my head I knew there was probably and easier way but I didn’t even think about it until I updated Ezra on my progress and said I was falling a bit behind due to my style I was doing things in, he taught me I quicker way to go around it by editing the image in Photoshop to make it almost black and white, then taking it into Illustrator and using Image Trace which I knew about and even, Ezra taught me more about it before the Christmas break, I just in the moment forgot and thought my way was going to get me the best results. Long story short, went from doing something that would have took me all week to finish to only 20 minutes, thanks Ezra, you’re an Illustrator wizard.