Inspiration

Hmm... I put Inspiration in the title, but the real subject is Motivation.

I thought I'd share with you a couple of quotes and concepts that have kept me motivated over the years.

Here's a recent picture of my easel.

You can see a lot of thing abut me right there.

There's my workspace (with the kind of pencil I use, the mahl stick I made to fit the exact format of my easel, my iPad to look up reference and my palette—which I find is one of the most personal items in a painter's gear.)

There are also a number of things scrawled at the top of the easel. These are what I want to talk about today.

Let's start at the far left.

— The black & white sticker is from The Art Order. That's the name of Jon Schindehette's blog and it's the catalyst in my whole fantasy-paintings-new-portfolio endeavour. Jon (look him up) is an amazing prize-winning art director whose insight and profound love of illustration is a gold mine for artists of all fields. He probably doesn't know it, but I know he made a huge difference in my life.

— Then, there are two quotes from Steven Pressfield. Man. Steven Pressfield... If Schindehette made me realize fantasy was still a thing, Pressfield made me sit my ass in front of my easel and work.

The first quote is: Resistance is always lying and always full of crap.
It's from his book Turning Pro and it's in a chapter where he explains his concept of Resistance and what to expect from this internal foe.

And: This fucking trilogy is killing me!
Which is basically the big difference between amateurs and pros (two specific concepts of his), basically, the amateur is all talk and no action and the pro acts, even if his project is "killing him".

— Done is better than perfect is from The Done Manifesto at Lifehacker.

— Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick two. Is the short version of the project management triangle and it helps me stay focused when I feel an urge to rush things.

— Work like your life depends on it is taken from a talk Adam Savage gave and which they summarized on Boing-Boing. I found that it made a lot of "Pressfield" sense.

— Draw the art you want to see is from Austin Kleon's wonderful, wonderful book Steal Like an Artist. Read this book. Now.

— Make Mistakes Deliberately/Faster is my personal favorite entry in Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.

— Stay on the bus is the central idea in the Helsinki Bus Station Theory. This text is one of the best pieces of advice I've read in my life.

— At the far right, the box with the column of words is my personal reminder for Greg Manchess' great post 10 things about… planning pictures. A great hands-on set of advice to plan a good composition.

I also have a Memento Mori in the form of the japanese character for "death" scrawled in the center of the easel, right where I put the paintings I work on. If the spot is empty, I'm reminded that I'll die soon and that I should try to paint one more piece before it's too late.

So... there.
I wanted to share.