Ah sweet internet, it's so good to see you again!

Ever get cut off from the internet and feel absolutely lost? My internet was down all day yesterday and while the frustration was eating away at me I was able to hunker down and do some drawing and my productivity was much better. Makes me want to sign up for that selfcontrol app I heard about but sadly it is only for Macs. For now I'll have to try out a similar extension for Firefox called leachblock. Distractions are dangerous and I am guilty of surfing news sites when I should be drawing.

With a lot of commissions pouring in at this time (yay), I really want to up my productivity and the speed at which I work so that I can get more art in every single day. I was supposed to get up this morning at 5:30am and get to drawing, but after the hubby woke me on his way out the door for work I soon fell asleep again. Drats! I didn't used to try and get up at ungodly hours of the morning. It wasn't until I read this mind altering article on the differences between professional artists and amateaur artists that I decided it was time to make a change. Still, it hasn't been easy being a stay at home mother to two very young children and get art in, but if Brad Rigney can be a stay at home dad and do work for top clients like Massive Black then I can find a way!

Maybe I need to create a crazy schedule like this guy. What I like most about it, is that he always puts time in for studies to keep learning every day. That is something I yet to do- once I start on a commission it is usually my only project until it is completed. But by following a schedule like this I might be able to work a couple of projects at once AND still get in some practice speed paintings.

My next problem is speed. I want to be able to make a decent income doing this but I can't get in enough projects in a month to make it work yet. I know that part of it comes down to how much I charge for my services, and with time that rate will increase. Until then, I need to draw draw draw and push myself to get past working on details at an early stage.

My last steampunk piece is a great example of how NOT to do a piece. I started out planning to make a very soft elven maiden drawing for Exotique 7's call for entries. I soon realized that I can't do uber soft like Melanie Delon and it was time to do my own take. Problem is, it took me nearly 20 hours to get to that point and I had only worked on the face. Then I decided to take it in another direction and spent countless other hours trying to fix artistic problems that should have been solved early on in the thinking process. All in all, the piece took entirely too long. During that time I could have been working on another concept portfolio piece (these pretty characters are fun to do, but they aren't your typical commercial type of art). Sometimes it's best just to move on and get to the next project like . Oh well, lesson learned.

I'll be creating my own schedule here soon and try to stick to it! So how do you balance art and life?