Artist's Kayak Blog

Designing Your Artist's Life

3/18/2019

Artist's Life
Planning Guide

Crystallize your mission. Formulate your plan. Take action to execute your daily routine. Track your progress like an accountant. Make adjustments. Stay with it until you reach your dreams!

How Did I Design My Artist’s Life?
How did I put together my studio business and artist’s life? I published a small illustrated book (38 pages) called The Drawing Beneath My Kayak. I made the book as a way to rediscover and reconnect with my folksy philosophical notions and dreamy idealism. At least in my own mind, it was a bold statement of purpose and mission. I have three copies that I keep in different rooms in my house and studio. I refer to my book often and it helps me keep focused on my dreams, mission, and goals.

Living The Dream
I am an artist/author and independent publisher. Currently, I have more than ten books for sale on Amazon. My book, River Journal Workshop, is consistently among Amazon's top five ranked independent artist's books. My wife and I travel the western USA and enjoy an active, creative outdoor lifestyle.

Artist's Kayak Blog
Late in 2013, I began work on my Artist's Kayak blog. Over the course of the next year, a couple of times a month, I'd put up some images and write a new post. Some of these posts were the beginnings of articles which found their way into my book. For example, I wrote Visual Learning With Chris in December of 2013 and much of this post carries over into the book. So in a lot of ways, the blog was a springboard for the book.

Full cover, front and back.

I worked on the book for about three months toward the end of 2014 and into January of 2015. I used the project to sort out my philosophical quandaries and take inventory of my creative interests. I self-published it as a paperback in late January 2015 and then published an ebook version about a year later. Only later on, I discovered how useful the book project was as a guiding source, giving a sense of purpose and clear direction for a studio business and artist's life plan.

The Drawing Beneath My Kayak

How About You?

Do you want to have less internal struggle and be more values/actions congruent?
Do you want to make a better choice that honors who you really are?
Do you want to have the clarity of a studio business plan and artist’s life plan?

If you are looking to turn things around and make a new plan, I believe I can help you put a program in place that will work. I believe I can help because I did it for myself.

Skeptical?
When it comes to scheming, I am the world’s biggest skeptic. So, be skeptical (I would be). But I’m asking you to give me a fair chance to show you what I have. It’s a little bit different.

Where To Start?
Start by writing down your core values. Write down what matters to you and what you love to do. How exactly? I wrote 12 short essays that defined my ideas, values, and interests. These essays became the main content for my book. Below are some brief excerpts from the book - examples of the kind of things I wrote to define my core values and interests:

It is so important to travel, to wander off the beaten path, and to have a moment or two of quiet contemplation. In our sketchbook, in our journal, in personal publishing, we sort out our questions of orientation - our beliefs and values; our character.
I want to use sketchbooks, art tools, and materials, both traditional and digital, to see beyond the visible surface. I want to get at that mystical feeling of the waterway landscape.
The kayak, the river, the view tube, the sketchbook... This is my world. I love the sensation of being on the river. I love the gliding kayak. This activity stirs to life something within me.
I want to teach The Spirit of Inquiry. I want to help bring to the surface the inquisitive nature of the human being. I want to encourage a way of being, a state of mind, an attitude toward learning. I want to share the road less traveled, to wander, to wonder, to meander down the river.

So from these essays, I extracted my core values: Journaling and sketchbooks, kayaking and the river, seeing beyond the surface, curiosity. Now that a couple years have gone by, I go back over these pages and words and find that the ideas still ring true. There is quite a bit here that gives me a solid groundwork for going forward into the future in a good direction.

Drawing Beneath thumbnails of page layouts that incorporate short essays.

Building Momentum
Momentum is the feeling that you’ve broken through, that your endeavor has emerged from a cocoon stage and has wings of its own. It’s the feeling things are about to take off. It's exciting. So how do you build momentum? You have to be willing to surrender to the plan. You have to take action and commit to executing your schedule. You have to make it become automatic ...an unquestionable habit. Then dedicate yourself for the long haul.

Good Habits Reflect Core Values
What are good habits? What we are talking about is a repeatable lifestyle system that embraces your core values. It's a system that you can break down and define as a clear, simple, daily routine or schedule.
Here's mine:

AM Winter Studio Schedule

5-7 Pencil sketch journaling
7-9 Color conversions to digital
9-11 Post to blogs and social

After Dinner Homework

Adobe Systems workflows

Train Your Family and Friends
Once you’ve organized your plan as a daily routine, begin to train your family and friends into how daily life works from now on. You must be consistent. Everyone in the family has to understand the new rituals. Be prepared to demonstrate that the new way of life is a formula for success and not a recipe for disaster. This is your routine that represents a powerful running engine ...the execution of your plan.

List Of Things To Do
Once you have a plan and a primary schedule in place, you need to figure out the specifics of what you want to work on and finish. But if you don't have a plan, a “list of things to do” can scatter, interrupt, and derail your studio work. You always want to be connected to a sense of purpose. In an approach where you are just trying to get things done as fast as possible it's easy to lose your way. Your new artist's life plan works because you have the awareness of how your efforts are embodied in a meaningful direction, and set of core values that will make a positive difference. In my experience as a publisher, entrepreneur, and artist trying to run a studio, a list approach (without a foundation book that guides you back to core values) leads to confusion, loss of focus, and loss of momentum.

Execute With Discipline
Now comes the hard part. Execute your plan with faith and a positive spirit. Keep in mind that when you act with discipline and keep a good schedule, there is a positive feeling of certainty and security in knowing that you can execute well. Bottom line results may be lacking at first and you may need to adjust your plan. But in watching yourself execute well and meet the great challenge of self-discipline, you will feel more free, more happy, and less stressful.

Pay Attention, Get Feedback, Track Your Progress
Be sure to track all of your activities. Hold yourself accountable. Raise a red flag when necessary. If the thing you are going to do next does not come from your core values - then stop. Always be willing to double-check and make sure that your behavior is consistent and congruent with your statement of core values (your book). It is a normal creative process to make corrections and steer yourself back on course. This is the process.

Ask for Help When You Need It
This is part of the process. Recognize when you hit a roadblock and need to reach out.

Conclusion
Become the change you want to see in the world. A better life results from continuous, everyday, sustained repetition of action that directly reinforces your values. Good habits produce results both in terms of achievement and fulfillment. You can turn things around and create a new artist’s life. Don't hesitate to reach out. I can help as your coach or collaborator. Let's develop a plan for you that works.

More Examples
To find more examples of my artist’s life planning process in terms of how I defined and expressed my core values, interests and ideas, please follow this link to The Drawing Beneath My Kayak available on amazon.com.

Free PDF Copy
If you prefer, I can email a link for a free PDF copy of the book. In return, please leave a comment on the Artist’s Kayak blog. Send your request for a free copy of my book to chris@artistskayak.com.

Why Artist's Kayak?

3/9/2019

A little personal history: I grew up in Oregon. Back then, I did not do that well in school. School was exciting, maybe too exciting. I think I was a hypersensitive kid easily overstimulated by social factors and performance demands of the school environment. At school, I acted out a handful of coping behaviors of my own invention, and as you might guess, they resulted in disaster. Unfortunately, any efforts by adults to straighten me out seemed to make matters worse. I learned to live in a sort of shell - like a catatonic turtle. I was mostly shut down, on the defense, quietly closed for the season.

Like an injured animal - by instinct - I was drawn to the quiet refuge of the woods. Wandering the backcountry always gave me the space that I needed to calm down and regain my balance. I hiked along the deer trails of Cedar Brook. The further I went, the better I seemed to feel.

Of course, I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was those solitary experiences along the Cedar Brook trails that saved me. The sights, sounds, and smells of Cedar Brook encouraged me to sort of peek outside of my shell. In these woody places, amid the light beams and mist, I’d peer down into a shallow pool and I always seemed to find something interesting ...something surprising.

From the many positive experiences on the trails I felt safe enough to fully unlock all of my sensory capabilities and take everything in. I soaked it all up, all the little stories that were unfolding before my eyes in these moss-covered, steaming habitats. Each time I stopped to take a closer look, there was some surprising drama happening in the water or along the edges.

On my own, I had stumbled into this sort of learning environment where I could be fully aware and connected. I had discovered the magic of nature and perhaps something beyond. Cedar Brook was my kind of school.

Today, I want to help others make the discovery. That's why there is Artist's Kayak.

The Truth About Janie

2/8/2019

How does the 'Journey and Journal' work as a foundation for my little publishing studio? I'm working on a picture book called, The Truth About Janie. It's an application of journaling and an example of how it can lead to story ideas and publishing.

Ask any four year old: What do you think owls do on a rainy afternoon? (You're going to hear all kinds of answers.) Well, I think they play cards. And what about Janie? Is she a card shark or just lucky? What is the truth? You'll have to see this picture book and then decide for yourself!

This is one of the projects I'm developing and the ideas below are about different scenes - exterior and interior - and I just sort of let them flow together on the same page.

On the left side, I developed the drawing to an early stage. The right side show the result of later work. When I went back through my stack of pages, I decided to define the edges more clearly. I did not add any new items to the picture. I just tried to be more committed and decisive about the shapes.

Find out more about my publishing projects at chrisehammond.com

Secret #5: Spread Good Ideas Around

1/26/2019

Well, here we are. This fifth post in a series about how to establish a journal habit and regime that sticks.

At its inception, My Neighbor Totoro, (1985), directed by Hayao Miyazaki, was just a little pencil sketch, perhaps similar to the one below. How did it gained traction as an animated film concept?

The beginning story line thread for My Neighbor Totoro grew from the proportional relationship between the large, plumpish Totoro against the small leaf shape on its head. Furthermore, there is the contrasting relationship of the small figure holding an umbrella next to the over-sized Totoro.

These characters, staged against the drizzly evening, make for an intriguing, dream-like image that poses many possible directions for a set of surrounding circumstances, social interaction, and dramatic tension.

The entire story was born out of that first sketch. I can only speculate how Miyazaki came to put these shapes together in such a way. It is such an interesting juxtaposition of shapes and ideas.

What are the ways to bring to the pages of our journal unusual graphic relationships to tease our mind and trigger new story ideas?

Each one of your journal pages has qualities from a particular space and time when you were working on it. Those pages you worked on this Winter… try putting together a few elements from those pages with a few page elements from last Summer. It can be a magical way to stimulate your thinking about a completely new story direction.

Secret #5: Spread Good Ideas Around
Migrate favorite designs from one page to other pages. In other words, redraw one of your favorite designs or doodles from one page and incorporate it somewhere into another journal page. Spread your good ideas around. Why are we doing this, exactly? We are recombining elements from different journal pages in new side-by-side relationships. It’s the new proximity between them that often alludes to completely new and different story themes and ideas.

But you have to be open to seeing and imagining new stories.

The general strategy: Make it easy to get started and sustain momentum in journal keeping.

A journal is experimental. It’s all work-in-process. It’s about getting ideas started.
Practice and repetition is good. Make copies, duplicates, repeats, and multiples.
It is good to leave plentiful open spaces on all your pages. Make mostly empty pages. It’s all work in process. Go back. Go forward. Shuffle them. Work on them all - from time to time.
Sift, sort, shuffle. Look for pages that seem to call out to be worked on.
Sift, sort, shuffle. Look for favorites to incorporate and recombine with other pages.
Have it in the back of your mind to migrate favorite designs to a fresh page.

A Throw Together Worth $100 million (so far).
My Neighbor Totoro, (1985), directed by Hayao Miyazaki, is still popular and sales are strong. It is interesting to note that this animated film was not adapted from a book. There was no written story. It’s a story that emerged on the drawing board. Some industry writers referred to it as a ‘throw together’.

Great stories can be crafted either way - verbally or non-verbally - but neither can achieve mastery if the fundamentals (such as proportion and juxtaposition) are not put to good use.

Secret #4: The Nonlinear Journal

1/21/2019

We all have 'rules' for what a journal should be like. Here is a common description: A journal is a chronological progression of notes and sketches documenting personal experiences, places, and activities.

Many journal keepers have the idea that before you start the next page, you need to complete the page you've already started. Those are the rules.

The next time you go out to the coffee shop, bring your journal. If your journal is like mine, it's 'loose leaf', no binding. Maybe you have thirty, forty, or fifty sheets. One side of the paper is blank ...Pencil lines are smudged and scrawled on the other. There's no order. It's just a stack of journal pages that you've been working on over the last several weeks. Some pages are almost finished. Some are barely started.

Flip through the stack and find a page that has a shape or doodle that catches your interest. Begin there. Erase a bunch of lines. Strengthen a few. Sip coffee. Erase a few more. One thing leads to another.

Work on your journal every day.
Review all of your pages from time to time.
Work on several pages at once.
Go back and forth between pages without hesitation.
Work on the pages that catch your interest.
Keep working on them over a period of several weeks.

What matters is that you are building a consistent habit of using your imagination to experiment with lines and shapes. When we get the rules out of the way, we begin to see what is truly needed: Practice.

It's the consistent practice routine that makes you more resourceful at creating visual assets and story ideas. Nonlinear, loose-leaf journaling facilitates practice. That's the secret.

A journal does not have to be linear. For artists, it is better that a journal has no beginning and no ending. Keep working. Keep practicing. It will begin to show up on your pages.

Sketchbook prepared with DreamFlo Studio Pro.

DRAWING BENEATH MY KAYAK

1/19/2019

Preview this book here!

The Drawing Beneath My Kayak
Aquascape Journal: Notes, Sketches & Designs 53 pages USD $2.99
Among fifty pages of aquascape sketches and designs, artist/author Chris Hammond incorporates soul-searching journal entries that aim to connect the dots between the creative process, appreciating nature, and maintaining a strong sense of personal well-being.

Secret #3: Swirlies

1/14/2019

How can everyday creative journaling become the foundation beneath your studio work? Here is the third post in a five part series.

Here's the thing about people who do creative work on a daily basis: They don't wait to be inspired. It's a practice. It's a habit. It's a ritual. If you play the piano or go to the gym, chances are you start off your session with some warm-up exercises. And when it comes to journaling, I start my warm-up ritual with swirlies.

Swirlies. (See video below.) Yes, I draw swirlies. It's part of the same studio warm-up routine that I learned in design school more than forty years ago. Swirlies are a great gesture drawing exercise to sort of calibrate the eye/mind/body. But that's not the point.

The point is: Start off your everyday journal session with a warm-up routine. Swirlies are good. Or, practice drawing perfect circles. Or straight lines. Make a bunch of little compositions with just squares, triangles, and circles. There's all sorts of little practice exercises. Pick one.

And here's secret #3: One thing leads to another. The act of putting marks on paper will activate your mind, stir up memories, and churn thoughts and ideas. You will find yourself making a natural transition to sketching more complex designs. Now that your imagination is awake, all sorts of things begin to emerge on paper. And so it goes. You're off to having an inspired, creative journaling session.

Secret #2: The Box Beside His Desk

1/8/2019

Here is the second installment of a five part series: How daily creative journaling can be the foundation for advancing your studio work.

Recently, I watched the 2018 documentary, Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki, by Kaku Arakawa. The film, of course, is about Miyazaki, the Japanese master animation director. His work has earned prestigious awards at international animation and film festivals for five decades. (See the trailer for this film here.)

Japanese master animation director, Hayao Miyazaki, is the winner of about 100 international awards. In 2001, his film, Spirited Away, won an Academy Award for Animated Feature.

At one point in Never-Ending Man, there is a shot of a large cardboard box (see photo below) next to Miyazaki's work table. Obviously, the box contains dozens and dozens of discarded drawings and storyboard pages. Not trash. Not mistakes. These are outtakes (to be carefully filed away at some point).

This box contains outtakes (not mistakes).

As animation director at Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki needs to do a lot of experimentation. He needs to try things out. A lot of stuff does not work very well. This is normal. Even for the master. It's simply the nature of ideas, imagination, and drawing. There are a lot of outtakes.

The martial arts film actor, Jackie Chan, shows us outtakes that are quite different. He shows them to us because they are dangerous stunts that nobody should try.

Let's face it. Drawing in a journal or sketchbook isn't so risky. What's at stake? Realistically, it's just a sheet of paper.

So here is secret #2:
Don't use a bound journal or sketchbook. I recommend using what we might call a loose-leaf journal. In other words, cheap copy paper (See below). Why? It is so easy to discard outtakes. It makes journaling feel very safe. I believe you will be more apt to try stuff and experiment. Because it's just a sheet of paper.

Because it's just a sheet of paper.

<<Previous

Designing Your Artist's Life

Artist's Life
Planning Guide

Why Artist's Kayak?

The Truth About Janie

Secret #5: Spread Good Ideas Around

Secret #4: The Nonlinear Journal

DRAWING BENEATH MY KAYAK

Secret #3: Swirlies

Let me send you a Reminder...

Secret #2: The Box Beside His Desk

Don't Miss Secret #3: Sketchbook/Journal Warm-Ups

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Artist's Life Planning Guide

Let me send you a Reminder...

Don't Miss Secret #3: Sketchbook/Journal Warm-Ups

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Artist's Life
Planning Guide