Back in November 2021 I wrote a post about Getting back into Art and how it boiled down to a balancing act between my day job as a freelance science writer and my nighttime escapades as a story writer and aspiring comic book artist.
Just a few weeks after that post, I landed a permanent, full-time position as a science writer for the magazine Lab Manager. 2021 would come to a close with my family relocating to Calgary, Alberta. The months to follow would be wave upon wave of developments. My baby daughter was growing up, and fast! It was all I could do to keep up with her, my day job, and an assortment of other day-to-day commitments, while my wife was off to grad school.
My prospective plans for the Story Art Mentorship program I had enrolled in for 2021-2022 crumbled to pieces. I realized that I needed to be realistic with the time I had available for myself (there wasn’t much). I had to be patient and wait for my baby daughter to become the toddler she was destined to be (when I could recover a semblance of regularity in my daily activities). Until then, art (and writing) would have to remain in the sidelines.
This was awful but I found a way around it. I began organizing all the knowledge I had gained toward my artistic goals over the last four years. all the way from my experiences at the various comic-cons and art expos, the many mentors I had met and connected with, the various art books and online resources I had purchased, to the persisting doubts and questions yet to be answered. I collected all of this into a mental journal of sorts which I transcribed into my OneNote Notebook. Come 2023, this journal has transformed into an all-encompassing organizer and a solo art study program that I have adopted for myself.
What I had originally perceived as a step backward from my creative goals, became the greatest jump toward them. Ever since my last post, I have had the chance to build upon my artistic skills and foundations in an iterative manner (as you can see in the header image). No mistake about it, I still have a LONG way to go. At times, I do feel like Achilles racing against the tortoise (representative of my ever growing list of goals and challenges), in Zeno’s paradox. But, I’m very glad with the progress I have made so far.
Moving forward, I would like to share this journey with all my readers and any of my peers in the artistic community, reading in. While my approach is largely subjective to my circumstances and personal life, I hope that some part of the resources that I have found and the steps I have taken, connect and help any aspiring artists among my readers.
Next up, I will begin by addressing the first and biggest challenge for most beginner artists getting started on their journey, and one that I particularly had difficulty with: How does one start in the first place?
And before you go, remember, you can also follow my art work and progress at at LockeInArt on Instagram where I post my finished pieces!
The Pensive Reverie 