How do I know the difference between procrastination and needing a rest? The truth is, I often don’t. As someone who was always told “Professional artists work even when they don’t want to, that what makes them a professional instead of a hobbyist,” the line between procrastination and rest can feel blurry.

For me, illustration is often an energy-giving activity. I feel better for having illustrated than not illustrated. But, heading into the holiday season this year, I was feeling worse: drawing was harder work than it normally is – not because I was doing difficult work, I just really wanted to do something else.

So I did. I played video games, went for walks, completed some handyman jobs around the house, read books. Each and every activity accumulatively restoring my energy. I felt better and better. Soon enough, I’ve realised that the motivation to pick up a pencil and draw again has returned and has once again become an energy giving activity.

In our hyper-productivity culture, it’s easy to forget that resting isn’t laziness, it’s an active, mindful choice that contributes to better work tomorrow rather than worse work today.

Most professional and aspiring illustrators I know want to do illustration for a job and feel lucky when they get to do it. In some sense, this is logical: it does seem fortunate that someone would pay someone else to do what we’ve been doing since we were a child; drawing or painting. In many ways, it sounds like a dream-come-true.

But, is that what’s really happening?

As a child, I drew because I wanted to, not because I needed to put food on the table. I made marks that made me feel good without thinking whether someone else would think they were great (or not) let alone whether someone would pay me for them. Knowing what I know now, this sounds a lot like a pure art practice.

Drawing for one’s livelihood is entirely different.

I’ve spent the last 9 months or so living the dream of drawing and painting for a living and I’ve come to realise that illustration-as-a-job is not for me. At least not right now.

When illustration work is my primary source of income, it sucks the joy out of it. It’s taken a lot of self-reflection to admit that I don’t feel lucky; I just feel like a component on a production line with some art supplies.

I’ve also realised that any attempt I make at drawing for fun (something I (used to) do a lot of) when it’s also my primary source of income, is too tightly woven with the possibilities of financial compensation. So, what used to be clear space for self-expression and art in its truest sense has been ‘colonised’ by thoughts about how what I make for fun may interface with the market and eventually lead to money.

So, I am lucky but in a different way. I have the privilege and education to create this separation for myself. To choose to separate my art from commerce. Not everyone has that.

But, I’ve also felt guilty about it. I, like many others I know, have also romanticised the ‘full-time illustrator’ idea a little too much in my mind with thoughts like, “I should feel lucky anyone’s paying me at all for my paintings and drawings”. Choosing to not do that feels like I’m going against what’s supposed to be a dream. But dreams are precisely dreams because they don’t match reality. I don’t know what it’s truly like for others, but for me, full-time illustration isn’t a dream, it’s a job. I prefer to make money a different way so that I can maintain the sanctity of my art practice, even if it costs me cultural relevance or visibility of my work.

There have been unmistakably beautiful moments in my life—overwhelming, heart-fluttering, tear-inducing moments. Moments in music. Moments in film. Moments in front of paintings. Moments whilst travelling. Moments with family.

In those moments, the feelings and experiences tap into something that evades the logical and analytical modes of brain function. But, I still remember and describe those moments as distinctly beautiful. But what makes them so? And if I know what makes them so, is it possible for me to manufacture more of them?

Whilst I know that each moment I’ve experienced as beautiful is individual and unrepeatable, I also know that they each share some common attributes.

Beauty is subjective

What is beautiful to me is not necessarily beautiful to someone else. There is no objective beauty, just objects or experiences that more people find beautiful than others (but it is not, it seems, 100% universal). I have been brought to tears by movies and music that most people have not. At the same time, I have lined up for hours for a glimpse of a Botticelli painting alongside hundreds of people from around the world.

Beauty is collaborative

Beauty emerges because of my participation in its creation. Each of us come with a story – past experiences and relationships that shape how we respond to the world in any given moment. So, when presented with a moment (bird song, gazing on a sculpture, watching our wife and child play together), beauty emerges partially because of what’s already inside us.

Perhaps I have fond memories of playing cricket with my brother in the backyard when we were kids. Then, as an adult, I notice 2 kids playing cricket in our street. It’s the combination of these 2 things from which emerges a heart-fluttering moment of beauty in me.

Similarly, I was brought to tears by Quo Vadis Aida, a 2020 film directed by Jasmila Žbanić. My partner watched the film with me. Sitting alongside me. Her experience equivlant to mine in every way. But, at the end, I was the one crying. Why? Because I bring family history to that story as a son of a Croatian immigrant. The familiarity of voice, familial relationships, stories and language struck a harmonic chord with my experiences as a child.

I suspect that beauty is subjective, at least in most part, because of this fundamental reliance on what each of us bring to any possible moment.

Beauty is a ephemeral

Every time I’ve experienced beauty, it has never lasted; the song ends, we leave the exhibition, a smile in the right sunlight fades as the Earth turns and the colour, the glow, the warmth changes. It is fleeting and, in it’s scarcity, precious.

Beauty contains surprise

If we go searching for beauty or attempt to manufacture it, we likely fail to find it. Beauty catches/arrives through unawareness; a perfect and unpredictable mix of internal circumstance and external stimulus. I’ve never experienced a moment of beauty that I tried to plan or that I expected to arrive.

Beauty provides a sense of connection

Within any moment I would describe as beautiful lies a message; that we are part of something bigger. That may be a belief in an intelligent or orchestrated plan, or simply the happenstance and chaos of the universe and nature. Beauty always reminds me that I am not alone, that others (both human and non-human) see and experience the world in strikingly similar ways given our diversity. We all experience grief, fear, loneliness, happiness; these base-level emotions that we associate with what it means to ‘be human’ but, in fact, extends to non-humans, too.

Beauty reduces ego

If all of the above is true, beauty is ultimately about the experience of being reminded that we are not in control. We are one piece in a bigger story, it pushes us, for just a moment, to step outside of ourselves and become aware of our connection with other humans and the planet – past, present and future.

Beauty is a reminder that we are but a speck of dust in the vast timeline of planet earth, each finding and making our own meaning in the world given the circumstances we were born into and the choices we make as a result of those circumstances. If that’s true, I’m not sure there’s anything more beautiful than that. What a privilege it is to experience any of it all.

Like many creators I know, I have huge backlog of ideas that I could progress. Some are stories, some are single images, some are ideas for plays, graphic novels, movies, picture books. Deciding which one to make next is difficult. Every idea will have its pros and cons, its risks and rewards. Trying to weigh those up, however, is a minefield because often those pros and cons are not comparable to one another. For example, one idea might further my dialogue writing skills, another might further my visual storytelling and pacing skills.

So, when those comparisons fail, I’ve tried reaching for other ways to assess the worth of an idea, “What are the chances an audience will like this?” That audience may be a publisher, or a mass of people on the internet. I’ve caught myself more than once saying, “this project will more likely lead to a book contract, so I’ll focus on it”.

But, the problem with trying to predict another’s reaction is that it’s much more difficult than assessing the benefit of an idea to one’s self. For example, I know that Idea A will further my dialogue writing skills, and I know that Idea B will further my visual storytelling skills. But will an audience prefer Idea A over Idea B? Who’s the audience, anyway? Maybe each idea will satisfy or dissatisfy a different group of people?

With such a finite time on Earth, it’s easy to get caught up in trying to optimise the way we spend it: for the ‘right idea’. But, perhaps the right idea isn’t the one that an audience will prefer and not even for the skills we might develop. Perhaps it’s about the one that will move us one step closer to meeting the person that we want to become.

For me, pencil and paper works best to clarify an uncertain idea; the type of idea that may be a single sentence in a notebook, “A story about how we cannot see the forest for the trees sometimes.”

There are often more bad ideas than good ones to begin with when an idea is this unformed. If I try to flesh this idea out on a computer via a word processing tool or a tablet, bad ideas are instinctively and easily erased. And if they are erased, are they also easily forgotten? And if they are forgotten, does it become easier to generate the bad idea again? To revisit old ground? To feel that progress is slow and circular?

With marks on paper, bad ideas remain visible. The page begins to reveal a map of paths that lead to dead ends. With more visibility of the bad paths, is it easier to find the good one? The right one?

There is a forever-tension between how an artist acquires money to pay the bills whilst simultaneously developing and furthering an art practice. At the very least, if we want to stay alive, we need food, water, & shelter. Some people need people more than others. Some people need holidays and adventures more than others. What it costs for someone to live will be different for each person but, eventually money must come from somewhere.

Whilst I’d love to say there are myriad ways to achieve this balance, there seems to be only 6 options that aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.

1. The commercial freelancer: This person has a personal art practice but brings in money through selling their work. It’s either pre-made work (I made a painting and you can license it or buy the original), work that actually beautifies something else (my art on a mug), or it’s work-on-demand (creating work in response to a brief). This person may also sell art-adjacent services (teaching, workshops etc). The advantage to this type of model is that one can practice the craft of their art (materials, tools etc). The disadvantage is one may end up creatively depleted and it risks taking away from one’s ability to practice for oneself to develop truly personal work because one needs to focus, ultimately, on a customer.
2. The part-timer: This person works in an unrelated field (like software engineering) and practices their art in their ‘personal time’ (like after work or on weekends). This is about trying to keep one’s creative energy ‘saved up’ by working in a job that doesn’t use that part of the brain/body so that one can spend it outside of hours. That art practice may or may not be income-generating but, because of the separation between ‘work’ and ‘art’, it’s possible that one increases their chances of a purely personal art exploration because one doesn’t need to worry about the customer.
3. The sugar-partner: This person has a partner or significant other that makes enough money to sustain a lifestyle that the artist needs to practice.
4. The inheritor: This person lives off a generous inheritance from someone and they use that to fund their existence while they make art.
5. The prizewinner: Occasionally, an artist wins an art prize and it provides some income to support their practice (for a while) but often either (1) or (2) is still required.
6. The patron/s benefactor: The artist who recieves regular income from people who give you money because they believe in you and they want you to make work (which is distinctly different from being a ‘customer’). These can either be wealthy individuals or many individuals via crowd-sourced micro payments. It’s worth noting though that there is a distinction between true patronage and ‘patronage-for-service’ where an artists ‘trades’ patronage for ‘special access’ to certain services or content.

An artist’s journey may, at different stages, be funded by any one or all of these ways of income-generation in service of their art. As the artist evolves, different priorities emerge or recede. But there is no escaping commerce.

Having spent some time being no. 1 and no. 2, I’m finding that, right now, no. 2 is my preferred path forward.

In a restaurant where the menu is delicious and extensive, choosing which few dishes (and how much) to order can be difficult. While ‘the market’ will generally say, ‘more choice is a positive’, sometimes, the paradox of choice kicks in and we need another way to decide.

This is where ‘just feed me’ or ‘chef’s recommendation/banquet’ options shine. For a little bit more than what you would pay for each dish individually, we can outsource the selection to someone who knows better than we do; someone who’ll get the flavour combinations and the portion sizes correct so we, the diner, can sit back, relax, and enjoy whatever comes to us.

As an illustration business, I could offer limitless customisations and personalisation to the work I make and who I make it for. An enormous selection of prints & products so that, no matter what you need, I have something for you. Or, I could limit the options I offer; provide an ‘artist’s banquet’ because maybe, just maybe, someone will pay me because I’m only offering them what’s worth buying.

We often talk about having the luxury of more time. With more time, we could do more things, we tell ourselves. But without time constraints, it becomes more difficult to prioritise; to know when enough is enough. Sometimes, having no time is exactly what we need to help us make progress, to finish something, to move on to what comes next.

I have more ideas than time in my life to write or draw them – to turn them into something that someone else can experience, consume, consider, and use. And, whilst making something for someone else isn’t the only motivation to make something, it’s certainly an important factor when I prioritise something. Sure, the work I make helps me, but will it also help someone else? The former criterion is art, the latter, a service. If that’s true, then art is inherently a selfish act, a service to one’s self. Whilst work for others is an act of generosity; my time for your experience.

Can a selfish act also be generous?

I tell myself I am a generous person – that I prioritise the wellbeing of others within safe limits of my own wellbeing. Living by this criteria has provided me with wonderful relationships and experiences I wouldn’t have otherwise had. It gives me the feeling of being in service to something greater than myself. But, because of this, it also prevents me from prioritising art. Work that is in service of just one person – me.

But, in the very few cases I have prioritised art – work that is only for me – there have been unexpected consequences. Others have engaged with it and have been moved, changed, and healed. Others have been confused, underwhelmed, unsettled. A service provides a generally positive feeling to many, art provokes a generally polarising reaction – intense but different.

In a world where algorithms are flattening and homogenising our experiences; maybe there’s enough work being done as a service. Maybe it’s time to start being a little more selfish; to find the edges of what it means to feel human and provoke intense and deep emotions, positive or negative, before we forget how to feel. A selfish act that, when offered to the world, becomes an act of generosity.

Most people think that creative work has a better chance of completion if there are fewer constraints. But, working within structure helps because it eliminates some options and through elimination comes focus. Despite what we think about ‘freedom’ in creative work, structure is everywhere.

In graphic design, we use grids to give us an underlying structure on which we build interesting and varied layouts. Newspapers, magazines, books, and the web all have underlying structure (columns and rows) that provide a certain consistency for how content spatially relates. Structure helps the creator make decions and the reader interpret the work.

In comics, panels are typically laid out according to an underlying grid – again, of horizontal and vertical divisions. Rather than this grid ‘getting in the way’ of creativity, it unlocks it – it defines the rules under which most work can be made and a certainty that the reader will use past experience with such grids to be able to read and interpret the creator’s story or message.

Beyond physical structure, there is conceptual structure, too. Stories themselves have structure. Beginnings, Middles, Ends. They have a central protagonist and antagonist. Supporting characters. They have 3 acts (or 4, depending on who you talk to), each with a different purpose and goal. Get all these right and you’ve got a story that most people will understand. Structure doesn’t, however, guarantee a good story.

That’s not to say that we don’t, can’t, or shouldn’t break the rules sometimes. But, you can only break something that wasn’t broken in the first place. When we break the grid or the structure, it’s often for a reason: we want to surprise, we want variation, we want to emphasise a feeling. But, largely, breaking structure is the exception not the rule.