balance – Katie McMahon Art

Where to Go From Here?

Hello, folks!

June was an unexpectedly busy month for me! I made a design for my workplace’s Pride group event, and folks liked it so much that they requested I make a sticker for it. Credit to the Progress Pride Flag goes to Daniel Quasar of quasar.digital, and I got permission from him to use his flag in my design! That was super cool of him. So I did that, and then the sticker led to a friend suggesting I table my work at a local Pride event, which I also did! Whew!

Pride 50th Anniversary web image — You can purchase it here, if you’d like! 25% of profits will be donated to GLSEN.org!

Now it’s July, and I have no idea how it got here so fast. It’s already July 10th as well! Heck! Is this what getting old is like? Time literally flying by without my realizing it? On a related note, I just realized that ten years ago, I was twenty. That kinda blew my mind, and then I stopped thinking about it too hard.

So where do I go from here? I’m in this weird, post-busyness limbo of having a million ideas, but no real sense of direction or order of operations. I’m notoriously bad at completing things without deadlines or folks to help keep me accountable to my personal goals. The deadlines of my book, Free Comic Book Day, and Pride all helped me stay on task and get lots of work done. Now that I don’t have those things, it’s up to me to impose those deadlines on myself.

First, I have to ask myself what I want to work on. In my last post, I said I wanted to make a regular habit of art streams, blogs, comics, and YouTube videos. Welp, then I joined in on a tableing event last-minute and scrambled to get that together and everything flew out the window. That tends to happen to me a lot! Knock on wood that July is a bit more chill. I do want to get back into those things, but I’ve had a hard time finding focus. What do I want to make videos about? What do I want to write blogs and comics about? How do I even Twitch?

I think I need to spend some time journaling and really think about what I want to get out of making work, what I want to put into the world, and what my goals are with those works. I get so caught up in fussing over the process of making things (what’s my format? how often do I post? what’s a consistent style that’s easy to produce quickly?) that I forget the why of making things. I feel like once I have my motivations and broader goals clearly defined, I’ll have more of a drive to work and a clearer understanding of my order of operations.

Thanks for sticking with me! Keep an eye out, new things will be coming your way soon!

Katie

Excited, Nervous Energy

Friends.

FRIENDS.

I MADE A BOOK.

I printed and self-published this with BookBaby.com, and I’m so incredibly happy with the result! “Making Faces at Myself” is a collection of the illustrations and comics I made for last year’s 100 Day Project. I have a tab on this site with more information, if you’re interested!

I’m still kind of in shock! I’ve been going full-steam-ahead for months now (as is evident by the cobwebs around this blogosphere) getting things ready for my table on Free Comic Book Day, and now that everything’s done I’ve got something like creative whiplash. I’m dazed, confused, and unsure of what my next steps are. Sooo I’ve kind of been doing everything!

I put the book up for sale on my Etsy shop, as well as some prints and a zine that I made for Free Comic Book Day. I made myself a Patreon page with a few fun dragon-themed tiers (going to add rewards later!). I’m working on setting up a Twitch channel and streaming setup in my studio space so I can do monthly streams. I’ve got a handful of other things I’m working on as well, but these have been my main focus.

…Of course, I have plenty of bookkeeping to do after Free Comic Book Day, buuut I’ve been putting that off for reasons pertaining to math and my animosity towards it.

You may have noticed that I also redesigned this portfolio site of mine! I hope you like it, I had fun rearranging it and sprucing everything up. I’m going to work on being more intentional with this site and update this blog more often. I know, I know, “How often has she said that before?” It’s very possible that I’ll end up falling off the face of the earth again. I’ve got a full-time job aside from my creative pursuits, and until I can afford to leave that job this will always be a possibility. But I can promise you that I will always do my best to stick to my creative goals!

What are those goals, you ask? In the coming months, I’m hoping to have a more regular schedule of internet things. I’m going to update this blog and my Patreon biweekly, I’m going to begin my biweekly journal comic, I’m going to return to posting biweekly YouTube videos, and I’m going to start doing art livestreams on Twitch every third Saturday of the month. I’m excited! Nervous, but excited. Lots of things are happening, folks! I can’t wait to see how it all shakes out!

Love and peace to you,

Katie

Art…Can Be for Fun??

Most days, when I sit down to draw, I automatically go through the different projects I’m juggling to determine what needs work. I associate artwork with just “work”, with self-improvement, and with playing catch-up to the other folks who got a degree in digital arts, illustration, comics, or animation. I want to be a full-time, self-employed artist someday, so I feel like I need to work really hard in order to live up to that.

The problem with that mentality is that I end up stressing myself out instead of actually producing artwork. I make lists and plans and I research for hours, but I don’t put pencil to paper or pen to tablet as often as I would like.

I have a difficult time making artwork for fun. I grew up thinking fanart would get me in trouble with whoever punished people for breaking copyright laws, and so I tried very hard to only draw original characters. It was still fun, I think, but now I often wish I had indulged in some good ol’ fanart funtimes. Fanart can teach young artists a lot about composition, design elements, proportion, and expression, but I think the greatest benefit is having fun! I think of it like encouraging play in infants and toddlers – they’re learning without realizing it, and their primary takeaway is the simple joy of doing the thing.

I think that’s a big contributor to why I’m so stuck in this destructive pattern: I’ve lost the joy of doing the thing.

I really want to work on making artwork that makes me joyful this year. I want to have fun! I want to run around my metaphorical, artsy playground and try new and unfamiliar things, and fall down, and get back up, grinning and laughing madly, to do it all again.

I do need to hold on to some discipline, though. I feel like if I just treat art as funtimes, I’ll be tempted to lump it in with my other funtimes activities. I’ll end up spending hours playing video games and reading comics instead of drawing. I definitely do need to spend time doing those things to recharge and give my brain a break, but balance is needed.

I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions, but I think this would be a good one to aim for. In the coming month, I’m going to try to make that goal more defined and attainable, but for now I think I’ll give myself some time to play with pencil, pen, and paper.

Happy 2019, all! Love and peace to you and yours.

Katie