Finding Confidence

“You are perfect. To think anything less is as pointless as a river thinking that it’s got too many curves or that it moves too slowly or that its rapids are too rapid. Says who? You’re on a journey with no defined beginning, middle or end. There are no wrong twists and turns. There is just being. And your job is to be as you as you can be. This is why you’re here. To shy away from who you truly are would leave the world you-less. You are the only you there is and ever will be. I repeat, you are the only you there is and ever will be. Do not deny the world its one and only chance to bask in your brilliance.” 
(Jen Sincero, "You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life")



So a trusted friend recently told me that I might be lacking in confidence. 

Who me?

From the outside it often looks like I have got it all together: I am a teacher of young people and love nothing better than holding a mirror up to my students to show them their brilliance; I regularly post new art work up on social media with no apologies for the continual saturation of my images and I have plans and dreams for the future and talk about them to whoever will listen. And I am relatively poor in pocket but rich in spirit and try and focus on the latter when I get too down about the former.

But my friend was right.

I have some learning to go through when it comes to ACTUAL confidence in myself. Working with students I often find it easier to shine a light on them (as that's my job after all). I always walk away feeling ten foot tall after those classes where students "get it" and sink into their own selves with new found confidence. But when it comes to my own life and my own dreams (although I nut out at them every day), my self talk is not always positive. I try, but I often miss the mark. I'm too this or too that or I perhaps I really don't deserve to have this or experience that and I guess my lot in life is just this etc etc etc. I have my good days but I also have the days when it's all just a bit too hard.

Perhaps you know what I'm talking about. Perhaps you too have these self flagellating talks? The self doubt?

My friend pointed me in the direction of a book called "You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life" by Jen Sincero. I have to admit I am not a fan of reading self help books. I always start with good intentions but get bored and frustrated too easily and go back to reading my fantasy novels where I can lose myself. 
Lose myself.
Hmmm. Interesting turn of phrase.
There's a time a place to lose yourself (and I will continue to read fantasy novels and enjoy every moment of it).
But there's also a time and place to find yourself.

And THIS I have decided is the time to find myself. To move up to the next level of self awareness and harness the power of being to really find true confidence and pave out the awesome life I know that I want to live.

So I am reading this book. 
Actually it's the second time I am reading it.
The first time was a couple of months ago. I got about ten pages in and thought "This is too hard, where's that book where the maiden is a kick butt sword fighter?"
And I closed it. And went back to my maiden-slaying-the-dragon tale.

But it's been sitting there at the back of my mind that I need to make some changes within myself.

So a week ago I went back to the book.

And lo and behold this time it's resonating. 
I'm reading it slowly, letting all the words and concepts infiltrate in a day to day way. I don't normally read slowly. I'm a speed reader (I did a course when I was eleven and it stuck). 

This time though... no speeding.
Purposely reading every page at a slower pace.

And I'm letting myself be a glorious work in progress as I go.

I haven't nearly finished the book yet. 
But I will continue to be open to it and continue to read it and just go on this adventure.

And in between the pages I am taking time to write down personal affirmations. And to draw words that I want to infiltrate into my life and into my work.

Here is a video I made on the weekend of me drawing the word LOVE:

It was the first time I have ever made a time lapse video of me drawing. The video shows what I drew during my lunch break. It's interesting to see the seeming confidence in my hand when time speeds up. My hand knows what to do and enjoys the process of just taking the pen for a twisty, curly kind of walk across the paper.

That night I finished the drawing.
I added in more line work and then immediately regretted it.
"That was too much! Why didn't you just follow the grey lead pencil you had underneath? There's too many curls and leaves now!! Ahhh! It's just too much. I'M just always too much!"
Then I stopped. I realised the negative/self doutb path of thinking I was going down was not helping at all.

So I allowed myself to stop thinking and closed the sketchbook and listened to music for the rest of the night.

The next morning I opened my sketch book and found that I actually really liked what I had added. I actually LIKED the extra line work my hand confidently decided to add in.

All that initial negative thinking was just a waste of brain power.
Good thing I stopped when I did and let myself be immersed in music.

I thought: what if I applied this to the rest of my life? 
So yesterday I decided to make some music. I wouldn't call myself a musician as such - more of a lover of music and an avid in-the-car-in-the-shower singer. Last year I bought myself a ukulele to have as a sing-a-long instrument. It's relatively easy to play the basic chords and after a few months of playing my novelty uke I decided to upgrade and buy myself a non-novelty instrument.  I had a fantastic summer playing and learning new songs. But I haven't picked it up in earnest in almost six months. So I took it out of it's case and let my voice just sing what it wanted to sing. I ended up singing "Smile" (music by Charlie Chaplin) and started thinking about my network of friends and those who really could use extra love and energy in their lives right now. So without thinking, I hit record on my laptop and made a video. And hit upload to my Facebook page.

Gulp! 

I then let it go for a few hours while I played my little heart out and just enjoyed having a Sunday music sesh.

When I checked on my Facebook a while later I had over 25 beautiful comments from friends. And at last check about 75 likes! No one said I was "too much". No one said I sung out of key. 
People actually thanked me.
Thanked me! For singing my heart out!

So here is the video (again, posting it without letting my thoughts go down any negative track).

There is a powerful lesson here for me.
I am letting it sink deep into my being today as I prepare to go and teach a public speaking class to young people.

Wherever you are when you read this give yourself permission to speak of yourself with love. You are the gardener of your thoughts. You can choose what you propagate and what you weed out.
With love,
Lou 

one two caribou!

"Courage and willingness to just go for it, whether it is a conversation or a spontaneous trip or trying new things that are scary - it is a really attractive quality"
(Alanis Morissette)

So it begins! I have just opened my first ever online shop!

Introducing.....

one two caribou - Original Prints by Lou Endicott

Here is a screen grab of my little online shop:

 













 
A few months ago I was asked by a Facebook friend if I sold prints. My answer was "Not yet" - which sounded better than no! I had for some unknown reason had the phrase "one two caribou" stuck in my head over the last few months. I love a good rhyme and a bit of nonsense so the catchiness of the phrase stuck. So when it was time to name my shop the words just fell out onto the screen.

It's been a little bit of a challenge to open this new store. On a student budget, test prints and paper are worth as much as my weekly shopping bill - so it was a risk to put the money forward before having an actual sales.

But I decided that it was worth the risk. I have belief in what I do and have had such incredible feedback from friends and strangers alike since starting this illustration journey. It was time to step it up a notch and to see myself as a professional and begin to play in the market place. 

So far, I have sold five prints. FIVE! This may not seem a lot to seasoned shop owners, but to me (only three days in) it's a cause for celebration. My best seller so far is my Back Stroke Maiden (whose creation I shared some months ago here on my blog). She has remained a favourite with me - and obviously others like her two :-)

Here she is on her side, just enjoying the water....

I go back to college on Monday after a 3 week break (which has been heavenly!) I am excited to be learning new things again but also a little nervous as this term my design course heads into the direction of multi media and coding. Not my strong point. 

But I have to trust that if I don't know how to do something I will have the courage to just ask for assistance.

Recently I decided to be a little brave and contact a Melbourne illustrator for advice and tips on working in the industry. You can check out her beautiful work here:Laura Wood Illustrations  

She most graciously replied to my email with lots of advice and even gave me the name of her printers (which I have used for my shop). I subscribe to her blog and a few days ago received a blog entry that mentioned she gets contacted by students from time to time and she wrote up even MORE tips and advice. Legendary. I hope that when I am working full time in my field my door will always be open to share what I have learnt. 

Among her pearls of advice on her recent blog posting was this one:
Where should a person start if they want to pursue this career?

Regarding starting out, my first tip for someone that is about to get out of college is to not wait until you finished college to promote yourself or find the first commissions. An art degree doesn't make any different in the illustration world, so my advice is to start now, immediately, do not wait any more time to actively start behaving like an illustrator and look for work, commissions and possible clients to contact. 

I would highly recommend you to get a proper professional website (behance is good to share stuff with other peers, but not so much as a professional window for your work to show to a client). Having one helped me enormously. 

Then you could start emailing the clients you would like to work with. A nice brief email introducing yourself with a link to your new shiny website will do. 

Most of them might not reply but some will do! And those might become your first clients...

I particularly resonated with this as it is on the same track that I feel I have been on the last few months. Apart from this blog I have a professional portfolio on The Loop, a Facebook page, an instragram account and even Twitter (though this last one is still a little confusing!)

I am feeling like I am on the right path. It's a bit rocky and the going is uphill, but the view is exhilarating and every bit of encouragement from my friends and peers helps.

I hope that wherever you are today the going is easy and the view is a delight.

- Lou

DRAWING DRAWING DRAWING

"Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it... Luck to me is something else: Hard Work - and realising what is opportunity and what isn't."
Lucille Ball.

So here I sit and type this on a typical Melbourne day. It's sunny. And cold. And rainy. And windy. And still. And hot. 

In fact, it's all of the above. Which can make it difficult to decide when to go out for my daily bike ride!

The last few months have been a little like the weather in Melbourne. There's been a bit of everything everyday. But not much time to do my blog. So here I sit smack bang in the middle of my few weeks holiday finally getting back up on the saddle.

It has been a huge learning curve studying graphic design this year and the last three months have been exhilarating, challenging, stressful, inspiring, exhausting yet rejuvenating. I passed all my subjects and got some wonderful compliments from my illustration teacher (yay!) I have been drawing almost everyday and have been happy to see that my hand and eye are moving more in tandem with each other.

Here is just a sample of some of the work I have done over the last few months. A couple of the illustrations were for assignments but a lot of these were done just because I wanted to keep drawing...

I recently joined up to Instagram to share some of my work. This has been a wonderful opportunity to connect with other illustrators and admire and be inspired on a global level with what artists are up to. I have put a lot of pencil sketches onto Instagram in their raw form just to keep my pencil and imagination active. My instagram page

And of course I keep updating my Facebook page with my sketches too....Facebook Page

With just a week left of holidays at my disposal I am doing research to start selling prints of my work. I have had a lot of encouragement and support from family and friends with this idea. So fingers crossed, by the end of next week I will be launching an online store through Etsy.

The end of my course is now not so far away. I am about to embark on my third and final term of my course. Next year I will be launched out into the world looking for work. This is a very exciting (yet terrifying!) thought! I am hoping to find a way to make a living doing what I love to do. My greatest ambition is to be a full time freelance illustrator in the next few years. But in the interim I hope to gain work with a design studio to learn the ropes and be in a supportive and creative team. I feel that I am on the right path - however scary it all may seem going off into the unknown. But any time I get the nervous I just remember this:

I have to keep going forward and trust that the feeling deep in my core to be an illustrator and a designer and have a creative career that I am proud of - and ENJOY - is one that can't be ignored.

I hope that whatever you dream of, whatever your core calls out for you to do... I hope that you walk bravely down your dream path with courage in your heart to give it your best.

LOu

PASSAGE OF TIME

A WEEK OF DRAWING - in reflection

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” 
― Mother Teresa

This has been a jam packed week of study for this little graphic design student. I have been in the thick of learning about the design industry, publishing, tech specs for finished art, advertising and of course my favourite subject of all, illustration. I also was on TV for a little feature part (and I mean LITTLE!) for the Australian TV show Offspring.

And I have been fortunate enough to spend time with old friends that mean the world to me.

In betwixt all of these classes, assignment work, study groups, readings and catch ups with beautiful people, I have managed to find time to let my imagination out through dedicated doodles. I admit, some of them were created initially during class! In fact, I find that I concentrate better in class when I have my lecture pad in front of me to take notes and a blank page of a journal next to it to let the subconscious go into flow mode whenever it needs to reset and focus. It's almost like my ears prick up and I take in more of what is being said when my hands are occupied and the "stuff" in my mind has an outlet. Perhaps this allows more info to come in? Info goes in. Imagination flows out..? A theory worth exploring anyway!

My imagination keeps surprising me with the imagery and ideas that are being brought out. As I am given regular practice to this creative flow I am feeling that the blocks I once felt are smaller.  My first post on this blog stated that I was setting out to find creative flow. And finding it I am! 

I have seen a theme emerge this week as the passage and the passing of time. The over riding feeling that is coming through me is to seize the moment. On a train, in a cafe, before bed...  whenever I can. Draw, draw, draw. Practice, practice, practice. And to notice everything around me. Be awake and aware. And alert. The world needs more lerts...

I am feeling more and more that my future dream is to be an illustrator. Drawing fills me with purpose and light and gives me hope that my future on the other side of this student journey will be one filled with pens and pencils - and hopefully work!! Being a student this year is a challenge financially. I am embracing living only on the basics and seeing my sketch book as my palace of promise. But it is a nice thought to imagine not worrying about how to pay rent or feed myself! Ha!

Here are some of my drawings from the week. First up: Little Red Riding hood as a child.

And here she is as a teenager (on her phone of course)

And again here she is as a mother:

The next doodle is an image that popped onto the page before I knew what was what. 

As a side note to this next picture: One of my favourite artists of all time is Brian Froud. Brian worked extensively with Jim Henson creating the creatures from the film The Dark Crystal (among other things). 

He writes in his book Good Faeries.... Bad Faeries that "My paintings are not illustrations drawn from specific stories or folklore texts; rather, they are images painted intuitively, springing directly from visions guided by faery muses, a paradoxical mix of chance and intent".  What a great teacher Mr Froud is to artists like me, finding their feet and their flow.

Here is what appeared:

I am starting to see a style for my figures emerge. I almost am at the point where I would like to name them. They are humanlike - but not quite humans. My proportions and scale are purposely different to real life. They are innocents. Trusting and open. Of this earth, but perhaps not of this world. Not sure what it is about naming things. But I guess it's giving a life and a license to creations. This next doodle I call "One woman's journey".

And here is "One man's journey":

And my last doodle to share with you this week was inspired by my daily commute on the train.
The caption for this one is "Sometimes I want to dance on the train like a pixie and shake up those asleep".

Happy weekend to you readers. May you find your flow, your people, your creativity and dance your own unique dance. x

WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE

TRAVELLING DOWN THE DREAM STREAM

"Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream..."
(Lennon/McCartney)

Todays challenge comes from a friend I met as a teenager doing singing/dancing/acting classes with - Leanne B. I have based this picture on the many bridges I saw on a trip last year to the UK and Europe. I think this one reminds me of Scotland: lush green, dreamy light and very romanticised.  So in keeping with that feeling I chose to do this challenge in ink with a splash of watery colour. 

Every time I put colour into an image, or put pen or pencil to paper I am learning more and more about what I can do - and also what I am yet to learn. There are times when I feel a bit crude in this craft of illustration. But I remember back to my teenage years doing performing arts with Leanne and I probably was a bit crude of craft back then as a performer. Much water under the bridge later, here I am teaching performing arts to young people and still performing. I'm not saying I am a super star of performing arts, but I have confidence and belief in my work and feel more of the flow in that space and less of the what-am-I-doing-what-do-I-do-next feeling that comes when your head is making decisions without the skill.

It's all practice isn't it? 

What we start today is just a seed for what the future may bring. 

All we have to do is decide to get in that boat and head in the direction of our dreams.  This journey of being a design student this year isn't an easy one, but it is rewarding and satisfying to feel I am at least in the boat to becoming a professional illustrator. All I can do is row and row and hope each stroke I will become more confident, more skilled - and then let the current of opportunity drift me towards the right shores...