The Secret Life of An Artist

6 invisible creative tasks you can't see - Part 1

Apr 05, 2024

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I know my friends and family get a little confused on what it is I do for a living. They know I work from home. They know I have creative projects that get done somewhere and somehow. However, it’s strange to imagine what my work entails. It’s easier for them to chat about my art classes I occasionally teach in town. Although I do enjoy it, it’s not my primary job. Illustration and design is. Perhaps it’s easier to talk about my classes because it’s easier to understand and visualize me teaching. It’s hard to wrap your mind around what the process of an artist looks like. It’s like disappearing into a hole and when I come back - paintings and books just magically appear. Perhaps they suspect it took a decent amount of time, but how could anyone really know the massive iceberg of work that lies beneath the surface? Especially the invisible work.

So, let me explain…

Each month, members of the IlloGuild answer a question together. We all live around the world, have unique styles, and approaches to creativity. So, make sure to follow IlloGuild to hear a variety of other illustrator perspectives!
This months question: How do you do it? A look behind the scenes.

the INVISIBLE TASKS

Balancing work and home can be a circus act. Anyone who works from home can expect this. Also, freelancing is in fact a FULL BLOWN business. You are the boss, project manager, accountant, marketing director, content creator…etc. That shouldn’t be too surprising to hear. When I first transitioned from working as an in house designer to a freelancing graphic designer, the surprising part for me was not the business aspect, it was the invisible tasks.

You see, I had this tangle of ideas in my head. I had a building collection of creative projects pleading for my attention. I wanted to draw. I wanted to paint. I was curious about other artists. What was this silent noise? An inner voice? A calling I hardly noticed before? Suddenly, graphic design was insignificant compared to my desire to share my own art and stories. Being home made this dream louder than I could bare.

So, my my first lesson in my soon to be illustration career was realizing artist have INVISIBLE tasks!

Invisible Task # 1 : Deciphering Floating Ideas

Ideas float through you, around you, and everywhere you go! It’s loud. Like radio static. Silent wave lengths demanding your attention. No one else hears it. Just you. You’re the creative. You feel it in your mind and soul. Whispers of inspiration and moments of deep contemplation. Ideas dreamed up, but never brought to life.

Now normally these ideas come and they go. Being home, gave me the opportunity to listen more closely to this whispering static. When I turned up the sounds, I indeed found a mountain of ideas pounding at my door! I had no choice, but to open it! It was overwhelming at first, but I slowly unraveled the tangle.

Six years later, ideas are flowing through me like a loom. Like twirling yarn – becoming something tangible like a book, a painting, and this very Substack.

Being an artist means you’re a listener, an observer, and more importantly – a storyteller. The world whispers and you listen. You get to share the antidote. The secret. You get to synthesize a piece of this beautiful human experience to remind everyone that “WE ARE ALIVE! … and this is how it feels to me!”

The trick is to decipher the floating ideas you are hearing and if you want to answer the call. If you say “yes, I’m going to listen a bit harder”, prepare yourself for a mountain of ideas to sift through and to answer the call again and again and again. BECAUSE there are other invisible tasks that make you question EVERYTHING you’re doing. Trust me. If you happen to say “no” one day, which many do, then the floating ideas become noise once again. You can no longer pull them apart and they float off into space to find someone else.

Invisible Task # 2 : Practicing your Trick Shot

Once you have an idea or inspiration, you make lots of bad art. Lots of it. Like athletes building muscle and practicing their shots…artists practice their craft. It’s like going to the gym. It’s not all masterpieces. How could it be? There’s lots of “art” that makes it’s way into the trash. There is unfinished art shoved away into drawers never to be seen again and it’s okay. It’s good.

It’s practicing your free throws until you finally make more than you don’t. It’s getting comfortable with that backstroke until you do it in your sleep. It’s knowing your tools and instruments so well, that they are any extension of your arm. Hours, hours, and hours of practice. Then you sit down one day and all that invisible force pours into your work. What used to take you eternity to draw, appears in a few minutes.

Is it magic? Is it super power? No. It’s muscle memory.

It’s all that time you practiced finally coming into play. On the outside, people will think it’s a blessing or a gift. You were born with magical abilities, but you know the truth – it was your hours, days, months, years of art workouts. Even if you had an early “knack” or “inclination” in art, it’s all the crumpled sheets of paper in the trash that actually gave you something to build upon…and eventually makes you a professional.

Invisible Task # 2 : Making Mental Notes

If you’re an artist, you are constantly watching the world. Not just seeing it. You are watching it. You’re not just hearing it...you’re listening. Your senses are heightened. No, you’re not superman… you’re just taking mental notes. For example, comedians finding humor in situations everyone else already forgot. They’ll remind you later about it and it will make your side ache from laughing about it. Meanwhile, musicians can turn heart ache into a melody that will bring you to tears. How did they know exactly how you felt in a very personal moment in your life? Artists capturing a mood and energy by manipulating color and texture. It’s because they noticed. While everyone just walked by, they notice the fine print of the moment. A mental note made. One day, this memory is called upon. It gets pulled out and shared in a medium of choice.

For example, I’m walking out of a grocery store and randomly see a little boy lose a balloon. He watches it sadly float into the endless sky. Poor guy. His mommy consoles him. It’s a lesson in loss. But the balloon floated right into my head. There’s a story to tell there. As I drive away, my brain has already started thinking about the story board and book title. As far as I’m concerned, this book has already been privately and silently commissioned by me. Mental notes made for later.

Or I witness the most gorgeous sunset. It captivates me and pours into my veins. I suddenly have a strong desire to paint it. I can imagine the colors I’d mix to replicate the warmth. It’s almost like the painting has already started, but I haven’t even acquired the supplies yet. I start thinking about the size canvas I should buy. Another project silently making space in my brain like a mountain formed by an earthquake.

Then the real work will begin. Hours of sketching specific things for a specific project or collecting swatches for samples. Researching poses, faces, or color palettes. It’s those hours that are often overlooked. Drawing things over and over not just to practice our skills in general, but to memorize that particular choreography by heart like a dance. Colors tested. Layouts re-worked in my mind a million times. I might be staring out into space, but in my head sand castles are being built and torn down over and over. Puzzles being made. Dance steps memorized so when it’s the big show or time to draw the final draft, it will be spectacular. Sometimes there are visible, physical check points like preliminary sketches, storyboards, and all sorts of data collected (and approved) before final artwork is started on any commissioned project.

This is the bottom half of the iceberg when anyone sees a completed work of art or children’s book or musical. Hours and hours of planning or prepping that goes unseen and yet the iceberg wouldn’t even exist without all those invisible tasks below it lifting it up out of the quiet yet wild abyss.

On The Creative Road

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