When to Persevere & When to Give Up

Feb 18

Hi there. How are you?

There have been plenty of times during my creative career when I should have persevered on a piece but didn’t. There have been plenty of times when I should have quit but didn't. It’s hard to know sometimes, but after years of creating, I’ve learned to trust my gut.

Let me walk you through how I decided to give up on one project and persevere on another just this past weekend….

It was the first weekend in a month that we’ve had nothing planned. After a Liverpool win and a delicious egg sandwich, I headed up to my studio for the first time in recent weeks. On this particularly sunny winter day, the light from the south facing studio windows was perfect and inspiring.

Working on a New Logo: I Gave Up

My first order of business was to work on a new logo for myself. My current “Jennifer Mullin Art + Design” just doesn’t reflect where I’m at right now. I’ve added the tagline “Occasional Creative” to my social media profiles and I wanted to incorporate that somehow into my logo.

Scan of my the phrase "Occasional Creative" in my own handwriting and what it looks like after it was clean up with Illustrator and turned into a vector.

I wanted to use my own handwriting for this logo, so I wrote it out on a piece of paper a few times, chose the best one, took a photo of it, and turned into a vector with Illustrator. (Would you be interested in learning about how I did that? Let me know!)

I thoroughly enjoyed the vectorizing process and then promptly got stuck. It needs something, but I don’t know what, and I got frustrated. So I gave up on it (for now), had some lunch, and most importantly, didn’t beat myself up about it.

I’ll most certainly come back to this logo project at another time. I just know myself and my creative cycles well enough to realize that it was time to quit when I did.

I felt like this drawing needed some color!

Playing with Watercolor: I Persevered

My other order of business for this sunny Saturday was to add some watercolor to this ballpoint sketch. Lately, I’ve used marker to add color to these sketches, but I really felt called to watercolor this one. I made this one in a Stillman & Birn * sketchbook that, I knew would stand up to watercolor, so I went for it!

*Affiliate link - I make a small commission if you purchase from this link.

I started by coloring in some of the shapes with a lovely magenta liquid watercolor. As soon as I dipped my brush into my water dish to switch colors, my studio assistant (Richard the Cat) awoke from his nap and jumped up on the table. Within seconds, he’d dumped the water cup all over my paints and sketchbook.

I was livid and after what happened earlier in the day with the logo, I was on the verge of packing it up for the day.

But then I took a minute and realized that I still really wanted to paint and my drawing wasn’t ruined, just a little wet. I took Richard downstairs, closed my door, and continued on. I liked where this was headed.

My studio assistant couldn’t stay away from the paint!

Richard Strikes Again

See that spilled paint and the streaks on the lower left of my painting. Yeah, Richard did that. When I stepped out to grab some fresh water, my studio assistant made an appearance and wreaked havoc on my desk. I love the guilty expression I caught on his face in this photo!

I liked everything but the bottom left, where the painting was streaky.

Again I Persevered

Instead of freaking out, I took it as a sign to take a break and give Richard some attention. We played with his favorite stuffed mouse until he was ready for another nap.

The light was so good that I couldn’t help but go back up and finish this piece properly. I decided to add more ballpoint to the black streaky part in the lower left and then went back in with paint.

I kinda overworked the bottom left corner, but the ugly spot is hidden and I can live with it. The paint and ballpoint complement each other and most importantly, I enjoyed the process.

There will be more watercolored drawings in my future. It felt good to paint and I’m excited for more. I’m also going to try do digitally paint this spread in Procreate on my iPad.

When to Persevere & When to Give Up

I give up when something is well beyond my area of expertise and the thought of learning what’s needed doesn’t appeal to me.
I persevere when there’s a glimmer of joy in the process.
I give up when a work has a fatal flaw that I can’t cover or work around.
I persevere when there’s a feasible way to hide the flaw.

With time, I have also learned when to give up entirely and when I just need to take a break.

Trust your gut. Enjoy the process. Learn if you want to. Jump ship if you don’t.