stuck in a rut

I'm in a rut. 

I've been so busy lately that I've just been churning stuff out to keep up with all the deadlines. There has been zero time to look at a brief and do some nice research and think about new creative ways of doing it and go out looking for inspiration and come up with something fabulous. I've just been a drawing machine coming up with the same old shit and trying to put a new slant on it whilst watching the clock and thinking I'veJustGottaGetItDoneNOW.

I mean how many times can you draw a bloody cow and make it look different to the last sodding cow that you did for a very similar project last week. And who even has time to think about a new way of drawing the cow when the deadline is on Friday and you've also got to come up with a new bunny and bear combo for someone else by then...and a new collection of jungle animals for a different client by tomorrow.

Add the increasingly low budgets that a lot of companies are coming up with into the mix and there's defo no time to waste on experimentation and artistic creativity. Unless you want the project to end up at 10 quid an hour of course. Which I don't.

So I'm planning on taking some time this summer to just focus on personal work. Trouble is I'm a bit rubbish without structure and deadlines.

I found a fabulous Picture Book Illustration Summer School at Cambridge School of Art. The bumf said it was great "if you're bored or dissatisfied with your work and want a creative reboot" I was like "YES! That's meeee! Sign me up!!"

Unfortunately that was just the advanced group. The ordinary group focuses on how to write and illustrate a kids book.

Well, I know HOW to...I've done all the courses and attended the seminars. I know all the theory. I just don't put my knowledge into practice. It was the creative reboot I wanted.

Sadly the deadline to apply for the 'Advanced Course' was a month before I discovered it and the course was already full.

So I'm not off to Cambridge this year.

So instead I've booked myself into my own diary and I'm on a mission to have my own Creative Reboot.

Not exactly sure where to begin. But begin I will.... watch this space...