Fear

I've encountered my fair share of fear in my artistic process. Fear is something that every artist has to deal with because as much as it is a block for creating work, fear makes us human. One of the biggest things I've noticed about fear and work is that there is a lot more fear when your work is supposed to mean something, or be for something. When I first started my 365, there really wasn't much fear at all. I wasn't expecting to create work for anything. No one could judge my art poorly because I was literally just starting, and I wasn't working anyone expect myself. As much as I continue to try and do that, it gets significantly harder the more serious I take my work. I'm scared about people thinking I'm not good enough. The excuse that I'm new at all of this isn't true anymore, so every piece I make, I'm conscious of how people might view it. I can say that truthfully, this hasn't helped my process as much. Gone are the days when I can draw faces from pictures on the internet for hours. That's "plagiarism" according to colleges and the AP. That was my go to process. Coming up with sketches and trying to make the pieces exciting and new, that's what's scary. I liked the simplicity of what it used to be. Experimenting without judgement or consequence. I don't have a problem producing work, but I can say that I would be producing much more if I didn't have so much fear.
In regards to my tent project, a big block in that is fear. I could push myself to try and get it done, but I have almost no idea what to do with it. I've never done anything like it before, so I'm scared that I'd fail. There is research I'd have to do, and materials I'd have to gather, and then the assembly. I've come to a point where I know what I want to do, I know what I want it to look like, but I have no idea how to physically make it. Making work I'm comfortable with eliminates the need to fear it. I know how to draw a face, so doing that instead is normally what ends up happening when I work on it.
One of the best ways to work through fear, from my experience, is to work a lot on a the thing you're scared of, in tiny practices so that you can go through the failure quickly without worrying about it having consequences. Quick figure drawings are a great example. A bad thirty second gesture drawing means almost nothing because your investment was so tiny, but if you do a lot of them, then drawing bodies becomes easy and comfortable.