Hi again, friends, it's Liz from @thegraytergood here for my last blog post of 2019! Did the new decade sneak up super quickly on you too? I'm just now starting to think about setting up my 2020 bujo, and since I can't decide on one yet (should I pick this one or this one?) I'm drawing this piece on regular paper and will end up glueing it in my journal later. 

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

• Your Archer + Olive Dot Grid Notebook (I have the A5 size)
• A black gel pen (and any other colors you want if you're not obsessed with black + white like I am) 
• A pencil and an eraser
• A ruler for easy, breezy straight lines. 

To start, make sure that you've got your pencil sketch ready to go. Erase any unnecessary lines that happened during the brainstorming process, and ink in everything with your gel pen. Let that dry for about ten minutes or so, and use your eraser to get rid of all the pencil lines. Then you're free to color in your sketch however you choose! 

This is one of my favorite motivational phrases and it really reminds me that the creative process isn't as easy as social media makes it looks. Turns out it's a cycle that's dreadful and beautiful all at once - because for every one thing that works out, at least five things had to go wrong. It take courage and determination to work through all the failures to get to the good stuff, to learn from your mistakes and become a better artist and a better person. 

Take this piece, for example. This is a complete rework fo a design I created last year, and I think it's one of the most 'me' things I've ever made. But getting to this point wasn't as easy as this 30 second edited clip makes it look. It was a few weeks of light mulling, a few days worth of sketching, 6 pages of drafts I didn't even use, and many many hours of touch-ups and tweaks. 

So you see - failure was a huge part of this process. Out of all the sketches and ideas I had for this project, most of them didn't work. You can choose to look at those instances as failures, or as lessons. To beat yourself up about a mistake or to learn and grow from it. Because guess what - failure WILL happen. None of us are immune to it. But some of my best projects and ideas have come about because I tried 99 things that didn't work and then one thing that did. 

I could have chosen to quit on this piece after failing on this so often and feeling oh so defeated, but seeing it completed makes me glad that I didn't. Not only is it one of my most favorite things I've ever made, but it's a testament to persistence and patience, things that are normally not my strong suit. And tat makes it all the more special to me. 

So I hope that, not only did you enjoy this little rant and satisfying time-lapse, but that you felt encouraged. Especially if you're in the failure part of the cycle right now, just know that you aren't alone. Sometimes all it takes is just one more sketch to find the inspiration you're looking for. It's a good mantra to carry into 2020, and I hope that you'll do it with me! 

See you next year, 

Liz Gray