finding our {own} style

I never grow weary of a clean and graphic card.  I love taking a simple image and transforming into something extraordinarily simple and beautiful.

With a color combination that is interesting, it makes the design intriguing… or at least to me!

I think I will eventually leave my crisp white background in exchange for something more moody and dreamy, but for today this is what makes me happy!

Do you know that feeling?  When you step back from a project you are working on and it’s just the way you had hoped?  Sometimes I feel let down when there is very little response to something I formerly loved.  I start to doubt myself, my talents, and my abilities… but it shouldn’t be about that, should it?

Whether we have just begun our craft or have been doing it for many years, we will only find satisfaction in what we do if we do it from our hearts.  It need not be contrived or overly thought through either.  Otherwise, it becomes a jumbled mess and we no longer know where we are in the middle of all of it.  I think this is the key to finding our own style.  Just be yourself, have fun, and don’t over think it!  Which is a lot easier to say than it is to practice.  For better or for worse, we are heavily influenced by the world around us and while we try so hard to be ourselves… well, I just think most of us want a place to belong.  And I have noticed over the years that most clubs and groups are usually made up of people that are all similar.

So, if we are not careful we start designing based on what someone else will like or for a certain publication, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing… it just becomes a bad thing when we lose the joy.

I have had days like this, sometimes even weeks, and the thing I always go back to is this: Am I having fun?  Am I proud of what I have made?  If I can answer yes to both those things, then I know I creating from the heart… and whatever comes from that comes.