Welcome to the Realms of Darkness and Light.
Not only the darkness and light of what creates my artwork, but also the darkness and light of the mind that got me stuck to the point of not being able to create.
So I set out to change that. I reached out to a friend whom I have yet to work with in terms of photography and asked her to pick 10 random images from Unsplash with a particular theme for me to be able to composite together.
It is a fun challenge to try to put together random images to tell a story. But most people will send you a similar set of images to try and put together, and the images chosen for this challenge worked out perfectly. The challenge here wasn’t just to tell a story but to practice my light painting skills in order to get this looking as realistic[ish] as possible.
I managed to use 9 out of 10 images. And while that did bug the absolute hell out of me, I was quite happy with how this piece came out, not to mention that it had gotten my flow moving again and I was able to open Photoshop and go insane with my ideas.
A lot of times my reasons for ending in a slump isn’t because of a lack of ability, but more drowning out the inner voice that sometimes won’t shut the hell up. And it can get pretty draining to deal with to the point where I will drop what I have to do in order to go for a dopamine hunt.
However, finding my way out of said slump felt good, and now I know just how to get out of it in the future should it happen again; find something to work on just for fun, to see if it can be done, and the act of starting will be enough.
Next time you’re in a slump with whatever it is, find your realm of darkness and light, and just start.