Going out of your comfort zone

Going out of your comfort zone

Sometimes you need for the sake of sanity and progress to push yourself out of your comfort zone. It is easy to stay firmly where you feel safe, and my safe is writing books for children and doodling – mostly mammoths. But recently I’ve pushed myself out of the realms of comfortable – with a little nudge from another mammoth mad person who shares my first name – and into the world of paleo art.

This has in full disclosure included some of my more usual style illustrations of cute cuddly mammoths including making a Top Trunks display boards based on extinct Proboscidea, and comic strips on how poo fossilises and turns into coprolite. But also into something I haven’t done since studying fine art at university or perhaps my art foundation course, which is nearly three decades ago, creating accurate drawings. In this case studies of fossils and what the animals the fossils came from would have looked like when they were alive.

 

The work is considerably more intricate and time consuming, than crating cuddy mammoths, but it is as enjoyable as it is frustrating. I cracked out the good pencils rather than my usual wax crayons and got started. It was a learning curb. I found it easy to get so focused on the details, that I would forget to step back to ensure it was working as a whole, so I had to remind myself to do this at regular intervals.

 

I also felt mammoth amounts of imposter syndrome, with my brain constantly telling me that’ I am no good’. And that ‘I shouldn’t be doing it’. it got so bad that I ventured up into the attic and got down a framed print, that I had brought for my son when he was doing his GCSE art, saying ‘An expert in something was once a beginner,’ and put it beside me whilst I worked. It was to remind me that although I may have a degree in fine art, have been a professional artist, and have a lot of people who are very fond of my mammoths, I am only starting out as a paleo artist – and that I shouldn’t be too harsh on myself.

 

In general I think that the finished pieces vary in quality, but I am proud of them, especially some of the later ones which shows improvement especially considering I only embarked on this endeavour in August

So my point is that this has shown me just how important and healthy it is to explore places out of your comfort zone.