This last week was a bit different as I swapped a Monday with a Wednesday so I was already feeling the pressure from work that didn’t get done over the weekend. I was not-so-patiently waiting for the domain transfer to go through on my website so I could tell people about it. This was a benchmark I had set for myself so I was very anxious to get everything in place.

After spending the morning on what I call the “administrative tasks”, I was all set to work on a painting. BUT, after checking my planner, I realized that I hadn’t worked on a design project that was due later this week. Previously, I’d taken on some small scale design projects - wedding invitations, business branding, etc. At the moment, I was designing the posters and postcards for Meadville Community Theater, a local theater group. I’m a bit of a drama geek myself but the time commitment that usually comes with doing a show is more then I’m willing to take on right now. When the poster opportunity came along, I thought it would be a good compromise to stay involved with the theater. In a way, it worked but at the same time it was a very frustrating experience. For one, I’m not that great with design software. I made things really complicated with the first few posters - hand painting the images and then manipulating them with a super old version of Photoshop. I learned a little bit each time but I also learned that I didn’t particularly like this type of work. It was rarely fun and always felt like a time suck. I’m glad I did it, if only for the experience but it taught me when to say “No” to projects that aren’t going to further my goals.

Along this line of thinking, I also decided to drop the 100 Heads Challenge that I’d been attempting on Instagram. The challenge was to create 100 heads/portraits in 100 days. It’s a really cool challenge and there is some great work worth checking out (#100heads on Instagram). But I’ve already started over once and would have to start over again if I wanted to stay true to the challenge. I really enjoy doing portraiture so I thought this would be an easy challenge but I found myself resenting it. If there were days where I just didn’t have the time, I felt like a failure and that feeling would carry over into the rest of the week. Then, there were days where I just didn’t like what I’d made and didn’t want to post it - or days where I wanted to work on something else and would just end up not doing anything. So while I’m still going to work on portraits, I’m not going to participate in this challenge any more and just enjoy all the work others create for it.

Have you ever started a project and realized it wasn’t what you expected? Did you keep going or throw in the towel?