Courage: a remedy forged by individuals

Nowhere is your courage more evident or your strength more demonstrated than in the bold use of your individual voice in the face of group opposition.

Within you is all the strength and power necessary to begin to heal the world. Your voice. Your truth. your courage.

Use your voice! Love courageously!

Wear your courage like a badge of honor. 

T-Shirts available: click here.

The world's most dangerous 11 year old

If you've seen the movie "Kick Ass" then most likely you walked away feeling mesmerized by the unbelievable, over-the-top, pure nitroglycerin awesomeness of Hit Girl! 

I certainly did and after a little nudging from Lauren (thanks, babe) I knocked out this new sketch card.
Swerve on over to eBay if you'd like to own the original!

A Bevy of Beautiful Babes

A collection of cuties all packed together in one place and set to music. Hmm, sounds like a few clubs I can think of.

This time, however, you can skip the cover charge, the overpriced drinks and the inevitable dry cleaning bill. You don't even have to leave your seat for this one. I'm bringing the ladies to you!

Between personal work and private commissions I've managed to rack up a fair number of sketch card bombshells recently. I thought you might like to join the fun and spend some quality time with these lovely lasses.

Enjoy!

P.S. Yes, they are absolutely as much fun to draw as they are to look at.

Many thanks to Dan-O for the free royalty free music.

50% Quality is 100% Progress

Have you ever seen a successful piece of art that you thought was poorly done?

If so then you probably also thought that you could have done a better job (and maybe that's true). Here's the dirty little secret of making progress with your career...

EVEN IF IT'S NOT YOUR BEST WORK, YOU HAVE TO GET IT OUT!

Most of us creative folks are perfectionists that revise and wait and fix and toil away on something which never ends up seeing the light of day. We want it - no - we NEED it to be 100% quality.

But if the cost of 100% quality is that you never finish it and get it out before the eyes of the world, then what good is it? Beautiful half finished work is collecting dust in closets the world over.

This is from my sketchbook - 11 years ago!!

DO THE BEST YOU CAN but don't sacrifice finishing it.

If finishing it and getting it out means that you can only deliver 50% of your potential, then do it. Get it out. Show it to the world and then do a little better on your next round. Grow incrementally. Stop waiting to be perfect before you announce your existence.

The world (including those that would hire you) will be far more impressed by seeing you work relentlessly to improve than they will by seeing you step out from your cave completely free of flaws.

First impressions are overrated. Persistence is king.

Get busy.

Today comes AFTER tomorrow

The things you want most in your life are at the mercy of the things you don't really care about.

Think about something you really, really want in your life. I'll bet it takes some work and time to get it, right? Now think of all the things you casually want today that will stand in the way of getting what you really, really want.

For example: you really, really want a fit, healthy and attractive physique. You daydream about it. You imagine how good you would look at the beach. You imagine a new wardrobe and the attractive mate you would be drawing into your life and cuddling up with!

But today has been a tough day. Work was hard, life is stressful and you just feel like relaxing tonight with the television and a pizza, a beer, a donut, etc. You don't REALLY care about those things more than your beautiful new body but... you have them anyway and skip the exercise.

BOOM! You've decimated today's opportunity to take a step toward your true burning passionate desire. Your dream is delayed another day and believe me, these days add up to years very quickly!

We all have to be willing to put the things we want today AFTER the things we want tomorrow. We have to be willing to do the work when we're too tired to do the work. We have to value are REAL desires over our casual ones.

There's no secret to this. There's no trick. It's just about you and your own personal willingness to do things that are painful, hard, boring, inconvenient and tedious because they lead you to what you TRULY and PASSIONATELY care about.

This is what separates most of us from the people we admire.

I'm willing to bet that you (like me) have burning desires on your list that have been there for years. They sit there and you keep planning on getting around to them. But years have gone by in the meantime. YEARS! How long do you plan to let this slide?

It's all about H.A.B.I.T.

Think of something you've been avoiding and see if it fits into one or more of the H.A.B.I.T categories below.

This acronym came to me today as I was thinking about how to achieve goals.

We start by imagining a goal that excites us! That excitement carries us through the first few steps of getting there and then reality sets in.

We face the less than glamorous, completely un-magical day-to-day dirty hard work that's required to actually achieve the goal.

In my life personally, this is what usually puts me off course. I hit the wall, lose enthusiasm and drop out. Then I get a new exciting idea and start all over.

So, in contemplating this, I came up with the following little nugget. It was a huge breakthrough for me and I intend to begin doing my utmost to put this into action.

HABIT

Mastering this ‘HABIT’ is critical to achieving your goals for these are the elements that create the greatest and most powerful barriers. These are the reasons people quit. Let none of them stop you.

Stay strong and undeterred when the action you need to take is…

Hurtful (causes you pain)

Arduous

Boring

Inconvenient

Tedious

For me, this is the real nuts and bolts of why I don't get certain things done. Items that fall into one or more of these categories tend to get pushed aside and avoided. Time to change that!

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Step by Step reference card for ya!

In support of yesterday's behind-the-scenes Sketch Card Creation video, I've created a simple reference card that you can save. You might like to print this out or put it on your mobile device and keep it handy for the next time you're sketching.

Here ya go!

Just click on it to see the full size version and then drag it onto your computer desktop. You can also right click it (PC users) and select "Save image as".

As always, feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions about my methods, materials or techniques. I'm always happy to share!

Enjoy!