Disney Character Artist, Chris Oatley, shares insights into learning from your failures, knowing when you’ve learned everything you can from the piece of art you are working on and knowing when to move on. Oatley says, “Works of art abandoned for frustration, self-doubt and depression are needless casualties of a needless war.”
According to Oatley, the process of art-making is basically just a sequence of problems with corresponding solutions that begins with an idea or an inspiration and ends with a finished piece of art. Instead, he suggests that artists look at the rocky patches they hit during the creative process as a measure of progress.
His final piece of advice is, “Art problems are external. Don’t internalize them. Don’t blame yourself for their existence.”
What ‘rocky patches’ have you hit during the creative process and how did your solve them?