Abroad in Baltimore #29
Proving Yourself
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I’m very used to proving myself. As a young person in today’s world, you could call it my full-time job. Whether in school or work, proving yourself takes a lot of energy and requires a constant drive to improve. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is considerably harder than towing the line and while I’ve done both, I can tell you from experience that one is a lot more satisfying in the long run than the other.
After the triumph in my last Character design class, I was more anxious than ever to prove that last week was not a fluke. Even though I got a rave review last week, that’s no guarantee that this week would be the same. Most of my peers are considerably more experienced than me, and I have to keep reminding myself how far I’ve come and how far I still have to go. I talk about this class a lot, mostly because I enjoy it, but also because it’s one of the most creatively challenging classes I’ve ever taken.
On the other side of things, Life Drawing is an intensely physical class, and after a week of more cerebral exercises, it’s almost a meditative experience as we are encouraged not to get too trapped in our heads. In fact, last class our professor had us all lie down and go through 10 minutes of breathing exercises in between our gesture drawings. We also went outside to draw portraits of each other in the garden. Things that only happen in art school.
Speaking of art school, with only two weeks left in the semester, burnout season is at an all time high. The fatigue of the year starts to catch up with people and morale suffers despite the cheering weather. I myself have felt the effects of being so tantalizingly close to the finish line and yet still feeling miles away. Higher levels of procrastination and creative exhaustion are two side effects I’ve noticed in particular.
We all find different ways of coping, my friends and I have taken to debating the perfect Doris cafe order. My friend Tori recently introduced me to the perfect sandwich at Doris and after my discovery of the perfect panini, I thought it was only right to share this knowledge. Turkey, jack cheddar, lettuce, tomato, and red onion, with chipotle mayo, toasted on marble rye bread. It’s good enough to swallow the $8 price tag and goes perfectly with a cool class of lemonade. For more delicious and easy to make recipes follow Cook Club on Instagram (@pcacooks) !
On a more exciting note, in my Fantasy Art class my professor invited an illustrator from Disney to come and speak with us. It was especially exciting for me as he is the artist that illustrated the graphic novel version of Percy Jackson, a long time favorite series of mine. At the end of his talk, we each met with him for an individual critique to look over our projects. He was very kind and gave some advice on where I was struggling. I even had time to ask him one fan question, someone else in the class even asked for his autograph.