Unhinged Things I Did While Building My Art Career

People assume that once you “make it” as a professional artist, you must know what you’re doing. I’m here to assure you; I absolutely did not.

Here is a list of unhinged things I’ve done in my ten year career; some that I hope to never experience again, and some that have become staples in my practice.

Let’s go!

I’m no stranger to fast turnaround times, especially in my early career when I worked with a lot of smaller publishers. Three-month picture book schedules were not unheard of for me, but this was the worst it has ever gotten.

One such project experiences a ton of internal delays, but we had a final deadline that couldn’t budge. Because the book needed to be printed ASAP, I had exactly two weeks to deliver the final art for an entire 32 page picture book.

I have barely any memory of that time. I know it was the dead of Canadian winter, so I was already cold and depressed, and that didn’t help the situation.

I managed to get it done, but unfortunately I’m not a fan of the work I did on this project because I had to rush through it. Thankfully, I’m a lot better at setting up boundaries and getting more reasonable work schedules.

Sidenote:

Clients!!! If you are slow to give feedback, the schedule needs to be recalibrated to account for the delays. The artist cannot be punished for your untimeliness.

As with many newer artists who are scared to let opportunities slip away, there was a period in my career where I thought the only way forward was to say “yes” to literally every work inquiry that came my way.

At one point, I was simultaneously:

• Working full-time at Atomic Cartoons on the Night at the Museum animated movie

• Squeezing in freelance character design work when they cropped up

• Running my online store

• Maintaining a Patreon with monthly benefits

• Running a Youtube channel

• Juggling at least two illustrated books at any given time

• Tabling at conventions twice a year

It sounds insane, because it was! This is partially due to my ADHD brain needing to do everything, everywhere, all of the time. But also the fear of saying NO.

Again, I’ve become a lot better at creating boundaries and figuring out where my priorities lie. These days I’m doing much better.

Ahem, being a full-time toddler mom while also running a full-time creative business. Muuuuch easier.

In an ideal world, I’d have all the time in the world to create art. I would illustrate my books are a very leisurely pace, taking time on every single page.

Alas, this is the real world, and something you have to deal with shorter schedules. To speed up my picture book workflow, I came up with a factory-style system.

I’d line up four spreads at once that I knew had similar color palettes (maybe with recurring characters, or take place in the same environment) and paint them in batches: all the browns first, then all the yellows, then all the blues etc. You can really zone out and feel like you’re doing color-by-numbers.

This way, I can avoid the time wasted by 'starting-and-stopping’ and switching your creative gears between different types of tasks.

When I moved out of my parent’s place to commit to my illustration career, I lived in a little apartment with my sister in the suburbs, outside of Toronto.

Unlike many other people, I have always hated working from home. I feel so cooped up, and as a freelancer, you just feel so lonely and isolated without any coworkers. Most of my friends lived in the city, and all the fun stuff and creative art scene was happening there. And I had undiagnosed ADHD! I was just starting my freelance career and couldn’t comprehend how I could keep myself motivated to work in a job that required an immense amount of accountability and self-discipline.

SO.

Instead of working from my quiet apartment like a normal person, I found a co-working studio and I would commute an hour and a half into downtown Toronto every morning. I would take a bus to the Go Station, take a train to Union station, then the subway or streetcar to my stop.

That’s three hours, roundtrip, of my life on trains and buses every day, for the privilege of… sitting at a different desk.

I’ll be honest, I love that experience and it gave me a lot of motivation to stick to my work. I just can’t imagine doing something like this now:

One, because now that I’m a working mom, I want to strangled young me for having that excess of time that I so frivolously wasted away on a COMMUTE of all things. So ungrateful.

And two, post-pandemic, I just cannot handle anything more than a 15 min car ride. I’m too old for this.

When Gallery Nucleus invited me to do a solo exhibition, I immediately said yes. Again, I have no idea how to say no.

But my problem was that I had been a digital illustrator for most of my art career, and I had no idea how to paint. I resolved that this would be the year that I finally learn how to be a traditional artist.

To make things even more ridiculous, I got busy with other projects throughout the year and ended up creating all 19 pieces in just six weeks. (Also, my wedding was in the middle of all this, because I am insane.)

On that note, for early gallery group shows, I was so scared of painting that I would digitally illustrate the entire piece first. Then I’d copy it stroke-for-stroke in paint.

Essentially, I’d spend twice as long and end up with two almost identical pieces. The idea was that I wouldn’t have to think about composition, color choices, etc when painting; all I had to do was recreate my digital piece.

So when it came time for the gallery event, I’d hand in the “original,” while giving the digital file for prints and only showing the digital version in my portfolio because I hated my traditional art skills and would think it lesser than my digital piece.

In the middle of my online store shenanigans, I saw a bunch of people making hand-made polymer clay jewelry and I thought, “Should I do that????”

So I launched a line of handmade clay earrings.

And they did sell well! But… this was an OSHA nightmare. I was working with epoxy in my apartment, no mask, no ventilation, no proper safety setup. I didn’t realize how dangerous this all was, and hopefully I don’t ahave longterm health repercussions. Oops.

Also, I became really obsessed with making these for two months and then suddenly determined that I hated the process. I never touched my supplies again and they are withering away in my closet.

Back in 2020, I had a whim to launch a YouTube channel.

I had a non-existent setup; Just my iPhone balanced on a pile of random knickknacks. You can even see my phone in some shots in the mirror behind me!

I could barely use Premiere Pro and didn’t understand color grading. I used daylight and my phone’s mic, and it clearly shows. (Though to be fair, I haven’t really upgraded much since then lol)

To make things worse, our apartment was right next to a set of railroad tracks. Which meant every 15 minutes, a deafening train would pass by, forcing me to stop recording and wait.

It was the least professional setup possible, but perfection is the enemy of completion. I am glad that I made those videos, despite their flaws, since it allowed me to grow into the channel and skills I have now.

In an effort to “get serious” about the business side of freelancing, I signed up for a pricey 8-week finance/business online course. This was an investment, and a necessary skill to learn. I attended the first call, where we saw what was going to be in store for us for the next few weeks.

Then I skipped all the Zoom calls. Again, ADHD brain. Whatever, I can always watch them later.

But, to really top it off, I forgot to download the recordings before they expired.

A humbling reminder that buying education only works if you actually use it. Of course, I still have missed SO many classes I’ve signed up for. But at least now, if there’s a lot of money involved, I’ll at least download the videos to watch one day. I have an enormous folder of education to get through.

One day.

You might think “Wow, Anoosha! That was a lot of unhinged behavior. At least that’s all in the past now and you’ve learned to be better now.”

Fast forward to motherhood this past year. Three months after having my baby, I got to work on a board book, easing myself with this easier project. He was still a little worm, and I felt like it was easy balancing momming and working.

At six months post-partum, I decided to return fully back to work and end my maternity leave. I took on a new picture book project plus two freelance gigs… while also being a full-time parent with no daycare.

I convinced myself I could work at the same capacity I had before giving birth.

Then… he started crawling and those three months were a whirlwind of exhaustion, tears, and so so much guilt. I don’t know what I was thinking!!!

While I’ve had to seriously scale back on my workload in the past few months, I’m getting better at figuring out my limits, and adapting to this new phase in my life.

I made this list because it was a silly little trend that was going around on Instagram. But after posting it, I got a lot of comments from people saying that they feel validated, and related to all my antics. People said that they felt a little less alone, because they felt like they were the only ones ‘doing it wrong’

I’ve already reiterated this point a million times here, but there is NO PERFECT WAY TO HAVE AN ART CAREER. We all face those ups and downs; dealing with crunch, lousy clients, poor pay, bad contracts, work you’re not proud of, embarrassing moments et cetera, et cetera. But I take small comfort in that each of these moments (even the dangerous, exhausting, or ‘wasteful’ ones) taught me something I needed to know. These experiences pushed me closer to the career I actually wanted, and reminded me that no one has it all figured out at the start. And the important part is that I kept going.

So if you’ve had your own unhinged career moments: congrats! Come sit our our little cool kids table, there’s plenty of room.

And please share: What’s the most unhinged thing you’ve done in your creative career? I’d love to hear.