Sketches, Flow States, and the Paradox of Sharing

Sketches, Flow States, and the Paradox of Sharing

I’ve just spent hours uploading a small crate of works on paper to my store for the crate sale—and to be honest, it’s way outside my comfort zone. I’m used to sharing long, focused projects, but whenever I share the fast, flow-state, childlike explorations? Those feel more fragile, like they should be tucked away in the back with the dusty “unspeakables.” to be discovered organically.

And yet… I love discovering the raw side of other artists. Take Greg “Craola” Simkins, for example. His sketchbooks are full of messy doodles, but because his finished work is so intricate, people trust that looseness as part of his process. When it’s your own work, though, it’s easy to wonder: will people believe I can still create the finished pieces when my sketches look so loose?

Here’s the thing—I like to play. And through play, my more “finished” work can breathe easier.

It’s all part of the same cycle. I have to create. But if it were only focused, polished work, I’d burn out. I hope you’ll enjoy these sketches and discoveries as much as the larger, more planned pieces.

For me, nothing compares to putting on music or an audiobook and just sketching—fifteen drawings an hour in a kind of machine-gun rhythm. But equally (yes, equally!) I love the marathon projects, the long, slow endurance of bringing a vision to life. Each path has its own satisfaction: the immediacy of the sketch, the deep reward of the finished painting, an image in minds eye becoming real.

It’s yin and yang—the ebb and flow of creativity, each part feeding the other.

Still, it’s daunting to share the looser work, and even harder to put a price on it. And still I see others fear and stress over this to point they can not be loose. I wish to change that!

Then of course I still need money, I need supplies, I need to keep the practice sustainable, but I don’t want to feel like I’m pushing sales. That paradox is real: creating because I’m obsessed and can’t stop and don’t want to stop, while also needing resources to keep going. My hope is that sales can feel like a byproduct of living a creative life, not the focus.

The sketches are up now. Next, I’ll be taking the larger pieces—those that have been hiding on my bedroom walls for too long—out into the world for new photos (cue awkward artist hauling giant paintings in public).

In the end, I create because I must. But I also love when others see value in the process—not just the final product. From a four-year-old’s potato print where I began to a carefully designed piece of merchandise, from original sketches to long-term paintings—when these works find new homes, it feels like sharing a piece of the journey itself. Within the artist’s mind.