Spend more time doing the things you love.
It seems simple, but the reality is that it’s hard to find time to do these things sometimes! Working, social life, recreation, menial tasks & errands always seem to get in the way. Make time for YOU. The guys over at Good Fucking Design Advice make a point of “Do it for your fucking self” – Word. Have ‘Passion Projects’. Projects that are self initiated, and you do them because YOU love them. Not anyone else. Your enthusiasm for your own self motivated projects will also spill over into your other work too. Start Now!

You are what you do. Not the things you own.
It’s easy to get caught up in the material world. Guilty. But owning nice things doesn’t change who you are. Sure it might change others perception of you but does it really mean anything? Think about anyone ever great in history,
whether it be good or bad. You remember them for what they did and how it impacted the world, not what house they lived in, what car they drove, or what shoes they wore.

I’ve been trying to make a conscious effort to not buy things I don’t NEED lately. And the questions I ask myself before buying are ‘Will this help me to advance my skill or learning?’, ‘Do I need this for work?’ and ‘how much will I use this?’.
That being said, sometimes I treat myself sometimes. I’ve started buying art that I like too, just because I think as an artist, you know how hard it is to make a living. And it’s important to support the community (And it’s helped to make some cool friends interested in the same thing)

Don’t be a dick.
Seems obvious really. You can go through life being a dick, but it’s not to anyone’s advantage – except maybe your own. But what’s the point of being alive if you are only looking out for yourself. Respect the people around you! Be nice. I often hear the saying, ‘Nice guys finish last’ or ‘You can’t be nice in business’. Bullshit! Why not? Befriend your clients and they will come back to you. There’s no reason why you can’t be nice and still do okay. Unless you have no soul and are willing to cut people down for your own success.

Set goals.
In no way shape or form am I really successful yet, but I think I’ve made the first steps to where I WANT to be. And I think it’s because of goals. Think about them. And also, I think it’s been really important that I never had a monetary goal/objective. My only aim in life is to make a living doing something that I love. And now I’m the happiest I’ve been. Make a living is subjective – to me it’s not exactly about being super rich, just enough to survive and be comfortable while loving what I do day to day – Think about it, the average human spends 22% of their life working. It’s pretty hard to think that you could be unhappy at work for a quarter of your life. So dream big!

Don’t be afraid of failure.
Heard it a million times before? It’s true. It’s almost been exactly a year since I started working for myself. Before I resigned from a full time position, I battled with myself for weeks / months on end toying with the idea. I could’ve done it a lot earlier, but why not? I was scared of failing. Don’t listen to people who will tell you that you can’t do it.
In reality, the fear of failure, is much scarier than the actual failing part. In reality, if you don’t succeed, you won’t die (unless your passion is sticking your head into a shark’s mouth or something). And as soon as you remember that failing does not mean death then the world is not such a scary place. I told my parents ‘I’m going to try my hand at going freelance, I’m not sure how it will go, so if I fail and don’t make anything, is it okay if I come back here’ And I think that took the edge off making the plunge. Sure, I have my quiet and busy periods, and it’s not an easy life not knowing when you’ll next get paid. But it’s the most fulfilled and happiest I’ve ever been.

Value your friends.
When you’re young you want to have a lot of friends, but as you get older you value the closer friendships you do have a lot more. Remember when you had 10,000,000 myspace friends? Then you grew older and had 500 facebook friends. Then you realised that it still sucks and you didn’t need facebook at all in the first place. Your real friends know how to get in touch with you.
Surround yourself with positive people and people that have similar & different interests to you. Don’t be around people that will bring you down and make you have less self worth. We don’t have enough time here on earth for that.

Anyway, that’s all folks. There might be more which I’ll add later If I think of anything else.

Thanks if you read that!

In other news, I decided to start on a birthday self portrait. It’s actually a bit of a joke (I’m not THAT self absorbed) I’ve been learning to paint while I haven’t been working on client jobs, and following online tutorials. So thought I’d try do this self portrait to try painting in a more classical style.

Here’s some progress on the underpainting. Hopefully when it’s done I’ll frame it in an obnoxious gold frame.

You might be thinking, where have you been, and why haven’t you been drawing?
Well the reason I’ve been pretty quiet is because I’ve been secretly working on a project with my friend Tiga at Infinity Web to fundraise some money to donate to the Christchurch earthquake relief efforts.

I’m very pleased to say that Part One of ‘The Easel Project’ has started! It’s only a blog right now, but we should have a proper website soon. We will be auctioning art to raise money to help the people of Christchurch rebuild their lives.

It would be cool if you could read up, and start sharing, tweeting, reblogging, shouting from rooftops, smoke signals, etc. If you are an artist and are thinking of being involved please contact me, or if you know anyone in media that could help promote this campaign then please forward them to me.

Check back soon for updates, and the launch of the website.

Thanks for listening!

Oh I also did some drawing.

…I’ll start with photos of our trip! P.S all photo credit goes to my friend Matt.

Omaha Wharf

Ready to party. Shoes that dance you.

I was super mesmerised by Daisy on the drums. So much energy!

OH… Did I mention that we met Lewis afterwards?

What are your favourite songs? Did they play yours? I was slightly disappointed they didn’t play ‘Mohair Sam’ haha. But they did play my favourite which is ‘Baby (hold me tight)’

And here are some of the drawings I did in my sketch book while I was relaxing in the sun.

I keep drawing things in circles made of plant matter. I don’t know why.

Wasn’t totally sober for this one..

Drew some letters.

There’s a couple more drawings I might re-work and then post up later.

I think this is a step in the right direction.

Consumerism and Capitalism. The Race for Wealth. Money. Things. Objects. Products. Materialism. I’m over it. When did the world become so fixated with money, objects, commodity, and other things of only material value? Moving out of home reminded me of how little you actually need to survive (and still be pretty comfortable)

I have to admit that sometimes I can’t help but be a consumer. Cool art books, art supplies and Camera equipment are my latest vices. I justify buying art books as helping other artists in the community continue doing what they love! :p ahah

I saw a news story about people who raise their kids as mini socialites. Designer clothes that they will outgrow in a few months. It makes me think about what will they be like when they’re older? they won’t have a chance. What will they value? Who’s fault is it? Media? TV? Constant pressure to be perfect and have all the best things? I often wonder when success started being measured by how big your house was and how big your bank account is. Maybe I’m just jealous because I’m an average wage earner. Who Knows.

Advertising. products BAM in your face. Every day, Everywhere. Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if we didn’t run on a capitalist system. Imagine artwork on all billboard spaces. Someone’s photography made HUGE without some sort of lame message and branding. Ahh I’m just a dreamer.

Anyway, so I drew ‘Ring’ around these thoughts. I was wondering why people placed so much importance / fascination / desire with precious metals, and stones like diamonds and gold. Other things in nature are just as beautiful too! flowers, trees, plants, animals are just as amazing in my eyes. I guess you can’t put a tree around your finger because they are more temporal than gold. But yeah just a thought. Just wanted to make people think twice about what’s important.

Thats off my chest. I’m signing off!

Sam

I’ve been going to the rally for a while now, and its sort of become tradition to go every time it comes back to NZ. (Sadly its only every two years now) So I thought it would be a good opportunity to actually use my camera!

Funnily enough I think my favourite photos weren’t of the cars at all.

Oh and sorry for the over processing, I got bored and discovered photoshop actions. Haha.

Anyway, what I was meant to take photos of:

I ended up enjoying taking photos of random things more though. Helicopters, Diggers, People. Haha.

I like how this next shot looks like theres a giant crucifix coming out of the caravan. Kinda spooky

It was taken at around 5 or 6am from the edge of the water in Kawhia, by a Marae (That’s Maori for ‘meeting house’) we stayed for a few days while at Uni. I remember this morning well, Stayed up all night from the previous evenings antics (tried to run away from the bus because we wanted to stay at the pub longer – later found by our lecturers driving past as we tried to jump into shrubbery. Got back to camp and couldn’t go back to sleep so I layed down on the bank in my sleeping bag and watched the sun come up over the water.

Anyway. It was a beautiful place and I’d like to go back for a visit.

Not a great photo but holds a lot of value

Shot with a Canon 7D and 50mm f1.8 II Lens

It was actually hard to decide where to look on stage cause so much was happening at once. Grohl’s relentless drumming, Josh’s amazing guitaring or JPJ’s skill on every instrument he picked up.

I must say it was a lot better live than on the album.

If you haven’t yet. Check out this band!

(Photo taken from Stuff – SHANE WENZLICK/Stuff.co.nz)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shot with a Canon 7D

P.S. Can’t wait to get my own 7D

Click here to view the embedded video.