Studio Notes: Progress Doesn’t Always Look Like Progress

I was working on a larger painting this week (36x36 on canvas with a lot of collage and layers) that just wasn’t coming together. I kept stepping back, looking at it, waiting for something to click. It didn’t. It wasn’t terrible, but at the end of the day, it was just ordinary. I’m not really interested in creating things that are ordinary. I have enough ordinary art taking up space in my house. The last thing I need is a big 36x36 canvas sitting around that I’m not excited about.

So I stopped thinking about it. I just started making loose marks across the surface. Quick, almost careless. I kinda surprised myself by doing this. (I guess it’s always a bit of a surprise when you actually talk yourself into taking that brave step forward into the unknown.) Then I realized something. The marks I was making were the same kind I’ve been making when I’m half-watching TV at night, sketchbook on my lap, not trying to make anything good. Just moving my hand around. They were doodle lines like those shown in the image below.

I’ve heard many artists talk about being brave when they’re stuck. This has been hard for me. But what I’ve realized through experience is that when a creation of yours isn’t quite working, the only thing you’re protecting is the status quo. Without bold moves and bravery, the result will just be average. Worst case, you scrap it all and just start over. But, you know what I’ve found? I rarely end up starting over. The work tends to push through and go somewhere completely different, and it usually gets better.

Blocky scribbles, whimsical swirls, repeating lines. This is a language that I’ve been exploring and enjoying, and it made its way out of my sketchbook onto the canvas!

Work In Progress Detail (36x36 on canvas - collage, mixed media on canvas)

I’ve seen this happen before with collage, too. Putting something down without overthinking it, just to see what it does to the surface. Sometimes it lands. Sometimes it doesn’t. But every now and then, something unexpected happens. It wasn’t planned. Sometimes it was just a mistake. We have to realize that these things open new doors for us as creative people. The doors are small, but they lead us to who we are and become part of what makes our work uniquely our own.

These marks on the page started to push this painting into new territory, and it came from all those small moments of doodling that didn’t feel important at the time. Sitting on the couch. Filling a page. Trying something with no pressure attached to it.

The interesting thing is that sometimes those random doodles and experiments turn into something great, too. Bonus!

Pisces 2026 Doodle Illustration (7×10 India Ink on Bristol Paper - Colorized by hand in Photoshop)

I can actually connect this idea to the ocean. Small waves keep coming in, barely noticeable on their own. But over time, they shape everything. Patterns form that no single wave could have created.

Most of what we do doesn’t look like progress when we’re in it. It looks like messing around. Doodling. Wasting time. Failure. (It definitely feels like wasting time when you actually fail!) But those small repetitions start to build a language, a style, without us really noticing.

Then at some point, we’re standing in front of something bigger, and it shows up. It just becomes the way we do things. It forms who we are becoming as creatives.

We don’t always know which small things will matter. Which mistakes will turn into gold? But we need to keep making them anyway.

This doodle is an example of a mistake. It’s a piece that went south, and it happens a lot. But did I learn something? I can’t say what right now, but I’m confident that even though it was an ugly failure, there is a step forward there somewhere.

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