 During one of my “I need to get back into it” phases I applied to Unicorn Factory, an agency of sorts, but doing things a little differently. Got accepted, set up a profile, forgot about it.
A few weeks back I got a message in my inbox saying someone had requested me specifically for a project they wanted me to join. My first thought was “no, I can’t do that”. But I researched the company, did some sketching, gave it some thought and decided I had nothing to lose. If I did well it would be a big step forward. If I suddenly found myself struggling, surely I could still come up with something that met the brief (i.e. a low-quality work in my eyes would still be good enough if I just relied on muscle memory) – and that was all the reassurance I needed. I took the job. I even went all out and started using HelloBonsai for Project organisation – it later turned out this was not exactly necessary, but it sure made me feel important. Thankfully, my day job as a Food Designer works along the exact same tracks as working on client projects – when you cook it down to the very essence, the only difference is that there I fine-tune flavours rather than colours. So as it turns out, even during the long leave I took, I was still gaining invaluable experience from my day job. So I discussed with the client, outlined my terms, their requirements, the scope, their mock-up, their contract, my timeline/availability. The last one turned out to be the most critical. My profile on Unicorn Factory had clearly stated that I was a side hustler and only available for a few hours per week, but the project happened to have a very close deadline and I still had to find those hours somewhere. I put my husband on toddler-duty during the evening, worked on the weekends and until late at night. Felt bad about it of course. Emailed back and forth for feedback, approvals, timelines. I got really lucky. Again, in my day job I have worked with many a client. Occasionally there is a “good communicator”, but the majority tend to be somewhat relaxed (yay for working with Kiwi’s – sorry). But this client got back to me right away, pushed for approval from their team, went out of their way to give clear feedback (in writing PLUS visualised). It was a joy. It was exhausting and I had a marathon headache, but it was a joy. And then we were getting closer to the deadline and things got real...
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 First off, I need to apologise to all the moms, whose vlogs and blogs I have followed in the lead-up to my maternity leave. Of course they all said that they had to take a break, that baby just absorbed all their time, that they were simply too tired-out-of-their-minds to work. I listened, I politely gave them a mental nod and thought to myself “yeah nah, I’ll be okay”.
I sat on my desk at 9 months pregnant, belly between me and the paper, working on drawings. I had a sketchbook with me in the hospital. I sketched while breastfeeding (in the dead of night; yes, I am committed). I kept this up for a few months and then reality hit. It wasn’t working (surprise!) and I was right on course for another burn-out. So I took a break from drawing. Of course, my day job was just starting again, and I was slowly building up the hours there. About a year after Junior was born I started to cautiously paint again, mainly shells (small and quick to finish). This worked well until the top of my desk in the lounge joined the “baby-reach-zone”. This one took us quite a while to solve, we tried physical barriers, moving my painting supplies to the very back, clearing the desk during daylight hours. It wasn’t working and I didn’t have much energy to fight. My daydreams of teaching Junior to respect “mom’s working time” and painting alongside him as a team building activity were also quickly shattered by the reality of a 30-second-attention span. I bought him paint. He only coloured the water. I sketched while he was drawing. He snug up on me and added his very own touch to the page. We bought a new desk and I set up studio in our bedroom. He figured out how to open doors. It has been almost 3 years since I kept to any seriously productive schedule, regularly updated social media and had a decent output in artwork. But I’m going to just let that go. My perfectionist self has been on extended leave since the first week with a newborn anyways. It’s time to dust off the brushes and dig out the pencils - because someone just sent me a message. |
