A simple excuse

i need a fall icon, sheesh.

Have come to the realization that i need to take my time with things. I am one of those people who is always in a rush - always impatient. This applies to my art. I have no patience to sit there and detail something if I'm bored of it. If it's fun, yeah! i can do that forever, or at least for an hour. But my strokes and lineart are rushed. My handwriting is rushed. Get it done as soon as possible and move on to the next thing - that's how my brain seems to work. I don't know where I got the impression that working quickly was a benefit, but I think I need to try slowing down. It's starting to show in sloppiness - or maybe it has been, this whole time. 

Whenever I see certain really good graphic designers, or artists with extremely detailed, clean, super-clean artwork, I always think they're the kind of person who is always well-dressed, keeps their workspace beyond tidy; a neat freak. A stickler about detail, every little speck of dust, every pixel. Which honestly I always thought was annoying. I'm a big picture person... I see the forest more than the trees. I always thought, man, who cares if that little line goes over the edge there. Or if that tiny thing doesn't look right. But then the lines add up and the misaligned edges throw each other off, and before you know it, it looks like crap. I'm starting to appreciate the pixel-perfect neat-freak designers for their commitment/obsession with clean design.
I am a messy person but over the last couple years I've cleaned up a bit. When I went back to school - from 2007-2009 - my overall personal hygiene took a huge leap upwards (what is it with 19 year olds and being excessively dirty?) and I've kept up with it - maybe even improved it! I'm on a ten month streak of taking a shower almost every single day. Used to go 3-4 days without considering it. Similarly, when I lost my job last year I had nothing to do except clean the house. Couldn't play video games or draw or paint for more than an hour at a time. So I organized things, cleaned things, painted the office. Nowadays it has become habit - cleaning up after myself when cooking (most of the time), putting laundry in the hamper, folding clothes when they're done, sweeping and wiping down the counters more than once a week. Now I am the nag to Dan's dirty habits! Which used to be the same as mine - but as I've gotten relatively cleaner, it's been harder to have him try to keep up.
Maybe as I have been getting personally cleaner, it's time to apply those same habits to my artwork. Sticking to one piece, cleaning it up until it's absolutely finished. Spending more than 15 minutes on lineart. Fixing up details in web layouts instead of leaving that one annoying thing to annoy me forever.
After all, said and done, I really like the work of the neat-freak pixel-perfect graphic designers. It exudes a professionalism that I need to embrace.