Tiny Art and its outsized outcomes
One month ago life was humming along, and I was steadily working on a handful of projects. During a coffee date, a friend of mine mentioned a project sponsored by a local art festival — a Tiny Art Vending Machine (see above). He showed me some small pieces of art he was working on for that project.
I wondered why I hadn’t heard of the project before now, but didn’t think much further about it as I was plenty busy with other work, and carried on with our conversation.
Over the next two days the Tiny Art project kept cropping up in my mind. I remembered seeing something other artists had done which would be perfect for the vending machine — small drawings/paintings on paint chips from a home improvement store. I’d been wanting to try my hand at that, but hadn’t gotten around to it.
The excitement I felt when I thought about it was undeniable. I could call this energy ‘distraction’ or I could call it ‘inspiration.’ Either way, it was there and I wanted to make those drawings.
After contacting the organizer to schedule a meeting, I worked up a quick ‘comp’ (a mockup or example of the end result) and went to see her to share my idea. She liked the concept and we agreed that I would participate, creating 50 pieces of tiny art in the next three weeks.
Fifty little drawings in 21 days? No problem! That’s just over two a day, and they’re tiny! Easy peasy. So easy I didn’t start right away.
I went to the home improvement store and collected a bunch of paint chips with fun names that conjured up images — Cinnamon Toast, Red Gumball, Gray Heron. But I didn’t start drawing for several days. The pressure began to build.
You can see what’s coming, right? I’ll cut to the ending of the story: with three days remaining before the deadline, I had finished less than half. There were still 27 drawings to do.
I cleared my calendar of everything, used the energy generated by my procrastination to focus and finished all the work on time.
It might have been nice to experience slow and steady productivity towards the end goal, but that’s not how it played out. On the contrary, the intensity of those last three days was actually fun. I was in a flow state and the energy generated by procrastination (which could also be labeled as stress) kept me on task and immune to distractions.
Yes, I caused myself some suffering by putting off the work. A few of the 50 drawings are not my best work because I just ran out of time. But I’ve been in this situation so many times before that I’ve stopped beating myself up over it too much.
I don’t waste time or energy judging my behavior, I just evaluate it with clear eyes: I am prone to procrastination. There are tips and techniques I use to minimize this behavior, but it still happens more than I’d like. This time I experienced the joy that comes from obsessed about drawing for three days straight.
Here are all 50 drawings of the paint chip drawings that are in the Tiny Art Vending Machine. Each drawing is 2.5”w x 4”h, and sold for $1 each at the 2024 Smoky Hill River Festival.
Do you procrastinate? Have any tips or techniques to share? Put them in the comment section below.