Earlier this month, I was given the opportunity to work on an exciting project with ITN Productions, in which we met with a range of different people on the streets of London and asked them what their retirement looks like while I drew portraits of them as their future, retired selves.
So the challenge I faced here, was to produce a piece of work within a short time limit, which I’m sure we can all relate to. I was on the South Bank, surrounded by a team of people, a camera pointed at me documenting my every move with a puzzled stranger sitting in front of me checking their watch to see how much of their day I’m taking up and whether they can make it to their train on time. While this isn’t a direct reflection of our everyday lives at like minds, there are a lot of correlations that can be drawn between the two. We’re faced with deadlines on a daily basis, we’re faced with clients watching the clock wondering how long we’ll be and while everything we do isn’t documented on film, we are constantly faced with the pressure of performing.
Sometimes we’re proud of our performances. Other times not so much. Admittedly, I wasn’t too keen on some of the creative decisions I’d made within the time I had and my shortcomings quickly became apparent to me as soon as I put pen to paper. It became clear to me how little experience I have in drawing environments, drawing from imagination or drawing under pressure. I found myself concentrating so much on what was going wrong however, that I overlooked what was going right. I achieved what I’d set out to do, I didn’t waste too much time and the positive reactions to my sketches made up for the negatives I gave myself. Also, it was humbling to know that I wouldn’t have been able to take part in this project if I hadn’t taken the time earlier in my life to learn how to draw portraits.
I think the same can be said about every one of us in the fields that we’re in, or even in our lives outside of work. Sometimes it can be easy to undervalue our skills and get caught up in the negatives. But we should instead look at the progress we’ve made in our lives and realise that the projects or problems we deal with today, we would never have been able to manage a few years ago. Taking a look at how far we’ve come, we should not only be proud of where we are today, but also think about how we can better ourselves for the future. It could be researching new ways of doing things or teaching ourselves some new software. It could be training for a run or learning a new language. Whatever we choose to do and whatever goals we set for ourselves, we’ll be taking steps away from the person we are now and towards the person we want to be.
