Meet Grace Blessing

We recently connected with Grace Blessing and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Grace, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.

Overcoming imposter syndrome is something I’ve struggled with for years, but am learning to cope with day by day. It’s natural as humans to compare ourselves to others and judge if we are on track or not, but when we fall short we tend to beat ourselves up over it. I constantly found myself in this scenario of “falling short” which ruined my confidence and began to shatter my identity. If my whole purpose and goal in life was to pursue art, what did I have left if I couldn’t even be good at that? While it can be hard to come to terms with this it’s important to realize that there will always be someone out there that’s better than you. Instead of enveying them, see what you can learn from them so you can advance to that level. There’s a quote from Lauren Burns assuring us that we don’t have to be the best at something, “we just have to be the most determined.” With this, I find the mental fortitude to persist despite any self deprecating thoughts. My drive to improve will always be greater than the urge to give up.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

In my senior year of art school I’ve really been pushing myself to be more than an illustrator. I want to become an entrepreneur, content creator, and teacher. I’m working on growing my business and brand as an illustrator while sharing my process online, though I’m fairly new at content creation. While I love art I’m learning that I love sharing my knowledge about it just as much. With the rise of AI I think it’s more important now than ever that people see the value behind art and the process of its creation. I’m starting small and just messing around by posting a few short videos on youtube here and there with my business on the side, but with persistence I believe I can turn it into a full time thing. I refuse to limit myself to anything as I feel it would be a disservice to myself and my skillset. Aside from my personal passion projects, I’ve been fortunate enough to work on a book and have a few mural opportunities lined up that I’m really excited about. What I love about art is that there’s a million different ways to go about it, so I never feel tied down to one line of work. With this, I’m beyond excited to graduate so I have even more time to focus and improve upon my art.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

If you’re an aspiring artist I’d say the biggest pieces of advice I can give are these three things.

You learn by drawing, it sounds obvious but it’s essential if you really want to nail something specific down. Everyone at some point has struggled with drawing hands for example, but there’s no trick or secret I can tell that will magically make you instantly better at drawing them. Draw one every day, fill your sketchbook with hundreds until you understand its form. My professor freshman year told us this and he was right. Until his advice I was confused as I thought I had understood the anatomy of hands considering all of the demos I had watched, but simply watching demo videos isn’t enough. By the end of the ten week quarter I’d completely filled out two whole sketchbooks with just anatomy practice. The gradual improvement I saw from the sheer amount of drawing made me ecstatic, making the wrist pain worth it.

Second, pinpoint your favorite works of art and why you like it. Often when I find my work becoming too dull I’ll watch movies or shows with art styles that I like to find new inspiration. It took me a while to realize but when looking back at my art you could always see the major shifts in styles were from right after I’d seen something that had moved me. My art style is a puzzle piece of all forms of media that inspire me, it doesn’t even have to be illustration. For me I was really into the Giselle ballet, I thought the costuming and elegance of the performance was beautiful. The colors and mood of it all found its way into my art, and is a wonderful source of inspiration. Never limit yourself to what can inspire you, because then you’re just putting yourself into a box.

This ties into my last piece of advice which is to not be afraid to break the rules of “normality.” My favorite works are the ones where I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I was having fun. I’ve allowed myself to experiment with mediums I never thought I would have which elevated my art in interesting ways. I once made a piece back in high-school which I look forward to recreating one day. The anatomy is wrong, but the textures and colors were playful and experimental. I started with painting in watercolor, then lightly applied oil pastel over the paper to blend it out with my fingers in some areas. Then, using colored pencils I carved out some of the pastel’s build up to create fun areas of interest. I’d never mixed those mediums before, but wish I had sooner. While it sounds counterintuitive, sometimes the best pieces of art come out when you’re not trying too hard.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I’m always open to collaborating with other artists as I value community and meeting new people! Something I’ve always wanted to do is collaborative drawing challenges. I’ve been watching Drawfee on YouTube since their channel started and think they’re a wonderful group of talented artists. They take drawing prompts from their patrons and create hilariously unique masterpieces. As previously mentioned I’d love nothing more than to have a YouTube channel of a similar nature focused on fun things like these. I highly recommended checking them out as my explanation of what they do cannot encapsulate everything. Whether you know me personally or not please feel free to reach out so we can kickback and have a good old fashioned drawing session! The best place to reach me is through my Instagram @gigadrawn. I hope to do fun things like these often in the future!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://paa.ge/gigadrawn
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gigadrawn?igsh=cTZ2ODk5dTU5Y2tm&utm_source=qr
• Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/@gigadrawn