What usually comes to mind when staring at a blank white wall on the outside of a building or on the inside of a nice restaurant? I am no stranger to mural art in all parts of the process: I have studied it, designed for it, and painted many around Los Angeles. The only problem with designing murals is the amount of steps that are required until a design is approved.

At one point, I had so much creative energy because of my comic on this site that I let my employers know that I had some art talent to offer. Some people heard about it and asked if I could help design some images for a school. I was so excited because I would have a chance to create a tangible piece of art that would get a message across to help inspire students. I spent over ten hours and one sleepless night creating a design only to find out one week later that the school staff wanted to go in another direction.

A while later, I was asked to design a mural of a kindergarten playground of a story they had written, again, my design idea was scrapped a second time and lost to a drawing of the Itsy Bitsy Spider that was conjured up in less than five minutes.

I was ready to turn in the towel after having my mural design rejected a second time and then I was approached one more time to design a mural for an outdoor public park space. I decided to cut down on my losses and spent less than one hour drawing very geometrical, boxy, and half-assed designs using generic shapes on photoshop. I printed the final designs and submitted them to the project planners and a few days later I was told that the final design had been approved and it was going to be painted on a wall. I was floored and flabbergasted that my subpar work garnered more appreciation than the ones I had lost several hours (of my own free time) preparing.

The moral of the story is this: Be careful and make sure you do not let any future employers find out that you have artistic ability especially when not working in a creative field. Chances are, they will find a way to make you create uninteresting art and give little thought into how much energy and time went into the design process. I wish I was just kidding, but there are people who like individuals with artistic talent, but have little to no desire to pay them for their time and talent.

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What's Quacking?
Do you have any original art to contribute to our stock image database, announcements, community projects, ideas, news, or milestones to report? Please leave general comments below or send a PQ to kawaiidaigakusei. Email me at kawaiidaigakusei(at)gmail(dot)com.