Living Life With No Regrets
There is never any harm in trying something and going for it. I think the worst thing is when you regret not doing something and wishing you’d just gone for it.
This is the main reason I do everything that sounds appealing to me, because I don’t want to have that nagging feeling that maybe I could have gotten it if I’d just tried. That's why I end up writing last minute proposals for jobs!
You’re never going to get everything you wish for in life, but I think it’s better to have tried, then not tried at all and blamed other people for it or live in regret.
There have been many jobs I’ve applied for and not gotten, and when you get that rejection letter it’s pretty gutting and then you wonder why you spent so much time on it. Have you been there!? Thought so! But I’ve now learnt that any time I spend on an application or designs for murals is time well spent. Even if I didn’t get to use those designs for one job, I can use them for another job or those ideas can develop into something else.
I think also on social media we only show the good side of things and all the things that are going right in life, so when you see someone doing really well you assume it’s been super easy for them. No rejections. Just pure luck! I know I use Instagram as a platform to show my work and as an online portfolio, but I do try and show projects that weren’t successful because I spent time on them and I still think they are worth talking about. But my main objective is to show the fun and colourful side of life because there is already enough miserable stuff on there, so why add any more to it?!
So I’d like to share with you some projects that I applied for that went well and ones that didn’t go so well. But the point is, I tried! I don’t regret anything about it because I actually physically did stuff for it and sent off an application. Couldn’t do any more than that.
Wood Green Car Park
For all of those that aren’t familiar with areas in London, Wood Green in is North London. It’s not the nicest of areas, which is why the council are regenerating the area with lots of cool art projects! There’s loads happening in the borough and some really exciting things are going to be happening over the next few years.
So one project they wanted to do was to paint the Wood Green Mall car park, which as you can imagine, is not a very beautiful building. But the spiral car park would make a super interesting back drop. They had a £40,000 budget which is crazy!! But most of that would be taken up with getting the scaffolding done…
It would have been the biggest project I would have ever done so was a bit skeptical about it… thought it was way over my head. Butttttt the night before the applications had to be submitted, I thought… why don’t I just try. Literally nothing to lose apart from a few hours of my time.
So I spent all day sorting out an application, trying to make myself look great! Doing some sketches for it and just hoping that I had made a good case.
But alas, twas not meant to be!! And the guy who ended up getting the job does similar style of work to mine, so I’d like to think that they liked my ideas, but my case just wasn't strong enough! I mean… I wrote it in a day! The actual design that has gone up is really amazing so I’m super happy that it looks good!
Barking Mural
I was approached by a company to submit an application to paint a whole building in Barking in East London. It was huuuuuuuuuge!!!!! I went to see it and just thought… this is waaaay beyond my capabilities. But again, I thought I may as well give it a go! I took the sketches I’d made from bits of the building and turned them into collages which I used as the mural design. Thought it looked pretty cool!
But again… my inexperience was not in my favour. It was way too big a project for me and that’s what they said in the application. But I also thought… you approached me… so surely you could have seen that I’d never done anything this big before!? Anyway, I spent a day collaging and it got me out of the house and I made some of my favourite prints because of it!
Dundee Mural
One of my lovely followers on Instagram tagged me in a post for the University of Dundee who were looking to get the side of one of their buildings painted with a mural. I thought, perrrfect! I love Scotland and I love painting walls!
They wanted it to be based on the work they do there, which is finding cures for parasites and tropical diseases. I thought I’d approach it in the way I know how, by using colour and shapes and tailoring it to the job.
So I made my own parasites , but gave them personalities and made them less scary looking!
Again… rejection!! Oh the pain!! But again, it gave me a chance to do something new and develop my style. So all was not lost.
Haringey Cycle Stands
I had originally applied to paint a mural for the wall next to the Wood Green Library in North London, as the council were looking for artists to submit ideas for 3 different projects. There was the mural, cycle stands and street lighting. All of them were part of the regeneration project to make Wood Green a nicer place for people to hang out in.
I had thought lighting wasn’t my thing and I don’t know how to paint metal for the cycle stands, so it was an obvious choice for me to apply for the mural! I got a call a few weeks after submitting my application and they said I hadn’t been successful with the mural, but I had been chosen for the cycle stands because they really liked my ideas and thought I’d be better suited to that. It was a weird one because I was sad I hadn't been chosen for the mural, but super excited to do the cycle stand project!
Here are my mockups for the cycle stands that the council and members of the local community really liked! They will be installed soon for all to see!!! So excited to have something in public!!!!
Get some kip
Instagram is where you can get some amazing messages and some very spammy messages that you don’t know if they are real or not… I’m always cautious about whether something is genuine or not, but I received a message from someone from Get Some Kip, a hotel in Hackney Central in East London. They wanted me to submit 4 artworks into a competition to celebrate the theme of ‘Connection’. The 5 chosen artists would have their work printed onto the side of their hotel for everyone to see as they came off the train for the foreseeable future.
I submitted 4 collages that I had the theme of connection through the using the same shapes, patterns and colours through all 4 collages. They were all individual but all shared the sense of belonging as a group. I didn’t think anything of it until I got an email saying I had been chosen!! It was pretty exciting!
Almost a year on because of covid, the collages were blown up and printed onto panels that were put onto the hotel. Very proud moment of my life! Now I get pictures from people on their commute where they’ve seen my artwork! Very very cool! I feel like a celeb haha!
So as you can see, life ain’t all biscuits and rainbows! It’s sometimes a bit crap, but I’d like to think that trying your best and going for things makes it better. You can’t regret it and then look back on your life wondering… “What if!? What if I’d just done that job or applied to that thing. My life would have been 100 times better!”
Just get out there and do the things you love! You’ll never regret doing something you truly enjoy because it’s not time wasted.
Hopefully by reading a bit about my journey and how I go about with my life, you’ll see that you may as well not regret things and just try them!
Eloisa x
