I often feel that in our fast-paced, evolving society, there’s hardly room for imperfection or for the process of becoming. Our eyes have been trained to recognize only what is polished or "right." We are so influenced by standards of perfection that it can feel as though there's no space left for anything fresh, unpolished, or still in progress.

Since the beginning of the semester, I've been working on an algorithm that will (hopefully) allow me to automatically draw and animate characters from children's books. Right now, I'm in such an awkward, messy stage of the process that everyone who sees my current results has suggestions for a different approach I could take.

I decided to fully engage with the stage I’m in and give these characters space within the creation, embracing the ugliness and the process. Initially, I took screenshots of where I was in the development.

Then, I erased the circles and numbers that were meant to guide me. From there, I created a scene using a few of these characters together, and finally, I colored them.

I still feel the result is quite ugly, and I think I should have made different choices. But at the same time, I enjoyed the process. It reminded me that when I’m the only one judging my work, I can give myself the space for discovery and growth without worrying about being "right".

I also uploaded it to MidJourney using two prompts: one to combine my painted drawing with the sketch, and the other to add color to it. Here are the results I got and thought that were interesting :