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Description
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

-J.K. Rowling

As one of my friends here on DeviantART is fond of saying, "failure isn't the end of the world." It's a learning opportunity and a chance for us to grow. We cannot succeed unless we're willing to fail, and learn from those failures. That is how we improve, whether as an artists, scientists, philosophers, or the human race.

This stamp is something of an illustration/demonstration to go along with a tutorial I created recently. It begins like many of the ones we see here on DeviantART - a poorly-colored, flat stamp with a distracting font, wasted space, badly-aligned text that goes off the stamp, and no balance. To those of you out there who may be reading this and actually make stamps like that, it's not my intention to tear you down or hurt your feelings. But I hope you will take note - you are capable of so much more! But you cannot improve until you accept that you are capable of so much more. Don't be satisfied with mediocrity.

The stamp gradually changes (little changes, as you can see), undergoing tweaks and minor adjustments until it is the final product you see at the end. It doesn't take the talent of Michelangelo or the resources of Rockefeller to create that. It takes a willingness accept your own shortcomings and learn from them. Anybody can do it.

Description
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

-J.K. Rowling

As one of my friends here on DeviantART is fond of saying, "failure isn't the end of the world." It's a learning opportunity and a chance for us to grow. We cannot succeed unless we're willing to fail, and learn from those failures. That is how we improve, whether as an artists, scientists, philosophers, or the human race.

This stamp is something of an illustration/demonstration to go along with a tutorial I created recently. It begins like many of the ones we see here on DeviantART - a poorly-colored, flat stamp with a distracting font, wasted space, badly-aligned text that goes off the stamp, and no balance. To those of you out there who may be reading this and actually make stamps like that, it's not my intention to tear you down or hurt your feelings. But I hope you will take note - you are capable of so much more! But you cannot improve until you accept that you are capable of so much more. Don't be satisfied with mediocrity.

The stamp gradually changes (little changes, as you can see), undergoing tweaks and minor adjustments until it is the final product you see at the end. It doesn't take the talent of Michelangelo or the resources of Rockefeller to create that. It takes a willingness accept your own shortcomings and learn from them. Anybody can do it.