After lots of practice and studies, I did something I actually really like!! I even did some quick painting to see how it would look. This style definitely feels right to me.
In other news my therapist pointed out yesterday that while I believe I have a bad work ethic which makes it hard to work on my art, I’m actually pretty diligent, and the problem with my art is just that I’m scared of working on it for various reasons. So I’m gonna stop doing the speed paints and force myself back to doing original work instead; not only is it what’s causing me the anxiety, but it’s also what I really want to do anyway.
Also, I’ve decided to stop taking my adderall as I feel it had started to negatively impact me. It made me hyperfocus to a detrimental level and it gave me some serious perfectionist tendencies, both of which were just increasing my artistic frustrations, among a few other issues. I haven’t taken it for over a week and I feel a lot better now mood-wise, but I definitely have less energy and motivation. Since I don’t have the stress of college hanging over me anymore, I have some time to build these up naturally, and I think focusing on an hour long speedpaint everyday is a good place to start. Taking it slow like this is probably good for my art frustrations as well. SO I’m gonna go back to doing one of these every day, not with the goal of speeding up my process or even increasing my skills, but just to start building up a good work ethic.
So I got a Cintiq as a graduation/birthday gift. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever touched and it is so much better than a normal tablet - it makes me realize just how much the disconnect really affected me. For example, I had to work so hard to draw a curved line but on the Cintiq it’s so easy!!!! I did some doodling today (pictured here) to get used to it and I just kinda forgot I was working digitally at all once I really got into it. I can’t stress just how helpful this is for me, once I readjusted all my tools everything was just so effortless. I could work so much faster and I spent so much less time correcting mistakes (though obviously these are just lil sketches), and overall it just felt a lot better, especially once I started getting the hang of it. I don’t know if I’m quite out of my art frustrations yet but this certainly makes the prospects of working on that can of worms far less intimidating.
Also the robed girl in the middle of the second picture is the protag of that lil game I was working on! I can’t remember if I ever mentioned it but her name is Eos. I fully intend to go back to that game eventually, but as I’ve been focused on my art I just haven’t had the motivation right now.
So I think I’ve identified the major roadblock I’ve been experiencing. Or, more accurately, where the wall happens. If I think about my drawing process, it goes like:
The way I talk about my frustrations you’d think the entire process would be painful, but that’s not really it. Instead, it only happens when I start trying to polish a sketch up. Something like:
Rough -> halfway through polishing things up -> get stuck -> building frustration -> somehow work through after hours of effort or give up
This is actually a reocurring thing that I’ve experienced literally all my life. I don’t tend to finish a lot of my art because when I start trying to get something to a finished state suddenly it all goes to hell. I often just scrap the more finished version and restart from the rougher sketch a few times because the sketch looks fine but the finished version looks like trash. In fact, if I just think about free drawing it’s fine but when I think about the process of finishing a piece it makes me very anxious. The process of finishing a piece honestly seems incredibly daunting and overwhelming to me.
I don’t really know why this happens though. Do my mistakes get hidden by the looseness of a rough sketch? Do I not apply as strong a critical eye to a piece if I’m not trying to polish it yet? That doesn’t explain why I often restart from the sketch though. Is it because as a sketch the final product might end up resembling the beautiful picture I have in my head, but when I go to finish it it never works out that way??? I suppose part of it is since I shy away from finishing things I lack experience doing so and thus I’m very uncomfortable with it, but really, I just don’t know what’s up. Since I’m not sure what’s wrong here, I don’t really know how to overcome this mental block I have. It’s possible the answer is to just do it - stop caring so much and try and finish things in a reasonable amount of time, thus gaining the experience and comfort I’m lacking with polishing pieces up. I spend way more time sketching than I do anything else so it would make sense, I suppose. If I could maintain the same state of mind I have when I’m just drawing, then it would be very easy to finish things, and it’s probably better to finish things and have them be sloppy and have mistakes than never finish anything because they just don’t look right. It’s really hard for me to do that though.
Across every human culture throughout our entire history (and prehistory!), humans have made art in some form. No matter the time, place, or means, people will make art. It is an inescapable facet of humanity - it’s safe to say that we HAVE to create, it is simply not an option. But...why? I’ve been trying to understand the root of this for a long time now. And while you might think this is related to my current art block, it’s not - I just watched a video recently that got me thinking about it again. So here’s another long rambly post so I can get these thoughts out of my head!
If you ask someone in a scientific field, they’ll probably tell you about how the brain processes information and creates thoughts and the various neurotransmitters and other systems at play. That’s all well and good but it doesn’t explain why we create, just how our brains go about doing it. If you ask an artist, they’ll probably tell you about their inspirations or their goals. You get answers about trying to express something about themselves, trying to communicate a message to people, aesthetic goals like trying to capture beauty, or maybe even just because they enjoy it. These are all perfectly fine answers, but I don’t think they actually answer the question. These answers are more about why these artists create the art they do, not why they create in general. But I read one answer once that touched on the question I’m trying to answer. The artist said that he created simply because if he didn’t create art then he would become a broken man.
I love art. I enjoy making it. I enjoy looking at it. I enjoy learning about it. Even when I get frustrated I never lose my passion for it. I also love music and games in much the same way, and I dabble with creating those too. But I don’t create art because of this passion, and I’ve always known that. I also don’t really have a strong outward motivation either. I just NEED to do it. My creative drive is so strong that I have no choice - if I don’t create I quickly become depressed, and if I went on without creating for long enough I seriously believe I would just die. We’ve all got biological needs that are hardwired into us - sleep, eating/drinking, sex, we all know this. But for me (and plenty of others), creating art is essentially another one of those needs. And perhaps for some people, that would be a sufficient enough answer - humans just have to do it.
But not me!!! Why? Where does this drive come from? Why do I need to create? The other drives are obvious - we need to eat and sleep to live and we need to have sex to reproduce, and the need to sustain life and reproduce are fundamental to all life. But as far as we know, no other species produces art, and even if they do and we just don’t realize it, they certainly don’t do it like us. Making art isn’t fundamental to living by its own merits. Our Paleolithic ancestors lived in a much harsher world where they had to work hard for even basic necessities, and yet they were willing to spare some of their valuable time and energy to paint on caves walls and carve figures out of rocks. Experts often wonder what the purpose of ancient art was, with theories range from ritualistic to communicative, but I firmly believe the main reason early man made art was the same we do now - not to express anything, not to communicate anything, not to mean anything, but simply because they felt an overwhelming need to do so. This art probably evolved to have some meaning (in fact it unequivocally did as ancient art is the root of written language), but I don’t think it was initially done for any other reason other than appeasing the creative drive. I’ve done a lot of research trying to get to the source of this drive, but my efforts have mostly come up short. I do have my own theory, however.
People with ADHD are known to be more creative than neurotypical people, and people with ADHD often need to have some sort of creative outlet. It’s pretty easy for me to link my ADHD with my overwhelming need to create, and I think this link is at the root cause of it all. My mind is constantly going every which way and literally never shuts up. And I don’t mean in an anxious way (though that certainly happens too), it can be about literally anything. I think as my mind goes and goes, it creates an inner restlessness and energy, and THAT is my creative drive. Not necessarily because of what I think about, but just from the very process itself - thinking creates internal restlessness as a byproduct, like a machine producing heat. And if the restlessness stays trapped then it starts to weigh me down, and I get depressed and frustrated. People create art not just because they need to express themselves, but as a quirk of having a mind capable of doing so in the first place. It’s why creative types tend to be more introverted/more anxious - they spend more time in their heads, thus they foster a greater inner restlessness. It’s why pretty much anyone will doodle when they’re bored or doing something mindless if they have the means to - with no other stimulation their brain starts to stimulate itself, thus building up that creative energy. And it’s why I wrote up this whole post in the first place - not necessarily because I wanted to let everyone know about my idea, but because thinking about it so much made me restless. Of course creating art is way more complex than just that but - I think this is what causes the urge to do so in the first place. That’s my conclusion, at least. If you read this whole thing then I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the root cause of the creative drive.
I’ve officially reached peak artistic frustration. Every time I try to draw anything it turns into an awful frustrating experience to the point where I don’t even want to try anymore because I know it’s going to be miserable.
I need a break and some space to figure things out at my own pace, so I won’t be posting anything for a while.
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