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New Beginning

It has been nearly 3 months since my last post, and I am not ashamed to say that... I failed.

I have not been drawing daily. I have not made much progress on the projects I want to do this year (being a quarter of the way into 2018, now). I have not leapt. Neither have I relented, however. In this time, I have remained poised to leap, and now, I believe I am truly ready.

I had to be surprisingly ignorant about myself, to think that it was as simple as saying “I haven’t drawn in ages, but I’m going to now, and that’s that.” There was a reason I wasn’t drawing in the first place, and I needed to overcome that hurdle before I could realistically do this.

So, I searched, and I searched inside of myself to try and find what was holding me back... and what I found was a residual pain.

You know aversion therapy? The type where you discourage yourself from doing something using a rubber band? Every time you do that thing, you snap it on your wrist. Then, after a while of doing that, you stop using the rubber band, but you still feel the sting that you have come to associate with that action when you think about it -- thus, training yourself out of doing it.

I found that, something similar was going on with me and drawing. I was afraid to pick up the tablet pen. Not cowering in a corner afraid, or freaking out when presented with the prospect afraid... but, I shied away from it constantly. It would be right next to me, and yet, when I thought about drawing something, I would find an excuse not to do it.

I realized this in a situation where a friend was pushing me to draw. After I had the stylus in my hand... everything was easy from there. I had a blast drawing. I enjoyed the hell out of it, and it felt right. But, that didn’t cure what was stopping me from doing it on my own. I still wasn’t drawing for a good while after that, because I was still weary of taking up the pen myself.

After some experiences a few years back, I started associating the tablet pen with negative emotions. Doubt, stress, sadness, and discouragement -- in the absence of confidence, fun, kindness, and support. Every time I picked up that stylus for a year, I was snapping the metaphoric rubber band on my wrist, and in the end, I stopped picking it up, in order to stop the pain.

Until now, I did not know it... but I’ve been feeling the phantom sting from that experience, every time I’ve thought about drawing. And though I’ve successfully been avoiding that pain simply by not drawing, another type of hurting has surfaced, in its wake -- the pain of not creating.

When I keep all of these ideas bottled up in my head and don’t get them onto the canvas... I am miserable. I am not exaggerating in saying that I feel physically ill, when I am not creating regularly.

This has been the root of the deep frustration that I have referenced in so many of my past posts. The need to create -- knowing that, while I am drawing, my heart sings, but not being able to bring myself to do it.

I think my mother put it best, when she described it as a form of self harm. That, I wasn’t doing what was best for me, as a way of punishing myself. And she was right. Up until a few days ago, I did feel like I didn’t deserve the good feeling that drawing gave me.

Things are different now, though.

That is still a W.I.P... but I am proud of it. I’ve drawn this over the course of a couple sessions for a larger project I’d like to do -- and I plan on working on it for a few more.

I also did these two gesture drawings in the days before that one, to ease myself back into things. As simple as they are, I am proud of them as well.

I think that, with this, that chapter in my life is now finally, 100% behind me. I’m am ready. I’m ready to make some amazing fucking art. I’m ready to become who I was meant to be. I’m ready to make new connections. And most importantly, I am ready to forge into the future.

To new beginnings.

#personal #level start