Story time:
I’m an artist! Whoo! I recently finished this painting, no reference, just exploration, and… I hate compliments on it.
Why? Like, asking the universe, asking myself, why do I hate compliments on it?
And I received a comment on it on Instagram: “I would buy a painting from you!”
And I said thank you and I wanted to throw up.
This painting will sit and it will probably be put up in an art show I have in 2025. Why do I hate positivity towards it?
It’s because it’s not what I want to create.
I’ve been an artist ever sense I found out as a kid that Pokémon were drawn. And I would say that: “I want to be an artist!” So I was thrown into art classes — but it wasn’t what I wanted to learn. (Useful! But still.) And I went to college for art and was seen as a Creative and told “here’s art with a specific job!” And I went into scenic design. In graduate school for scenic design, I had to take a costuming class. I took too long designing the characters and I spent too much free time writing my book (which, fuck you, I published it) and I was told to stop doing anything but scenic design. I needed to stop drawing people.
I dropped out. I later got a MA in Illustration.
But now I’m disabled and our economy sucks and I have a full time desk job and a part time art teaching job that I had to cause because of my health.
This painting was the last thing I created in the classes. It represents the only art I know that people will actually give me money for because… I can do it in my sleep, from the intense training I had when I was able to absorb and had passion and energy and didn’t have fifteen diagnoses.
I want to draw characters and be a character designer and comic artist and I hate I can’t. I hate I can’t produce quickly, I still need to Really Pay Attention to anatomy, that consistency is so hard. And I have a full comic planned. A full five arcs. And I hate so much of my art because I can’t do what I’ve wanted to do since I found out what manga WAS.
I hate this painting because it was goodbye to the one art income I had because the number of hours caused me to have a pseudo stroke and my brain isn’t connecting right to my body all the time and
What if I lose myself before I can even share what I want?
(Also, the other part of myself screams that all art is worth money, not just my fucking paintings)
((It’s okay to compliment the painting, I just need to express my frustration and that might end up being the burning of this))
(((But hey, link to my Etsy in my profile)))