So far this summer has not gone how I'd have liked it to go to say the least. It started off with my grandma breaking her other femur, and continued to get more stressful as the days went on and I had to take responsibility for my family and the house, and my art suddenly became unimportant to me. Well she's home now and recovering very well and this makes me happy, and I can sleep a little better than I have been.
However this break came at a time when I was so excited to do my art, and then suddenly I had time and then I had no desire to create anything, and I was constantly on edge with nightmares about my family and worried about failures.
Getting out of this slum is probably the hardest thing I had to do because I really felt defeated, but I am happy to say I think I am starting to want to create things again.
This is the first set of 'freestyle' sketches I tried to do to loosen up my hand a while back, and although there is only one sketch of these that is even mildly worth showing, I want to show it because...well, I'm really not that good at drawing and I kind of want people to know that.
Lately I have become almost obsessed with wanting to show imperfection because that is really what I was dealing with all this time, it's that I could never become the kind of perfect artist that I had in my mind. Let me be the first admit that I am really not good at many things from my head and I think some of these sketches show that. I realized that throught this year especially I had been too reliant on references, and in doing this, I nearly forgot what it was like to just...draw. And enjoy drawing it. This is probably the first set of sketches where I had begun to have fun again:
And so I tried to tackle FT again with the soul purpose to stop being so strict and hard on myself, not rely completely on being perfectly referenced, and overall to have fun and remember what art is all about. None of the pages are done being penciled, but I HAD to finish something so I just went in and drew in ink not caring if it was perfect. In my opinion, the result is a page where I don't think my inking, at least with the foliage, has ever been so good:
I don't like the colors as much but that's how it will be, I worked too long on them to re-do the page now. I tried my best, and I don't think it is still there but at least I know I am getting closer. I have a lot of work to do still, but I think I am finally ready to tackle this again. :)
Ah...a lot of this though I can say is due to a lot of me going back to my roots in a sort of soul searching kind of way. I re-watched and revisited all my inspirations of my childhood and elsewhere (Dragonball, Airbender, Fushigi Yuugi) and this helped me remember who I was and I am so happy I did it. I can highly recommend to artists who are in a block to trace back where your art came from and I can guarantee it will help you immensely. :D
1 comment:
B'awww, this made me feel all empathy-ness toward you. *murders grammar fairy*
I know what you mean! I took a voluntarty leave from arting these past few months since I want to get a degree in two years (I miss Skylands ;o;). And from what I've known of you from your blog and the oekaki board, your drive to work through all this stuff and your enviable learned-ness (?) far outplays all your so-called weaknesses in art. Well, that's what I think. u_u
But, yeah, after a while, rereading my most favouritestestest books (need to read something so I can fall asleep at night), I had all sorts of fantastic ideas for characters and a renewed interest in drawing animals. It was so strange, and I'm sure all the doodles in my binders contributed to a dip in exam grades, haha.
Anyhoo, all that you're doing is hugely inspiring, your familial concern is touching, and I wish you the best of luck this summer! Hell, I also need it.
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