my relationship with art
I've been trying to do a lot of heavy scale reframing in regards to my relationship with my art again recently, and I don't know exactly what triggered it, but for some reason I just felt an innate desire to return back to my roots, the crux of why I did all of this in the first place.
maybe it was lads, maybe it was drawing in my traditional sketchbook more often, or jumping down rabbit holes of old media I used to engage with/watch/listen to... who knows...
but what I do know is it's changing something in me. definitely for the better, but also something I feel like I haven't been able to have for a long time. and that's the unadulterated bond with the act of creating.
I feel like I'd been fighting for quite some time, figuring out what I wanted to do, and figuring out how art tied into that.
I wanted so desperately to make art my career that it felt painful I had to give that up because I couldn't handle it. eventually, it felt like a looming 'I might have to because it's the main thing I'm good at'.
but as I draw on paper again more, drawing love and deepspace fanart number 500, as I start getting new story ideas at a rapid rate, making an entire manga because of my special interest, finding and downloading windows movie maker on a whim just so I can play with it again...
it just. feels great.
whenever I take a break I feel like it's... never truly one. I'm taking a break to 'catch up', not to relax. I have the 'I could be productive right now' brainworm, and it's never fun, to say the least.
now, I somewhat feel like? I'm... healing, in a way. truly. and in a way I never really expected to.
I don't quite know how to explain it! I almost feel like that little kid who drew pokemon on her floor in her bedroom again. who wrote random stories in word documents or google docs and rambled to anyone who'd listen about the complicated lore. I don't know if I'd want to go back to 2010, but I definitely want my 2010s culture back. the way I unabashedly did anything and everything... I used to draw just because I was bored and it was entertaining to do and have! I made it for me! there's (no joke) hundreds of drawings that have never had another person see them across my 15+ years of drawing. I filled sketchbooks in a month, if I didn't like something, I scribbled it and started redrawing it on the next page— we just ran with it.
I say all of this to say, that I think I'm changing my perspective on how I create, and this might change the way I move forward with my art online. I think I've unlocked the true why again, even if I don't know how to articulate it yet.
something that's definitely going to begin to alter this is, I think I'll be retiring my 'want to make books' goal, to a far away dream.
part of me wants to go for making them, but I'm not interested in running a business. I might just make a small amount to have for myself, friends/family, and MAYBE if some folks want them? but nothing past that. I mostly wanted them, and that's more achievable than mass producing books and figuring out a storefront.
(though if I got hit up by like viz or something to make a manga...... I'd think about it lol. only because it'd be cool.)
I've been posting art online for as long as I can remember, so I won't be hopping off the face of the earth, but I'm going to do my best to remove influences that could pull me back into the 'freelance artist' pipeline. I respect my art too much to force it into a mold it was never meant to be in in the first place.
I think that this has overall been a wonderful slow realization as I end up down a rabbit hole of just... enjoying things. I mean-- I've been making FANFIC of this stupid (affectionate) game!! I haven't written fanfiction in YEARS! I wrote something for a different game a few years back, but before that??? the last time I recall REALLY being into writing fanfic was in middle school 😐. that feels like it was forever ago now.
anyway. this blogpost feels very disorganized but I HOPE that I have coherent thoughts. I just wanna have fun creating again :> being able to say 'ok let's do that!' and making a oven clay head, or a sewing project, or an animated video, draw a bunch just for the hell of it, etc etc etc (things i've done in the past lol). outside of untitled, the most I was able to do was doodles, sometimes very sparingly. but I want that to change! nothing I think will change on the front end, except I'm just... a little more happier, and in tune with what my art used to mean to me.