After I watched some videos about blogging from other artists, I decided I wanted to start my own artist blog. Despite how that sounds, this decision did not come out of nowhere. I’ve ruminated for several months, and have been going over this idea for a few weeks until I had a chance to sit down and start.
As the summer of 2022 began to wind down, I started feeling a sense of dissatisfaction with drawing. I didn’t want to stop drawing because I still enjoyed it. But somewhere along the line, I’d lost my sense of pleasure in the process and the act of creating. Drawing has been a source of comfort and pleasure for a long time, even when the piece isn’t working out. I always enjoyed the challenge of creating a new piece because each drawing is different.
But something wasn’t right. I started to feel like my work was same-y, routine. Art is a form of expression, but I felt like I wasn’t exploring anything to express. I felt like I was creating similar content over and over, and while my followers and friends still enjoyed the finished pieces, I knew I craved something more.
After a couple weeks of working through these feelings with my journal, I began to realize I needed to push myself. Many creatives can probably relate to this. When you feel stuck or stunted or bored, it’s probably time to try something new or identify where you can push yourself to do better. Not only that, it’s time to reflect on your work and kind of think through the process of creating, get in touch with what you make and why you make it.
That’s why I decided to start a blog. I’m not much of a video editor or else maybe I’d do weekly vlogs. No, I would rather type my feelings out than try and do a voice over and figure out what else to put on a screen while I ramble on. There’s something more soothing for me about doing it this way.
Blogging Goals
So I have two goals with this blog.
First, I want to grow my self-awareness and understanding of my own artistic vision. Each week, I want to round up all the pieces I’ve worked on and post them — even the unfinished works. I’ll post them all here (except ones I may not be able to share at that time), talk a little about how I felt making it and how I feel now. Most of these won’t have any deep, earth-shattering revelations, but I think it’ll be useful to say at least a few sentences about each drawing.
Second, I want to use it as a form of self-critique. I have ADHD and because of that I tend to shelve things when I consider them “finished,” whatever that means. I put them away and rarely come back to them later. That’s not always a bad thing, but I feel like it hinders my ability to learn from my work because it’s a near-constant for me. So I want to use this as a chance to identify the good and the “needs improvement” for most pieces. Again, not every critique is going to fill me with amazing revelations, but I hope this reflection helps me grow.
This is also why I want to post works-in-progress. If I take a day each week, I may be able to see what I can change as I continue to work on the piece. Every creative knows you overlook LOTS of stuff while you’re working on the project and you don’t see these things until you step away. So this is a chance for me to step away and look at my digital sketchbook.
While this blog is mainly for myself and my own relationship with my work, I would love to hear your thoughts, critiques, comments, etc. Even if you just want to say, “I love it!” I’m happy to have you here and I hope you enjoy your stay.
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