Now, this is in no way intended to be drama. Please don't start it. This is not intended to be an "I'm leaving the Forest" post. I don't see myself permanently leaving the Forest in the foreseeable future.
I'm starting to wonder whether or not I should even bother posting my art anywhere but my
subVariance page. I am hesitant to post anything here or at the TEF community or deviantART at all anymore because it feels like I'm just wasting page space and my own energy. It's taking up time that I could be using for something else, and it's probably wasting other people's time. The more I see the wonderful art here, the more I think that I should step aside and let more serious and talented artists take the page space.
I'm not going into art as a career, but human factors and ergonomics; however, art is what I love, and it's come to a point that I feel that I have to have a number of people who say, "Ooh, that's very good," or "Well, you could have shaded this area a bit more; work on your coloring--here are some nifty tutorials for that" to feel good about my hobby, and I'm wondering whether or not I have lost sight of what I should be doing with my hobby. I know I'm just a hobbyist, and my art skills are generally crappy--should I be feeling this way at all? Should I even care? I'm going crazy and getting frustrated. I know many people here are probably offended that I even consider art something that someone can even consider something so seemingly insignificant as a "hobby."
Now, I'm not leaving The Endless Forest or any crap like that. Perhaps I have lost sight of the intention of the community site in the last few months. Maybe it's not about the comments or the number of views a person gets, but the spirit of sharing what he does with his energy.
I know I'm stepping in it for posting this, but this is how I feel. It's burning in my brain like an abscess under one's skin that needs to be drained.
Edit: Thanks for you comments, I appreciate them. It's just difficult to get back into art and relearn things after years of not using the talent. I made the mistake of not keeping up with art after high school when I threw myself into my college courses, and my skill paid dearly for it. I was actually in advanced placement art in high school, believe it or not. It's amazing how much can be lost in 3 to 4 years. It's even harder when my mother, God bless her, commented that my skill deteriorated--with a laugh. She later apologized, but it kept me from doing artistic stuff for awhile.
In my opinion art can
I don't think you're wasting page space or anything at all, from my view your art is actually quite good from what I've seen. You've got tons of potential. Be a little more positive!
I'd love to see you keep posting
Art in and of itself is a
And the biggest, most important part: ART IS AN EXPRESSION OF ONE'S INNER SELF. It doesn't matter if you are skilled, or if everybody fawns over you, as long as you have fun with it. Art has no limitations, you can do whatever you want with it, it is an expression of what YOU want.
To keep art in it's true form, keep it as a "hobby", don't even worry about it in it's form as a career. In a career, you have to be skilled, you have to do what people like, it is not a whole and true expression of yourself. If you don't do that, you don't get money and you don't get to eat. You can still express your creative side to some extent, but you have limits.
Not to say that art shouldn't be a career, I am going into an art career myself, but ever since I made that choice, I have had to push myself to be skilled, and to please the public eye. But I am a creator, I like to tell stories and to entertain, so I am going down the animation path to accomplish those ends.
Art has so many forms, so many layers....it is one of the most complicated things on this earth. Don't hesitate for one minute about sharing your expression. Just do it! Go throw it in our faces and say, "HERE IT IS! THIS IS ME!" that's the cool part of being an artist.
Now go on and continue to throw art at me, I want to see some self-expression here. I know that you probably have not gotten one comment from me on anything you've done, but that is mostly because I am a hopeless scatterbrain who can't remember everything she's looked at XD so pardon me and my horrid memory, and do not forget that we will not judge you here based on any skill of any kind. If they do, I shall beat their butts for you :3
And then I swear I'll go away
But I can't promise you'll enjoy the noise
Thanks for you comments, I
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The Endless Forest on Blogspot
Redkora's Profile: "I am Myself"
I see that you've already
There will ALWAYS be artists who are better than you, I know for a fact that it can be crushing to see something done by someone half your age that you don't think you could ever produce. When I first joined DeviantArt, I went through some very similar feelings. It took some time, and I did make choices I will always regret, but finally I made a promise to myself; I will never stop doing art for myself.
You need to stop doing art to please others, don't worry about drawing things you think people will like, draw things YOU want to draw, things YOU like.
I hope that makes you feel better, even if it did come across as a little rant-like...sorry >_>
Thanks, Terabehta. That's
It will be difficult for me to not do art so much to please others--doing things for other people seems to come very naturally to me, and I sometimes get so carried away that it becomes a route for obsessive-compulsive tendencies. There is nothing like neuroticism to poison good intentions. I will do my best, though, to do art for myself.
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The Endless Forest on Blogspot
Redkora's Profile: "I am Myself"
I agree with the comments
I used to draw every day, but at a certain point I thought people were expecting to see more art (especially on deviantART), so I lost the fun of doing it.
These days I write a lot more than I draw, but I still do it sometimes, purely for myself, because I want to. Because it's a hobby! And that feels good ^^
To pray is to believe, to believe is to purify one's soul
To pray is to believe, to believe is to purify one's soul