Embarking on an Art Journey

I have always been doing art, so perhaps I should have titled this, why did I stop?

There's so much mysticism around the idea of talent. Maybe some people do have innate ability with composition, hand eye coordination, mind to muscle connection, skills that seem so effortless that they must be inborn, not acquired. That was probably the biggest factor in why I stopped doing art - I thought that if I was meant to be an artist, that during the middle of a piece -- in that ugly, muddy phase, where you always start to doubt yourself - that if I were really an artist, I'd find myself in the middle of a montage, this crazy music would start playing, I'd have an epiphany because the universe selected me and the skills will drop out of the sky with some lightning bolts and I'd be able to just do something amazing without thinking. Pretty immature and silly, looking back- especially because the protagonist in a montage is typically working tirelessly, repeating tedious, mundane chores at failing over and over at first.

A lot about art is kind of mundane, but it builds character. They were right. It's training your mindset so you come back, show up, and do the thing. You are ahead of so many others if you just show up and do the work. Don't be afraid to be bad and don't be afraid to fail. If you aren't failing you probably aren't growing.

I had an unrealistic expectation of artistic growth - and I also had no direction. I wanted to do ALL the things (and still do) but was counting on finding a mentor that would show me the direction, and was pretty clueless about how to figure it out myself. As a result, I wanted to concept art, I wanted to do comics, I wanted to do animation, I had a zillion ideas (ideas are cheap) but didn't know how to reverse engineer a career path. I thought I would be "discovered"; but that is so rare- you have to figure out who is going to want your art and find where they are and go to them - and I'm still working on that part (ewww, Marketing!)

Shortly after college, after applying for random art jobs with no responses, the real world came crashing down and I ended up expanding my hours at my college job. I stumbled into real estate after working different temp office jobs, I worked and gamed more and more and drew less and less. I was working on something where I had imagined a final piece that was way above my skill level and had that table-flipping moment of frustration (luckily my drafting table was actually too heavy for me to flip). I quit. All my supplies ended up in boxes and started collecting dust.

Fade to black, fifteen years later....

A lot of personal, "adulting" struggles going on. I feel like I'm failing in every aspect of my life, everything that defines my identity I suck at. Everything is only going to get harder and anything I want to do in my life I need to work on actualizing TODAY or it's not going to happen... EVER... but I'm still clueless on how to do that. I've wasted so much time, and just let myself drift downstream, letting other forces make decisions for me. I feel like I'm always angry, and I'm getting older and derpier, not wiser. Do I accept I started out "gifted" (they all said) - peaked and am now less than mid? Am I just a loser? Is this...a crisis?

I'm not sure the moment, I was sitting out on my patio watching hummingbirds and bees nomming on the firebush and azaleas. My mom had just given me a pep talk. I had drawn a picture of my Dad's childhood dog, a German Shorthaired Pointer Max, for his birthday, and I did a couple of sketches over the past few weeks. My husband had been trying to encourage me to draw again our whole relationship, many art related gifts that had gone neglected, including a pen display that I had only used as a 2nd monitor for the longest time. One day, I picked it up. No expectations, just did a little sketchies to relax. I started experimenting, and I wasn't afraid to be bad. (and wow, I was). It didn't take long before my husband ran out and got me a much nicer pen display even though I told him NOT TO. I started to draw more and more, and then stumbled upon some YouTube channels to learn how to get better. Not just tutorials on how to use the software, hardware, and drawing fundamentals, but tutorials, if you will, for MINDSET. I needed to learn how to think, something I had arrogantly thought I'd knew when I was younger.

I needed to set goals and make a blueprint/timeline to reverse engineer those goals, make lists, build and stack habits, and show up everyday, even if I don't actually draw every day. Learning to accept myself was the most difficult thing, and frankly, required medication to get me there. I still want to do all the things, but by making tons of lists, and then making lists from those lists, and basically factoring/distilling action items from those things and applying a decent timetable to these things, I've made of lot of progress. Part of that is documenting my journey here, what worked for me and how I did it. Hoping to help anyone who is interested along the way. Cheers!