seventhe | about art (Reply)

so, i've always wanted to be able to draw. i've been a drawing person, a color person, since i was a kid, and as an adult ive moved in and out of art. i purchased the giant iPad Pro i have specifically thinking of art (among other things). And this year i've slowly been getting back into it.

i've been doing color studies. sketches. tracing, a bit, mostly to practice how different facial structures translate into my sketchy "style". learning the iPad Apple Pencil. learning Procreate. i absolutely know practice makes perfect and all my problems before have been not practicing.

i want to be able to draw so badly. i want to be able to sit down and make a doodle or a sketch that gets what's in my head OUT of my head. i want to make a comic. i want to draw regularly so that i can see improvement in my own shit.

i'm still not a very good artist. i realize my color studies have come out alright, and i'm pretty proud of them, but they're all done with references. all of them. and yeah, okay, "real artists use references" i absolutely get that and im not ashamed to say i use them but i still rely so heavily on them that i can't really draw anything normal looking without one. i can draw nearly ANYTHING given a reference. that's easy. i can't otherwise.

i'm watching everyone's variations on inktober go and i want to draw. i've never felt this pulled to doing art before. it's like a fucking ache.

but i'm ignoring it, because i am fucking committed to my upcoming writing schedule, and that's far more important than learning to doodle. i'm in two zines i need to get drafts out for soon, writing two halloween GO fics and possibly an MCU one, two CYOAs on Patreon, i have two active WIPs to update and finish and like 17 inactive ones im not yet abandoning; i am outlining what i hope to be a novel i write for NaNo.

i am focused on my writing now.

so it's just fucking ironic that this is the time in my life i want to learn to draw more than anything. no, i want to KNOW how to draw, skip all the steps, but i mean, who doesn't? (a joke; i realize you gotta put in the practice.) i cant stop thinking about it.

BUT: i have really put aside time until my next contract to focus on my words, and i'm not going to deviate from something i've desperately wanted to do for years (write a novel) for another thing i'm not as good at, frustrated by, and have no chance of a future with other than a silly hobby.

i just had to get this out there.