Are You really drawing for the sake of it, or just to show it to other people?

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Social media and art

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 This topic makes me really get lost in thoughts, as I am really dissing myself in this one.

 I've seen a lot of people talk about this topic or just mention it, but I think it's a really new matter in the art community or overall - in social media. Because now all of the algorithms and everything, everyone thinks that they must post every day or maybe every week or so, so every piece that they make seems like it has to go to their feed or else they will be irrelevant on the platform that they're on. They need to post anything, they just keep their audience attracted.

From over the years, I've noticed that people draw less and less also because they don't draw that fast anymore. I don't know if it's more because of the pressure or maybe that we grew older which is probably what this is. As well as suddenly everyone's 20 years old when moments ago we were just teenagers on DeviantArt or something.

I swear to God that the art community really changed and everyone started taking everything so seriously, not talking about some dramas or something. I'm rather saying that people take drawing too seriously, and I think it's because of the social media and how everything started being taken too much into our hearts that it's not fun anymore to post. It just feels like a chore to draw, because you have to post because it's your life depending on your account. Maybe because for example, it's your income or something. And I understand that this is because 90% of artist on the Internet are artist because of their job, but I'm just here to talk that I miss when it wasn't taken so seriously.

If you were an artist on Instagram or DeviantArt, let's say in 2016, or even 2017, people would spam arts, literally posting the ugliest sketches, but it didn't matter because it was fun, right? The drawing was showing just a story or something or it was showing a small interaction or it was a quick gift or a meme and people would post these because they were fun! Because it was for a friend it was a gift, or it just brought a small sparkle of joy into their hearts.

And I miss when people would just draw gifts out of sudden or loose art trades or draw a birthday drawings for a random person on the Internet. I was an artist on Instagram and other social medias when it was at its peak.

Commissions were not that really common mostly and if you had commissions you had them for let's say 20 points per half body, and it was pretty funny, but I don't think many people did it for the points itself.

 So what I think happened, in my opinion is that everything on social media got worse and worse which is not something new for the artists especially, but I think our mentality ruined half of it. Also yeah as year as grew and we grow older, I think people just draw better and this is the pressure that we cannot create ugly art because everyone's better right now. And the typical 'good art' in 2015 is now considered ugly.

 

 You don't create art just for the creation you rather stress about if it's gonna be good enough to post, if it's displaying your skill enough that people won't be like .. "oh my God this person regressed! This person drawings are not as good as I thought!".

It's not about the journey anymore. It's about the final piece that is important. It's like it doesn't matter if I had fun drawing, if the final outcome is bad, because that means the whole process was not worth it and my fun was wasted on a piece I don't want to post.

 

I started asking myself. Why am I even drawing this? Is it worth drawing? Will my life be changed if I finish this drawing? Will this drawing be perceived good by other people so that maybe I should finish it? 

And this is a problem that I just recently was thinking, because it got so rooted in my mentality that I never noticed the problem and I never noticed what changed in me and why sometimes I just draw because I want my character to seem cool for people, not for me! Because I know that my oc is cool in fact!

It happened, maybe because I started being too practical and seek too much benefit from everything that I do, not being so careless about my time and makes, like everything had to be for some reason. And I forgot that the reason why I'm doing this, is because maybe I just like drawing! And I forgot that I like drawing. 

Mostly it happens on my digital artwork, because I spend a lot of time on these and it takes me so long that if I was doing this on a traditional art, I would already abandon this piece.

And now I'm just reflecting, because I just remembered that in the past I wouldn't have lots of pieces,  where I would be like "oh I don't feel like posting this", "Oh it's not really something that needs to be posted" or when I just wouldn't think about this posting this at all. I didn't have any drawings like that. I just noticed that I don't draw for myself because I like it, or it's my hobby. I just drew because I wanted other people to see my work and perceive me as this and that person and just see me in some kind of way. I felt like flexing my drawings showing "oh look at me look at me! I drew this I drew this look it's so cool!".
And it's OK because I love showing my artwork to other people and I got so used to that, but I often don't see a point in not posting art that I make and this is a big mistake, because I wish I had drawings, even ugly ones that are just for me that are just drawings for the sake of it. Because I know my oc is a badass! I know my oc is this cool intimidating and haunting dude in pretty scenarios. I don't need to draw almost 12 exact same drawings, showcasing it because I think the previous one didn't show the whole vibe of my oc so that it will make others be like "oh my God her oc is so, so amazing".

My ocs are for me and myself, not for me. I don't need to prove anyone that  my oc is special, because they are special for me.

 

Sometime ago I started going through my old drawings from when I was like 11 or 12. This was the time where I drew the most traditionally. I had a graphic tablet and it was some weird, big Huion tablet one with no pressure on it because I didn't know how to install drivers and  my family also did not know so it was funny.

 

But I noticed how these drawings were made, and I just remembered maybe a few of them were posted anywhere or maybe none of them even! Because it was not really that normal for me to took a photo and post it anywhere and I never thought about posting all of that at all. 

I mostly posted some drawings I did digitally, but not really the traditional ones, yeah I'm pretty sure I just would only post digital ones, even though I could potentially share the tradition ones out but I chose not to, I guess.

And I really remember how I loved drawing traditionally, and I would do it every day and fill maybe two or three sheets of papers with drawings, colored them with markers, sometimes not, sometimes leave them unfinished or just make a lineart na that's it and it was OK at that time. Now it's never okay to just have an unfinished drawing in Your sketchbook.

 

And this is what I would call enjoying your hobby, because I've seen this exact feeling in these drawings and how I had actual ideas and they were really interesting. Not just the character portrait like I now do, and probably only do, but I think it was also not much effort that I would put into this drawings. Don't get me wrong. I surely tried my best every time, but mostly it was just drawing, because I like it! Not because I wanted everything to be so perfect, because people are gonna base my skill on that and I miss that. I miss it so much, just coming up with ideas for the sake of it. 

Not because it would make a good content or it would get many likes, just sitting because I had nothing to do and drawing whatever I'd like not thinking "oh, it's too cringe for people to see, it's not gonna fit my feed, it's not gonna fit my sketchbook".

I don't really wanna rumble that long, because I'm using speech to text and  I feel like I want to drink water and just stop talking, because it hurts my throat already. 

 

But I just wanna say:

I wish I was 11 again and I wish I had 200 pieces of paper with OC drawings that didn't matter since I didn't have to post them only because I wanted to be seen. I miss being this person.

That's why I want to start drawing, just because I want to draw on a sheet of paper and not in my sketchbook, coloring with markers, sketching the most random things, not because I want to show it to people, but because I love to draw! And I feel like I forgot about that, as the urge to post was a bigger than the love for a hobby.

Here you go! my first attempts at drawing just because I want. 

I used to make a lot of these little cut and glued paper dolls-like drawings and I found them to be really cool, not really pretty and practical, but the charm in them was that they were just cool, that's all. And hey! Itimeir <3

XOXO,

Sincerely and entirely Yours,

Vin.