Sketchbook Piece & Bloggy Blurb!

Hello lovlies! I hope you are all having a happy & colorful week so far :)

Fighting some artist block at the moment, but I'm pushing through and I managed to sketch out this quick mermaid portrait! In my experience, artist block gets worse when I try to push myself to make something complex and "amazing," so here I am doing what comes most naturally to me: portraits :) 

As a part of this little sketchbook post, I thought I would do something a little different and include a question one of my fellow artist friends messaged me recently and express some thoughts about it! Kind of like a little blog :) So keep on reading if you're interested and check out an inspiring video resource at the end! ~

Question: "Now that I'm done with school I don't know what to make art about. I know I'm passionate about it but I kinda feel like I'm flailing about. It's just been hard to figure out what I used to be passionate about. How do you know you are passionate about what you create if you are? Where do you find the strength to wait for your imagination or passion about drawing to inspire you to make a piece? Do you avoid flailing about, set goals, or do you find flailing to not be bad? How do you find who you were after those classes, critiques and junk that were so crushing?" 

So I think these are very important questions that a lot of people feel inside, and they can drive you crazy especially when art is important to you. At the end he talks about art school, which can be a positive experience for some artists but for others it can cause self-doubt and a loss of identity in your work because art professors can be harsh with their opinions. If you empathize with any of this uncertainty about your art, don't worry! You will find yourself; it just takes time, practice, and experimentation. But if you look to the past and try to figure out what you used to be passionate about, I think you run the risk of preventing yourself from moving forward with your art. 

I'm sure every artist can say that they have moved through different phases of what they're interested in drawing, and with each phase comes revelations about what you truly love to do and don't like to do. Each positive and negative experience with your art will lead you closer to a vision of what you would like to do next -- and that's the cool part! So in essence, don't worry about what you should "make art about." Your art is an extension of yourself and who you are, so make it about things that you enjoy. If you are inspired by movies, games, or stories, think about what gives you chills from those things and try making something similar! Identify what you love about other artists' work and experiment with making things that they do, just to see if you like it. Be patient with yourself. 

Check out this inspiring video with lots of useful advice from other professional artists, made by Jake Parker! It's directed toward high school graduates but I find it super helpful for all ages ~