YouTube will be the death of me. Either because I starve from watching too much or because I literally die of failure-at-life syndrome.
There are many YouTube videos out there from artists who talk about "finding your style" as an artist. None of them have been helpful to me so far because they tell me to just keep on creating and my style will come. That's not helpful when I don't know where to start with the actual creating. Being creative means feeling an urge or desire to create. I wanted to know what "style" was because from there I could go on to define my own and have a starting point for my creativity.
Here is what I've come up with: Artistic style is the sum total of all the rules you make up for your own creative process. The rules you make up are a combination of things you like, and things you can do, which is why style is still a very organic thing that changes and morphs over time. Things you like change. Ways you create change depending on things you learn or new things that inspire you.
Examples:
Thick lines versus thin versus variable.
Black on white.
Perfect repeating symmetry versus balanced asymmetry versus complete randomness.
Curvy women versus wisps.
Always drawing feet with no toes.
Hyper-realism versus abstract versus a combination of each.
White on black.
People versus animals versus plants.
Cartoons with big ears or big feet.
Realistic animals in unrealistic situations.
Choice of medium: endless variations and combinations.
Super size versus notepad versus miniature and everything in between.
3D versus flat
Photo reference versus making it up.
Monochromatic.
Bring in the metallic colors.
Stick figures with hilarious speech bubbles.
Slam poetry versus orchestra music.
Get messy during the process versus cleanliness.
Wear cozy clothes versus wear no clothes.
Storm clouds versus sunshine on dew drops.
Peppermint versus cherry.
Bold colors versus soft
Convenient versus time consuming.
I love lists. I could probably go on all day. Have fun discovering your own style.
Showing posts with label YouTube. Show all posts
Showing posts with label YouTube. Show all posts
09 February 2017
02 February 2017
late bloomers
Can't think of a catchy first line.
This is a post about how lame my husband and I are together.
Also a reason why I shouldn't watch people's success stories on YouTube until after I, myself have had success. As per my post last week, there is far too long a list of things I enjoy doing accompanied by an increasing feeling of being left behind by my generation because I'm not actually doing anything about the things I like to do.
Confession: I never liked horses as much as I pretended to when I was a child.
The sister just younger than I was big into horses. She was also the preferred child because I was crazy and we didn't know why yet, so I felt strong compulsion to be first and be better than her. The day she announced she loved horses, I loved them more. (It didn't end until after I left for college, either. The day she decided to play flute, I picked it up and was playing at an intermediate level within two days. She decided to play bassoon instead. I never tried to keep up with her athletics, though. I got fat while she got soccer-chick thighs. I was a passive-aggressive sort of competitive, she was a knock-you-down sort.)
I watched YouTube videos about why Lena Danya and Happy D Artist chose to make art their career. Both of them said it was something they had been doing and loved since they were a child. I've been thinking about how I was as a child. I can remember some things. I spent my time riding stick horses, playing with stuffed animals, swimming in a ditch, crying so hard I passed out, keeping my little sister away from my own friends, drawing horses (well, more unicorns and pegasi than horses) and dragons, throwing fits where I would tear my hair out, playing in our sand box, riding horses, playing horses on my fists and knees until I got rug burnt knees, being so mad I bit my hands, tucking my shirt in and wearing a belt, being secretive about which boy I liked (it was only one, all through elementary and middle school.. one boy crush for 7 years), playing lion king off the top bunk where Scar would throw Simba's dad off the cliff, but you don't want to read a laundry list of my childhood activities. Just note that they are sporadic and random and centered a lot around something I didn't actually love all that much.
One day I realized I was lying to myself. I loved the clarinet. On that day, I gave all of my horse toys to my younger sister and never really played with them again. (I still doodled on all of my school papers, though.) My dream of going anywhere with the clarinet died with my college grades, tendonitis, and bank account balance. It's hard to go to college and get good grades when bipolar disorder has one by the throat. Pre-diagnosis problems.
All of which is leading to my point: I have no idea what I loved doing as a child. So I am an automatic failure as an adult because I'm starting from scratch 20 years late. I'm not good enough at anything to make a real career out of it and I'm not going to be a self-employed knitter. My husband is kind of in the same boat with me. He just switched majors two semesters ago.... to something he loved doing as a kid: writing. So he isn't as lame.
This has made me reconsider what I think of as "success". Am I successful because I actually spent the time to draw, paint, sew or write in a day? Or if I have my own fashion line of knitted sweaters (with cat motifs of course)? Or am I only successful if I have an enormous online following and collectors wanting to pay loads of money for my art? The latter is very appealing to me. In the scriptures, when the people are starting to become wicked again, one of the first things they do is "seek to get gain". Well, yes I am. There's extra pressure because I am the primary income and I'm not making any money right now. My back is still out of commission. I have a bad case of the "I can'ts". To be fair, my early life was not exactly a joy ride.
This is a post about how lame my husband and I are together.
Also a reason why I shouldn't watch people's success stories on YouTube until after I, myself have had success. As per my post last week, there is far too long a list of things I enjoy doing accompanied by an increasing feeling of being left behind by my generation because I'm not actually doing anything about the things I like to do.
Confession: I never liked horses as much as I pretended to when I was a child.
The sister just younger than I was big into horses. She was also the preferred child because I was crazy and we didn't know why yet, so I felt strong compulsion to be first and be better than her. The day she announced she loved horses, I loved them more. (It didn't end until after I left for college, either. The day she decided to play flute, I picked it up and was playing at an intermediate level within two days. She decided to play bassoon instead. I never tried to keep up with her athletics, though. I got fat while she got soccer-chick thighs. I was a passive-aggressive sort of competitive, she was a knock-you-down sort.)
I watched YouTube videos about why Lena Danya and Happy D Artist chose to make art their career. Both of them said it was something they had been doing and loved since they were a child. I've been thinking about how I was as a child. I can remember some things. I spent my time riding stick horses, playing with stuffed animals, swimming in a ditch, crying so hard I passed out, keeping my little sister away from my own friends, drawing horses (well, more unicorns and pegasi than horses) and dragons, throwing fits where I would tear my hair out, playing in our sand box, riding horses, playing horses on my fists and knees until I got rug burnt knees, being so mad I bit my hands, tucking my shirt in and wearing a belt, being secretive about which boy I liked (it was only one, all through elementary and middle school.. one boy crush for 7 years), playing lion king off the top bunk where Scar would throw Simba's dad off the cliff, but you don't want to read a laundry list of my childhood activities. Just note that they are sporadic and random and centered a lot around something I didn't actually love all that much.
One day I realized I was lying to myself. I loved the clarinet. On that day, I gave all of my horse toys to my younger sister and never really played with them again. (I still doodled on all of my school papers, though.) My dream of going anywhere with the clarinet died with my college grades, tendonitis, and bank account balance. It's hard to go to college and get good grades when bipolar disorder has one by the throat. Pre-diagnosis problems.
All of which is leading to my point: I have no idea what I loved doing as a child. So I am an automatic failure as an adult because I'm starting from scratch 20 years late. I'm not good enough at anything to make a real career out of it and I'm not going to be a self-employed knitter. My husband is kind of in the same boat with me. He just switched majors two semesters ago.... to something he loved doing as a kid: writing. So he isn't as lame.
This has made me reconsider what I think of as "success". Am I successful because I actually spent the time to draw, paint, sew or write in a day? Or if I have my own fashion line of knitted sweaters (with cat motifs of course)? Or am I only successful if I have an enormous online following and collectors wanting to pay loads of money for my art? The latter is very appealing to me. In the scriptures, when the people are starting to become wicked again, one of the first things they do is "seek to get gain". Well, yes I am. There's extra pressure because I am the primary income and I'm not making any money right now. My back is still out of commission. I have a bad case of the "I can'ts". To be fair, my early life was not exactly a joy ride.
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