So, how difficult do you find it to draw when you're "not in the mood?"

As someone who does art for a living, it's pretty important that I'm either "in an art-mood" or able to work regardless of whether or not I'm in an artistic mood :b However, I definitely do still find it a challenge - because my job almost always entails illustrating other people's creations and ideas for other people's projects and stories, there often isn't necessarily any personal interest in the job. In a big way, actually, I view my job as finding out what potential interest there is in a commission, and making that come alive and bringing it to the forefront, exploring that idea and the potential in it, making myself excited and interested in it, and then putting it down on (digital) canvas. I actually find this pretty easy - identifying the inspiration is easy, but FEELING it is hard.

There are a lot of things that I would "like" to draw, or think would be really cool, or would love to see, but that sure as heck doesn't mean I'm in the mood to try to make them! Maybe I'm being too harsh - obviously, most people aren't chomping at the bit dying to be able to go to work and do their job every day, filled with enthusiasm and excitement and delight. But I KNOW creating art can be like that; however, doing art as a full-time freelancer is NOT like that! At least, not for me.

It's different when you're doing it as a job - there's an expectation of quality and perfection. You can't just "have fun" or "not care how it turns out and just enjoy the process." Well, I mean, you CAN have fun and you CAN enjoy the process, but the mentality is different when you're getting paid to do it for someone else. It's the difference between writing for fun, and writing when you know it'll be judged and marked based on their tastes and not yours. You're doing it for them, not you, because you HAVE to.

I'm being sort of hard on doing art as a job - despite what it sounds like, I actually really enjoy it (I think :V). I love getting presented new ideas and "forced" to do new things and exploring subjects and drawing things I never would otherwise draw myself, and finding enjoyment in all sorts of new, strange, and unexpected places. That's super cool. Really.

Also, y'know what else makes doing artwork hard? Being sick. Sometimes working "normal" jobs is doable when you're sick - you just go through the motions most of the time, it's almost routine - but putting out quality creative stuff is just HARD when you're not functioning properly. That sucks too, worse than not being in the mood, I think. Not being in the mood just means I'm missing a kind of motivation, but being sick often saps you of motivation and ALSO makes you bit of a mental/emotional/physical gimp :V

I dunno, just my opinion :V How do you guys find it?

If you're curious, I set this up as a poll over on deviantArt - you can check out the results so far here!