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LONG TIME NO ART... advice?
8 years ago
HELLO my fellow friends and sorry for my absence
I've missed you all so much ;w;; I return in need of a little advice
For those of you who know, I was a living off of commissions for around 4 years. It was great, but during that time I drew so little for myself that I became burnt out and lost my passion. I just didn't want to do it anymore, I was exhausted, as grateful as I was for the opportunity. I really began to question whether or not I was even a true artist.
I've been passionate about health/fitness for quite a few years, and I was absolutely convinced that this was the right path for me. I was going to go to school to pursue SOMETHING fitness/health related, and art would be a hobby again. Fast forward to now, I'm 6 months into school, and I'm questioning everything. I miss art, and just doodling as a hobby hasn't been cutting it for me. I'm itching to dive into studies and work on developing my art. I want to become good enough that eventually I can really be a competent teacher and share my progress with the world and I want to create work good enough that it gets featured in ImagineFX.
I'm just so unbelievably frustrated. I'm terrified that I've made the wrong choice to go back to school, and I'm terrified that if I quit then I'll regret it later. I have one foot in art and the other in fitness and trying to divide myself has left me feeling so incredibly exhausted, and it's effecting my grades and the quality of my artwork.
I know ultimately it's my decision, but I'm just so mentally drained, I would really benefit from a fresh perspective. Thanks so much in advance.
I've missed you all so much ;w;; I return in need of a little advice
For those of you who know, I was a living off of commissions for around 4 years. It was great, but during that time I drew so little for myself that I became burnt out and lost my passion. I just didn't want to do it anymore, I was exhausted, as grateful as I was for the opportunity. I really began to question whether or not I was even a true artist.
I've been passionate about health/fitness for quite a few years, and I was absolutely convinced that this was the right path for me. I was going to go to school to pursue SOMETHING fitness/health related, and art would be a hobby again. Fast forward to now, I'm 6 months into school, and I'm questioning everything. I miss art, and just doodling as a hobby hasn't been cutting it for me. I'm itching to dive into studies and work on developing my art. I want to become good enough that eventually I can really be a competent teacher and share my progress with the world and I want to create work good enough that it gets featured in ImagineFX.
I'm just so unbelievably frustrated. I'm terrified that I've made the wrong choice to go back to school, and I'm terrified that if I quit then I'll regret it later. I have one foot in art and the other in fitness and trying to divide myself has left me feeling so incredibly exhausted, and it's effecting my grades and the quality of my artwork.
I know ultimately it's my decision, but I'm just so mentally drained, I would really benefit from a fresh perspective. Thanks so much in advance.
My feeling is that you should find a time-flexible career (PT?) that you enjoy as much as you can, that pays the bills fairly reliably while also allowing time for you to work on your art.
If you do it right you get enough art that you don't go insane, but not too much either.
My .02c (minus tax).
Cheers,
Aly.
Thanks for the advice!
If you are burning out on art, stop commissions once any outstanding work is done, and focus on doing art for yourself only, if you still need money along the way offer to sell art packs to your watchers letting people see your work, or run a patreon for early access/high res of your work before its posted to FA (for example). There are for sure ways to monitize your artwork without doing work for others, although understandably it may be a lot less money.
Definitely some food for thought, thanks!
Ou know, almost for as long as I've known you you've had the debate between art/fitness, and it doesn't seem like you've been able to find a middle ground between those two passions... personally I think finding that may help a bit.
I think you get so confused and frustrated because they're both what you really want, so whenever you go without one, those questions start to show up; maybe you could find a way to schedule your activities so that you can do both, maybe not as much art as school, but I think you wild definitely benefit from scheduling some time for that, even if it's not much.
I do miss swing you around, I hope you say hi more often :)
I have been trying to balance both, but I've got a terrible "all or nothing" mentality so doing two things at once is incredibly challenging. I wind myself up so tight that I just spin out of control and end up doing neither x___x.
Regardless of my decision I'll definitely keep making art! As always thanks so much for your kindness <3 I'll be sure to check back more often!
their decision to attend college, you guessed it, right around the six month mark. Remember why you made the decision.
Remind yourself of the opportunities you told yourself you'd gain with this decision. Then stick it out for a full year. If
it's still not what you want, then make a different choice. The best option would be to find time for both. A ratio. Like,
85% of your day devoted to school, and %15 devoted for art on certain days of the week. Also, possibly try to find other
students like yourself. Campuses are crawling with art students. Hangout, enjoy the art culture, etc.
I know there is a little art group that I've been too intimidated to participate in, but I think I'll give it a shot! Thanks so much, I really appreciate the guidance!
"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
See also Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken (not repeated here as I've already made this comment far too long).
Whatever you decide, it may not turn out the way you wanted, and you may regret choosing that option. But the same is true of the other option. You can never be certain of anything but this; the only guaranteed path to certain regret is not making the choice at all.
More pragmatically; does the school you're attending have trained staff you can talk to about this? They may well have far better advice than any of us can give.
I don't have much to add after those fine folk above me, but I just wanted to comment because I'm happy to see ya. ^.=.^
(PS I don't use Skype anymore. My Discord and Telegram are in my status message if you'd like to stay in touch)
For me, turn this hobby into a full time job would be a pain so, i found a good balance between it and school so i don't get fed up of both.
Wondering about your life paths has been on my mind for weeks. But I do think everyone above in the comments have really good advice and comfort, and while I don't have much advice because I'm currently in the same place, they helped a little.
Best of luck, I really think you'll make it out okay and you'll be happy with what you decide <3
I would recommend becoming trainer certified, get a job in that area, then pursue courses in art.
There is no reason that you can't do both, in the future, just don't recommend trying to do both at one time.
PTs generally have fairly easy work schedules, which should allow both the time and money for the art courses.
Just my $0.10 worth (inflation ya know..).
I'm an artist and a personal trainer. I went through the same exact thing you are going through and I see the same thing with you.
I love drawing this genre, no matter how many times I hang up the tablet and say I don't want to do it anymore. I always come back to it. Art/Music are the kind of mediums that really show you your passion for them. That no matter how many times you say you've had enough, there will always come a day when you just sit back and go, "I'm bored, maybe I'll draw something for old times sake."
As for the school side of things.
For me, I was treating school and art as two jobs. My mindset was overloading myself, thinking I had to go to school, then as soon as I got home, pick up the stylus and get to work.
That is what made me feel burned out. That there is this feeling that you're losing control of both.
This is that mental toughness you need to show your clients as a personal trainer. They are going to have those same doubts. Push through this, not because you want to, but that you have to. If you want to do something, you feel it's okay to quit. When you need to do something, quitting is not an option.
If everyone felt they needed to lose weight and have a healthier lifestyle, there wouldn't be a need for personal trainers. You're doing more than just giving them exercises and nutrition plans. You're there to be their mental toughness when they start to doubt.
My advise to you, get it done. Simple as that, I know it's tough, but six months ago you knew you needed to do this. Nothing has changed. You need to get back in the mindset that made you take this plunge to begin with.
You love both things and want to succeed and have great ambition for both of these things that drive you. However both of these fields require a lot of your time and energy, and it might be impossible at this time to develop BOTH your passions in EQUAL amounts.
I think this is a good time to decide which of these two things you wish to prioritize AT THIS MOMENT (because situations change and what work for you today may not tomorrow, etc). Which of these two things will grant you more satisfaction or more job security, more creative development or more opportunities, etc. Which one of these two things do you really want to spend more time and effort on.
This is why it is ultimately your choice. I study veterinary medicine, and I am only a few exams away from becoming a doctor, this has meant however that I leave art in the back burner or risk over working myself and burn out on both ends. To me at this time becoming a doctor and achieving a degree is more important than my creative development and that's why I've decided to take this approach.
You put both the things you love in the balance and figure out what is best for you and your wellbeing as well as your future career paths. It's not an easy decision to make and I wish you the best of luck!
Second of all... Moderation.
What's happening is you're burning yourself out over what you want to do because you go all-out with one thing or the other and leave yourself no energy to do the other. Why choose? Take the middle road. Do what you need to succeed--get good grades, and whatnot-- and then set aside time for yourself to draw a bit. Moderate yourself a little. It's easy to let your passion and determination carry you away.
The challenge for you is pacing. It can be just as difficult to restrain yourself as it is to push yourself forward. If it's possible, specifically schedule some time for yourself to relax and watch tv and just laze about a little bit. Do the same thing for drawing and for working out. If you find yourself too burnt out to do one particular thing then spend all of your free time lazing about and resting, you're probably burnt out enough in general to need it.
That's all of the advice I can think of, and I hope it's of use to you. Take care of yourself, okay?
That doesn't mean stopping art... to the contrary, I think you should be taking up the studies you mentioned, you just have to place them in your own time.
Personally, I found that while I was working full time during the holiday season (for all intents and purposes) at my 'real' job I had far less time and energy for art but when I did actually work on stuff I was genuinely inspired and focused (and the lack of energy probably had more to do with the fact I was working 10 pm to 6 am anyway XD). I've started taking up weekly life drawing classes at this outfit nearby. It was frustrating at first but I've shifted strategies in my approach (dumping charcoal for using pens and putting my mostly unused Promarkers to work in playing with color :) ).
I've gotten burnt out over art before but it always comes back, and I don't know how much of it is due less to genunine art blocks and more due to personal emotional crap. Feeling dissatisfied and (frankly) envious of others art skills (in particular, regarding the expression of buried sensual feelings, no I will not lie) coupled with a strange ambition and the pleasure I get from learning new things and seeing them bear fruit... seems to be the big draws.
[dayyum I can never avoid run on sentences lol]
Welcome back buddy. I've definitely missed you and seeing your spectacular art. I'm really sorry that your passion for art burned out.
My younger cousin wanted to get into psychology but loved drawing, she spent a year at the university and then switched over to animation at the college here. She's only a little in but I can already see her art improving and her mood.
I am not sure how it works in the states but you could likely pursue your current studies and tweak it to include the arts AND still get your teaching degree. If you're aiming for something like highschool, it's good to have more than one skill so you can do more than one class (in some schools). One of my good friends has a major in dramatic arts and then a minor in history studies so she gets to teach things she loves. Talk to a school official and see what your options are!
Any job/hobby/passion can lead to burnout. You need to find balance and don't be discouraged if you're burnt out. You felt passionate about art once, you can feel it again, nobody ever said it was a one-time feeling.
Personally what brings back the spark is surrounding myself in people as passionate about the subject as I'd like to be. I find it inspires me to strive for what I'd like be back at.
For you, though, since youre already in school, maybe stay the course a bit and just take on an art commission or two every once in a while or try a big project you can throw yourself into in spare time?
You could always finsih your health stuff and then go into school for teaching art and such. Wouldnt hurt. Youre never too old to go to school for anything youd like and humans live a good while so a few years for all that wouldnt be too bad. =]