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Where am I?
5 years ago
General
Hello everyone, this is Matty. I wanted to make this journal because I felt you guys deserved to know what exactly is going on lately, especially since I’ve been absent for so long.
So for those unaware I decided to take some time off from drawing and social media back in July, and the reasons for that I stated in a journal I uploaded at the time on my deviantART account. However upon reflection I feel that these reasons aren’t exactly true. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the journal is dripping in my frustration and anxiety that I was feeling at the time. I blamed a lot of issues I was having on deviantART’s change to Eclipse and acknowledged a significant drop in watcher engagement. And although I do still hate Eclipse, everything else is purely a “me” problem.
I don’t know when it happened, but at some point I changed from “I’m drawing this because I like it and if others like it that’s a bonus” to “I’m drawing this because I hope other people will like it, and if not I'm doing something wrong”.
And that’s a huge problem.
Especially to me.
Because that's not what art and drawing is to me.
It never was.
After the first month off I felt far more relaxed, being able to do fun things like play video games or being able to focus on my job without feeling any stress around art or drawing. I didn't have to worry about WHY I was feeling this way or what not. But then something amazing happened; I wanted to start drawing again.
It wasn’t anything amazing, but that was the whole point. Just small scribbles or sketches of things I had ideas for at that moment, but sometimes I polished them up a bit with ink and shading. I did a LOT of these kinds of drawings at work during some down time, it was happening so often I even bought a small book for it. Everyday at work during the evenings or afternoons I’ve been adding things in this book. I've also got myself a nice art journal for a birthday present that I plan to use more often too.
There’s some themes I’ve been noticing when I’ve been drawing just for me. I tend to draw a lot of humans, feral animals and dragons. This may be irrelevant to most but to anyone who knew what I used to draw as a child, and it’s still available in the depths of my DA gallery. What I used to draw the most were; humans, feral animals, and dragons.
I guess things never really change eh?
So what’s the point Matty? Why bring all this up and waffle on for this long?
Well I’ve made a few decisions that I wanted to let you guys know about.
> First off I don’t want to be on hiatus from social media forever. I’d like to be able to come back and talk to people or reply to messages within a more timely manner. I still enjoy talking to everyone! And I know I have a couple of friends that get worried about me if I’m gone for too long.
> Secondly, and I’ve said this before, drawing is my hobby. So I only want to draw things that interest me at my own pace. Therefore commissions will be cancelled forever. Things like art trades and YCH’s may exist in the future but still very uncertain. I only want to focus on what interests me right now to rekindle the spark.
> Thirdly, if I decide on ever posting art again I think I may create a new account and re-brand myself. It feels very strange for me to post on an account with 3000+ watchers but get next to no engagement (I assume a lot of them are dead/inactive watchers), but anyways I've considered changing my name for a while now. I'd keep the "MATic" part cause that's become like a name to me now, but some may have noticed in my paypal email, it's not "designs".
That's all I have for now! I'll be making myself less scarce on social media since I really do miss talking to my friends. I feel terrible for making people feel worried about me. I'm not worth the stress hah.
Thank you to everyone for supporting me during this time, your love and kindness does not go unnoticed ♥
So for those unaware I decided to take some time off from drawing and social media back in July, and the reasons for that I stated in a journal I uploaded at the time on my deviantART account. However upon reflection I feel that these reasons aren’t exactly true. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the journal is dripping in my frustration and anxiety that I was feeling at the time. I blamed a lot of issues I was having on deviantART’s change to Eclipse and acknowledged a significant drop in watcher engagement. And although I do still hate Eclipse, everything else is purely a “me” problem.
I don’t know when it happened, but at some point I changed from “I’m drawing this because I like it and if others like it that’s a bonus” to “I’m drawing this because I hope other people will like it, and if not I'm doing something wrong”.
And that’s a huge problem.
Especially to me.
Because that's not what art and drawing is to me.
It never was.
After the first month off I felt far more relaxed, being able to do fun things like play video games or being able to focus on my job without feeling any stress around art or drawing. I didn't have to worry about WHY I was feeling this way or what not. But then something amazing happened; I wanted to start drawing again.
It wasn’t anything amazing, but that was the whole point. Just small scribbles or sketches of things I had ideas for at that moment, but sometimes I polished them up a bit with ink and shading. I did a LOT of these kinds of drawings at work during some down time, it was happening so often I even bought a small book for it. Everyday at work during the evenings or afternoons I’ve been adding things in this book. I've also got myself a nice art journal for a birthday present that I plan to use more often too.
There’s some themes I’ve been noticing when I’ve been drawing just for me. I tend to draw a lot of humans, feral animals and dragons. This may be irrelevant to most but to anyone who knew what I used to draw as a child, and it’s still available in the depths of my DA gallery. What I used to draw the most were; humans, feral animals, and dragons.
I guess things never really change eh?
So what’s the point Matty? Why bring all this up and waffle on for this long?
Well I’ve made a few decisions that I wanted to let you guys know about.
> First off I don’t want to be on hiatus from social media forever. I’d like to be able to come back and talk to people or reply to messages within a more timely manner. I still enjoy talking to everyone! And I know I have a couple of friends that get worried about me if I’m gone for too long.
> Secondly, and I’ve said this before, drawing is my hobby. So I only want to draw things that interest me at my own pace. Therefore commissions will be cancelled forever. Things like art trades and YCH’s may exist in the future but still very uncertain. I only want to focus on what interests me right now to rekindle the spark.
> Thirdly, if I decide on ever posting art again I think I may create a new account and re-brand myself. It feels very strange for me to post on an account with 3000+ watchers but get next to no engagement (I assume a lot of them are dead/inactive watchers), but anyways I've considered changing my name for a while now. I'd keep the "MATic" part cause that's become like a name to me now, but some may have noticed in my paypal email, it's not "designs".
That's all I have for now! I'll be making myself less scarce on social media since I really do miss talking to my friends. I feel terrible for making people feel worried about me. I'm not worth the stress hah.
Thank you to everyone for supporting me during this time, your love and kindness does not go unnoticed ♥
I hope I may feel well enough in the future to do work for you again cause I always enjoyed drawing your characters