Getting to grips with the digital art as a hobby or even more can be a huge step for people to master and if, like me, you haven’t even mastered any real art form then it’s important to remember some things that will make the journey more rewarding.
Do you always think about drawing and making art but can’t ever quite produce the completed work in your mind’s eye before hand? Making it difficult to get started, or feeling that the idea you had in mind never really takes shape when you do? The answer, if you’re anything like me is a resounding ‘YES!’
Have you therefore been disappointed in yourself or felt like the work is not worth doing, that it is not valid, will have no value to anyone, that you have no value to anyone as an artist? Any multitude of voices can enter at this point and sabotage what it was that made you want to do what you were doing in the first place.
This is when we need to perhaps reframe why we are doing art or the creatively challenging task and find new ideas about the rewards we want to receive in doing so.
Time Spent here is always beneficial, and NEVER WASTED.
When you put yourself in front of the tools of your medium you are entering back into reality. And away from the thoughts, people, and general noise of the mind. Here there is a new beginning each time you set foot and face the task you hope to achieve. Well done! You have got this far and it’s the most important step in making something today. Enjoy the moment, and notice how something might have changed in you now you’ve locked your senses to focus now. There will be a frequency shift at some point. That is a positive thing for you, even if you haven’t felt it yet, maybe because you’ve been highly reactive and absorbed in something else, some distraction. It may come later if you’ve really been overloading your body brain with excessive conflicting material or have suffered some micro/macro trauma on your morning visit to buy a coffee for far too close to five pounds… Just writing this, and being drawn away again for 10 minutes to respond to an email and subsequent distraction, I look at the paragraph I was writing for close to a minute probably before something clicks and I remember the train of thought I had and can continue. This is the delay that happens with a visual stimulus and the required neurons firing and it’s not as quick as you may think… (So, fellow ADHD’ers, don’t believe negative assumptions that you’re slow or stupid, because our brains are working even harder to process changes in stimuli that we were exposed to before, making something with real passion however will be easier if you limit the range of potential distractions to zero, or allow certain other stimulus that is controlled and complements the work you are trying to do, i.e. listen to a CD or fixed playlist that is not going to erupt in adverts and random artists you don’t expect). Each time you settle back into focus is like turning up to the gym and doing another set of weights. Another repetition, another shift into the present, and chance to listen to your energy to create and learn from the action of doing it. The key thing to know is- This is the result of your art that you really want…
To be your art…
Now if your art or creative discipline is something performative, like dance or sport, or music. Then we practice that in the form of recital, repetition, recycling forms into their finest possible pattern to be communicated. The beauty of a painting is so much more if we know it’s story, who created it. Why it was created.
