fear and struggles

"if you're making mistakes, it means you're out there doing something" -Neil Gaiman

getting inactive again lately because besides work and my current addiction of playing , I've been spending my free time with alot of traditional sketches and scribbles! and when I don't draw anything I do ponder..ALOT. forgive me if this seems long and disjointed.

I pretty much read nicholaskole's journal about art fear a while back and I realized I've gotten too used to the digital medium, which my self-confidence and skill in drawing using pencil reach down to zero. Digital has become my comfort zone, anything I produced was not in par as my digital works so I just stopped trying at all. I definitely don't think there's anything wrong with keeping something you're used to, but at times when I feel like I don't feel as challenged as before it comes to the point where suddenly it demotivates me to draw.

Always put off trying again, my papers and paint were gathering dust and ants.. thinking of using them would just be wasting my resources, so one day I just tried to replicate some watercolor artworks and after doing alot of wobbly gestures and abstractness just for the heck of it, I said to myself "hey maybe it's not so bad." the fear is still there of course, but definitely not as scared as I was before I tried. I don't feel bad using up my blank sketchbooks or slightly used colored pencils anymore,because not using is actually wasting them.

Besides my struggle with the medium, I clearly see where my comfort zone lies concept-wise, I stopped challenging myself to do other characters and ideas, I did promise myself to expand my variety of work in my new years resolution and I'll see to it that I do. It's never too late to do resolutions!

It's a never-ending struggle to strive better. And getting better means going out of your comfort zone and taking the first baby step, that is always the hardest part for me. I'm sure I'll trip down on my first steps, but I don't think I'll fall down in some bottomless abyss to the point of no return. Probably in the first few or hundred steps, I'll fail miserably, things are going look awkward and abstract. Maybe I'll cry back to my comfort bubble once in a while, that's okay. I'll learn where not to step and trip the next time I try. At least the guilt of not trying wouldn't be as bad as before.

What I think is beautiful about art in general is, there so many mediums, it's so diverse, but stripping all of it's technicalities and techniques, all of them follow the same fundamentals, everything is so related. so it's really not going back to square one when try something new. You are already equipped with some certain knowledge, and taming the medium to do your whim and understanding it by constant repetition. There's isn't really an endpoint to all of this. it's not some linear road we travel where we only stick to one thing (one style,theme or medium), there's no ultimate finish line. there's so much fork roads, dead ends, dirt paths, side roads to travel and explore.

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