Little timelapse

I don’t know if I like these anymore but I tried :’)

Further exploration of Kinh!

Reflecting on my current art journey and questioning what I’m motivated by

In the past several months (or years) I’ve been anxious, stressed, gloomy, empty and aimless about my creative rut and going around in many mental and emotional circles. Plus I’m also trying to not think of potential/stressful/daunting life things of the future :’) I’m depressed about my own art in waves sometimes and nowadays it’s more that I’m still not sure what excites me.

Where and how can I thrive? What makes me inspired again? What do I want to do with my art?

I’ve been zoning out as I think about myself and my inner child. I only have myself to figure this out.

Thank you for indulging me as I write out my thoughts and meander my way to…something again. I don’t think I’ll have it all figured out anyway – who really does. It’s scary and overwhelming but eventually one has to face it and break things down every now and then for one obstacle or another. Committing to trying something. And lots of trial and error. Reflecting about this thing at this moment in time at least.

Also ignoring that feeling that I “should be” making this as a youtube video just to reach more people when I really just want to document this in writing the most. I really don’t like and am tired of having to package *everything* into something that can be easily consumed for the internet, in order to stay relevant – I already attempt to do that with my art on social media platforms and I don’t want to do the same with my own evolving feelings and thoughts, especially when making edited youtube videos is another timesink + time is finite and change is constant.

I want to focus on my art learning journey firstmost and not get carried away trying to be an art influencer and/or trying stay relevant by spreading myself too thin and compromising my personal boundaries. I doubt people will turn up but I do think about doing chill study/drawing streams without anything fancy one day in the distant future. I’m not in a good headspace and environment to do that right now ;P

Digressing. To articulate, remind and to clarify it out into words for myself: I don’t feel compelled to tell a story, to reach a huge dream or dream project, to design things, to become an art influencer, to work at big studios, create imaginary words, to become an industry great and so forth. Perhaps I’m just not ambitious and/or excited anymore. From experience, I get burned by the sun and become even more jaded and soulless if I keep flying into it, get too intense and hustling too much thanks to hyperfocus, burning myself out emotionally + mentally and failing to take care of myself.

At times I do feel lost and get swept away too much by silly metrics, what other artists are doing, art grind/challenge places, replacing/filling my inner creative void with the dreams/opinions/hopes/goals of others, trying to be an active social media person even though I naturally don’t have the energy to keep it up as much as the algorithm wants, wanting to increase followers and feeling like I have to be an art streamer in order to survive as an artist in spite of my lack of: social presence, expressive personality, charisma and energy.

Lots of this comes from my insecurities too. And my autistic brain gets overwhelmed often. Learning and figuring out my own needs and boundaries is a struggle and ongoing balancing act.

I don’t claim to know with certainty about what I am doing either. Here I am just rambling to myself.

Then what am I excited by? At the moment, it’s subject to evolve and in no particular order, I think it’s:

• the act of drawing appealing/cute and feminine human characters
  • me attempting to artistically appeal to myself and my inner critic forever because I’m just drawing until I like it enough
  • I don’t really tie myself down to one defined art style but I will have to keep exploring what appeals to me as always
• being able to express feelings/mood through the art
  • I want to feel/relate/express what the character is feeling/experiencing in that moment
• applying/learning the techniques and execution of a character moment/feeling through an illustration
  • being able to represent and stylise this
  • learning and playing with ink, marker and watercolour mediums as a bonus/hobby

This feels pretty all over the place and vague since I enjoy and value self expression of feelings and execution first, subject matter and then my personal aesthetics to support it. And what does this even look like?

So I’m not much of a designer but I’m more of a representational and artistic character driven illustrator? Hmm. Yeah I’m not confident with how I articulated that yet.

Now how will I test and explore this hypothesis further? Let’s find out in the coming time ahead as I get busy with different courses and try different things ;D I will also write it down on real paper as a reminder and to refocus myself.

I hope to keep experimenting and reflecting what feels true and authentic to me as I go along with this learning journey :’)

Not much of a tidy conclusion but this is another starting point! These things need time and testing to figure out :<

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