I struggle with a lot of self-doubt, which I’m sure every artist struggles with on different levels. It’s the kind of doubt that you don’t know enough, or you’re never good enough… that you’re not reaching the high standards you’ve set for yourself.
This self-doubt is the reason I began drawing less and less as a teenager, and as I lost the ability to draw without second-guessing everything I did, I felt like I lost an important part of myself. And so the self-doubt rose even further, and it made it more and more difficult to get back to where I wanted to be.
This has made creating something that I always feel needs to be forced - it’s never something that really comes naturally to me anymore (compared to my pre-teenage years). I tried so many times, but I’d always land back in the same spot - hardly ever drawing, and feeling terrible about it. I can’t help but compare myself to that period of time when I was completely happy with my drawing - not necessarily because my art was amazing, but because the act of it brought me joy.
I know that for my drawing to “come naturally” I need to be practising constantly. In the past there’s always been something that gets in the way at some point - being depressed, or having something more important on my plate like studies or work - but now that I have all my full time to focus on my own work, and I feel like I’m much better skilled at looking after my mental health, I can focus wholly on practicing again and I feel much more confident about turning this around.
It’s only been 2 weeks of the big career change I’m going through, and although the first week went so smoothly - I typed up a whole schedule of what I needed to do (lots of filming and various organisation and admin stuff) and managed to do everything on time - I’ve found that I’ve been struggling during this second week. And that’s mostly because majority of the tasks I’ve given myself this week have been drawing-focused, and drawing is the biggest struggle I’ve had for many years.
So my current focuses for this next week and onwards is to “re-find” myself artistically by practising as much as I can! This is the stage where quantity is much more important over quality - I must draw as much as I can and not be precious over my drawings.
I’ll bring you guys along as I work my hardest to try and become the artist I so want and need to be!
If you’d like to hear more about what I’ve talked about here, watch my vlog below :)