Not to be that person but didn't you just make a thread like this (or at least very similar to this) barely a day ago? It seems a bit redundant to be making a thread every time for this issue, instead of just continuing the conversation in previous threads.
Well, We're all a little unique and we each have our own struggles.
What makes us special is not what we're going through, but how we go through it.
Turning circumstance into opportunity.
I'm going through something similar right now. I'm in my final year of college, where the pressure's on to create the best demo reel and portfolio you're capable of. I'm in such a bad mood right now that I'm genuinely questioning if I should choose a different career and remain a hobbyist when it comes to art. I feel guilty for the lack of art and for the current lack of comic updates. I know one day I will once again love creating art, but I wish that day would hurry up and get here! D:
You are definitely not alone when it comes to feeling frustrated or even depressed about art. It happens to so many of us. Thankfully, there's often ways to overcome it, like taking a break, or getting back into a fandom you forgot how much you loved. I hope you start to feel better soon, as well as anyone else who might be feeling this way about their art.
I've been depressed while making art but I don't think it causes it or anything. It's frequently painful to make art, but its not the same kind of pain I would use to describe depression. It can be frustrating, but at least I'm acting on a desire. My current project often has me feeling sad and afraid and overwhelmed by the tragedy of life, but my depression has been slowly (like really slowly) easing up.
When this happens, it's your brain telling you to diversify! Like artblock, feeling depressed while drawing can indicate that you're stagnating or unhappy with what you're doing. The best way to break out of this is: stop pushing yourself to make something original. You're trying to pull water out of a dry well.
Instead:
Take it slow, and try new styles and new things. Approach things from new angles, and go back to your foundations and re-learn your basics, before you start trying to push yourself to create new and original things.
Not actually depressed, but when I started making my webcomic was also the time I started working on my own art style and testing waters. I remember how frustrating and painful it was for not reaching the same skill level as other artists. Also wondering how the heck those who draw bad anatomy and perspective got so big
The only way I got rid of this thought and also jealously of big artists was focusing on my own art and improvement by starting small, and gradually challenging myself to try other ways to draw a certain subject I've never tried before
I also keep myself busy to not care too much about views and likes, neither if I will get comission from someone who likes my art
But this may sound biased since I work as a freelance designer and also make a living from it, although it can also gets frustrating when the client wants something different from what I think it works 🤷
Yes, sometimes I think about how long I've been drawing and where my skill level is at and think about how it just isn't good enough. There are people out there drawing for less time, younger than me, less experienced, who are phenomenal.
In my case, art didn't cause my depression/anxiety. But art sure can be an outlet for depression/anxiety just because I'm thinking about it all the time. Consequently, art can seem like the cause even when it isn't.
It's like this:
1) unrelated RL event causes depression/anxiety.
2) brain wants to process it and be done with it, but doesn't know how.
3) at the same time, brain is dealing with art and comics all the time.
4) brain starts conflating art/comics and depression/anxiety because both are constantly influencing me.
5) Conflation leads to this thought: "art/comics are depressing me. I'm not good enough an artist, I'm not working hard enough, nothing is enough" when in truth it is "that unrelated RL event is depressing me."
6) ...which in turn leads to, I attempt to fix my depression/anxiety by making my work Good Enough. But this is futility. My work will never be good enough to cure my anxiety, no matter how skilled I get. In order to heal, I need therapy (even if it's self-therapy), I need support, I need clarity; I need to face the true cause of my stress, instead of its substitute. I need to STOP listening to the lie that my work not being good enough is the cause of all my misery.
I hope you don't mind me replying to this ... I felt very much the same way. The biggest thing that was holding me back from catching up to them is that I hadn't learned the fundamentals well enough and that I hadn't become familiar enough with photoshop and all that it CAN do like they were. Looking up tutorials on the fundamentals and photoshop for painting has helped me IMMENSELY come a long way faster than I ever had before and I highly recommend both. I'm not telling you what to do or anything like that, and I can only speak for what has helped me, but they were things I didn't know about when I was at a time like that in the past that I had wished someone had told me so I'm just trying to help, really ^^;
We seem to be mixing the reasons for the depression. One seems to be about...I don't know. People who suffer from depression who also do art. And in that case, I have no idea why we're talking about art at all. Depression is the problem, not the art part.
And people (or at least one post I remember clearly) is depressed about 'where they are' in relation to their art/career.
And maybe some problems with doing art for more than art's safe.
I also don't know if you want anyone to take these posts seriously or are we just venting and sharing and more...sharing.
So in the case of A) Depression is real and there's a sickness and then there's a 'life sucks when you're a (pre/post) teen' with little control over the, seemingly, most important aspects of your life. You need a life coach or someone who's been there and can explain how life changes as you get older and you have/had more control than you thought and the biggest problems are- worrying about the wrong things- and that includes people. Speaking to a professional - usually is a go-to.
B) When art mixes with business or profit concerns, it usually becomes a craft. That's when you need more technical skill and discipline than vision and motivation.
C) You can't fix the business side of art with more or better art. Success is not measured or achieved by the quality or quantity of your artistic endeavors. All most do is reverse engineer and look at the results and search for the reasons.
And fill in the gaps with speculation and opinions.
That's not how it works. When you compare (which is always a bad idea) - you need to compare more than what you can see. You don't know WHAT they did or for how long and with who.
Most successful people don't know and/or don't share that kind of info.
They do like to tell stories though.
None of which ever reveals the magic trick.
No, actually i just wanted to know everybody's experience but now i get it, so i won't talk about this anymore XD
You don't gotta go do the victim thing.
Feel free to post in your own thread. lol
Maybe I should have said
"In my experience..."
Cause that's what I shared and built most of my thoughts about this on.
Beyond "me" I've seen this before, in other art forms and among other artists.
I just think they are separate things.
Depression isn't the kind of thing that goes away if you pick the right hobby.
That said, for many artists, the arts are an escape from the world/reality.
You are setting up a circle with the whole premise of this thread.
Art is nothing you are forced to do. If doing art causes you any sort of .....problem...do something else.
If EVERYTHING is a problem, then art isn't the problem and it also might not be the answer you seek.
Ever felt a negative vibe while working on an art project or your comics?
Yes. For many reasons.
1. It felt like a waste of time and wasn't going to get me any of the thing$ I wanted for making it.
2. I felt like it was crappy and I wasn't good enough so I should stop.
3. I felt like a hack and was cheating since it had gotten so easy to create my 'style'..
4. It was a waste of time and I was missing out on real life while staying a loner, hunched over my drawing board.
5. It sounded silly to tell people 'that's what you want to do with my life"
6. Everyone else in my circle was doing better at other things and I was still in the same place with the arts.
7. I had no concrete plan on how to make a living, only dreams that seemed dumber every day that passed.
8. Art for craft (Commissions) and any other 'paid gig' was soul-crushing. It feels like slavery to do stuff you hate doing.
9. The stuff that I imagined would make for a successful career was all stuff I didn't respect. I'd hate myself for 'winning' in that way.
All those thoughts puts me in a 'depressed mood' or I found myself in a 'depressing situation'. It was bleak.
It required a major mind-shift and tons of reprogramming.
Mostly, it took looking at everything as a challenge.
There were a ton of steps, some easy some hard.
One step was....
Stop using the word HOPE and start asking myself HOW.
There's a huge thing after this...
But you get the idea.
Yes, I sometimes get depressed when the piece I'm working on doesn't end up the way I envisioned it. You draw and draw and feel the pressure mounting, and get mad and sad that you can't create the thing you see in your mind's eye. And after you've spent so much time on that shitty piece you can't just throw it away, so you just hatepost it.
I also agree with a couple of comments here on slow growth and other artists barreling past you. At least with me it takes a toll on my self-esteem and makes me love creating art a little less when you work hard on something and get nothing in return. I understand that it's a competetive business and all, but still... no subs and likes always make giving up seem all the more tempting.
Yeah there have been times where art has made me either depressed or even riddled with anxiety.
And just to be clear I do suffer from an anxiety disorder along with depression and I have to take medication for both.
Sometimes I will get depressed if my art isn't coming out how I wanted or if I am working on a scene in my own story that is a bit messed up and as for the anxiety it can usually be triggered by a piece that just overall has a lot going on.
Yeah, totally. To be honest I'm STILL working myself back into a groove after hardly doing art for a couple years. Art wasn't the cause of my depression, it was other life circumstances. But I felt too drained from those circumstances to make art, and whenever I tried drawing it looked like crap and I felt MORE depressed so I just... didn't. I still second guess myself all the time and sometimes it's still depressing, but in general it's a lot better these days. I have to be mindful not to take on more projects than I can handle though, because burnout of something you love is also really depressing.
of course.. depression is a symbol of soul, its just us who perceive it as bad. And same as laziness, it is not bad, u feel lazy when ur soul feels maximum comfortable and u can just enjoy your life. My kid, who is 16, is predisposed to always fall in depressions from just a single external factor, which is, in most of situations, non-relative to his own life. I know that he has to go through that alone, and go get out from that aswell. I started to shop kratom online, and started to make him kratom teas before school in the morning, and he seem to be in a better mood since I started doing that.
I sometimes struggle with the differences between "depression" and "frustration".
In my case I think is more about constant frustration because of the results I get.
I'm frustrated because my art is not good enough despite trying a lot or that I can't make money with art, or feels I may have wasted a lot of time on something that will never produce the results I want/need.
I went through a window this year where drawing made my feel bad, and sadly that window was directly after I posted my first webcomic (not related). Sometimes art just hits your different, and that's ok.
I have creative lows as a writer quite often. Most of my books had chapters when I felt like I am better off with any other hobby. That I am stupid and pathetic in continuing to persist in writing. That people just laugh at me.
Sometimes, it’s news of someone else’s success that triggers the depressive spell—there is almost always a moment when I have to step over my own self before I can be happy for someone else.
Sometimes it’s just part of working in a book that is niche, but i overall want to write it anyway. This happens more often than it should for a writer looking for acceptance.
Sometimes, it’s just not knowing what to do in order to write things that cannot be ignored.
