Jul 2019
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Jul 2019
Jul 2019
akitsukino
Jul '19

You know how you hear about those marriages that eventually turn? In the beginning everything is great and you want to be near each other all the time, but by the third year you're arguing over unloading the dishwasher. And then by the tenth year you're throwing plates at each other?

I sometimes feel like that's how my artistic development has gone. In the beginnign I was so happy to be learning and drawing everything I could think of. Then later I was throwing sketchbooks across and nearly crying when I wasn't drawing how I felt like I should be. Now, drawing isn't something I want to give up, but it isn't something I want to spend too much time on. That's why I took a break from it. I sometimes wonder if I like the idea of being an artist more than the actual work of it. Or maybe I just like having drawn pretty pictures, more than I like actually drawing them.

That's another marriage/ relationship thing I see. You don't hate each other, but you don't feel as passionate as you did in the beginning. You don't want to leave each other, but staying together doesn't really feel fulfilling anymore. I always hear that the solution here is to just work harder.

I don't really have anything to compare it to, but for some of you, what do you think? How is art like a romantic relationship?

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    Jul '19

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Vortex
Jul '19

My parents divorce seemed more like a bitter joke than art. I'd say art is an experience that I can't get enough of. I don't wanna love it. I wanna harmonize with it.

elyss
Jul '19

Art is like a relationship in that you're constantly communicating to better things... I guess. I've never seen the connection personally. To me, art is more like a friend. You hang out as much as you can tolerate each other and sometimes you don't hang out as much as you would like because of work/class/stress.

kimketli
Jul '19

What a good thought. :smiley:
But I say doing art is more like making and maintaining relationships, not just one, but all of them. :> If you're together with someone for too long as a couple or just friends without any other connection, it'll probably not the same after a while. Sometimes you feel you like hanging out with one specific friend more then the others, sometimes you don't feel the power hanging with him/her at all.
So yeah, love for drawing can be periodic and changing. Like a phoenix' life.

I would say try new things, things you didn't really did before, maybe because you were afraid of it or just didn't have enough experience or I don't know why. :smiley:

DokiDokiTsuna
Jul '19

...Wow, I felt this in my soul. XD

Yeah, a lot of the time I think I would rather be a writer FOR a comic artist than to do what I currently do. I like having ideas, but the work it takes to bring them to life can really wear you down after a while...a lot of the comics I have that are 'on hiatus' are actually just being worked on little by little: I draw one panel, or maybe just a sketch, and then I shove it back in its folder because I can't stand to do any more. The thrill is gone...

I don't know what to do to fix our relationship; I wish I knew...my current method for trying to get the spark back is to go down memory lane; look at our wedding and honeymoon photos (the pages I've already done) and maybe even some early love letters (outlines, scripts)...anything that'll make me smile and remind me of why we 'got married' in the first place.

Unfortunately, by the time I finish doing that there often isn't any time left for actual work...then I go to sleep and by the next morning I'm back in the doldrums...^^;

AmazementComicsThe Best Fruit Smoothies
Jul '19

:unamused::smirk: okay, this is a rather interesting analogy but i'll do my best to relate. My drawings and I first "met" in kindergarten. From that point on, we became really close friends because we always wanted to see how much we both could change as years would go on. Then, you could say, in a way, we became an official "item" when we decided to commit ourselves to a decade-long love story that we didn't share to the public until 2 years ago (which means 8 years to fully develop our relationship).

Now keep in mind, there IS no such thing as a relationship without its issues. There were days, weeks, and months where I just didn't feel motivated to continue on this journey with drawing, especially when times were tough, but then I reminisce back to our early glory days and build courage to keep motivated. Even though this decade of our lives officially ends this year, me and drawing still have a spark for each other that hasn't vanished and eager as to what the future has planned for us.

What am I trying to say overall? It's okay to lose motivation sometimes because everybody does. How you express the passion towards your art is completely up to you, and if art is something you absolutely treasure then believe me, you will always find a route that leads back to spark that got you "attached" to it in the first place. Best of luck.

LT1986
Jul '19

Here's how I view art and romantic relationships when it pertains to continuing to make them work.

Don't spend too much time working on them. Have other hobbies to do to not suffer burnout. Have a plan to gradually try new things to improve.

beta1042
Jul '19

Art is like a romantic relationship because if you put time and effort into it, it will grow to become something truly beautiful. But sometimes there are off days where despite you putting in a lot of effort you still come home to socks on the floor and a dishwasher that was loaded wrong...

indagold
Jul '19
1

Art is like a romantic relationship in that you keep it locked in your basement and only tend to it once in a while even though you know its slowly decaying but you don't have anymore free time to work on it. You want to practice anatomy and do a lot with it but the years of free time have disappeared only leaving you to feed it scraps of toast and milk while it cries out knowing deep inside one of these days you have to set it f̯͕̮̞̗͇ͅr̙ee̸̲̞̰̘̖ͅ...

wait what was the question again?

jahillinbox
Jul '19

I think anything repetitive gets like that...like Squidward with canned bread, improv dance, clarinet quartet, repeat...

Jenny-Toons
Jul '19

You don't have to constantly create art to know that you love art. :blush:

There are moments where we don't have time to work on our art or we just aren't feeling it. But that doesn't mean we don't appreciate it. We can still watch movies, still look at our old art, still go to museums, listening to music, etc.

It's the same with a romantic relationship. You don't have to constantly be doing things together to know that you love each other. Sometimes, you both need space, and that's ok. You can still appreciate each other even if you're not actively doing something together.

unknown_user
Jul '19

Maybe if you feel that you don't really want to create art right now, you could use a break (if it's possible)?
As it was rightly observed:

After doing some things (like math) for years, I often started to feel that they bore me, and it looks natural. But I started to like them again after some break. There also were things, which I never returned to after a break, and it's ok, too. If you don't need it, you don't need it, that's what I think. Anyway, taking a break helped me to sort out my feelings and desires.
Don't know if it'll work this way in your situation, but you can try.