Tag: digital art

Scribbling

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I don’t feel good right now. Like, I am being my own obstacle to my own life. It sounds stupid, because it probably is. My therapist thinks that I may have ADHD, but do you think I can get an assessment? Of course not. Working full time and studying at the same time means that I don’t have it. Silly me. I just think it would help me understand why I struggle so much to simply put one food in front of the other. And why, I’ll go help other people, but not do anything to help myself.

Anyways, in an attempt to get my life on to some kind of track, I have been looking at my hobbies again. I’ve done really well with reading, and have actually read quite a lot this year. Like over 30 books already, which is a vast improvement over the last few years. So, I decided to do some drawing. Art used to be a big part of my life, where I would be drawing all the time. Over the years I kind of lost motivation and inspiration.

I think what happened was that I stopped believing in myself. Which sounds silly when it is just a doodle. But, I felt like everything I had learnt about art in school and in college, had been forgotten. So, I would overthink things and end up not doing anything.

So yesterday, I was feeling crap, but had been seeing a lot of art videos on TikTok, and it made me want to try and draw a random character. 10-15 minutes, just a doodle, but no pressure. But I did do something.

Basic doodle of a cat. Yes… it’s supposed to be a cat.

Whilst it looks like an alien, I still felt good that I did something. I just got lost in what I was doings which felt so good. Like… not feeling stuck in my head. So today, I was looking for ideas… and I found some videos of various people drawing flowers. So I made some flowers up.

A digital painted pink flower.

I spent a bit longer on this than the cat. Not that you can tell. It looks a bit random, especially the petals. But, it does look like a flower, and it got me getting used to the tools on procreate again. Even if the shading is all over the shot. It’s been the one thing that made me feel better today. Because it really has been a disaster of a day. But it is 11pm, so I survived. Wooooo!!!

Lost Hobby

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I have spoken on here recently, about how I have been struggling with focus. Of how I find my thoughts wondering off when I try to do something.

One of the things that has been really effected by this, is my art.

Since I was little, I used to draw all the time. It was my favourite thing to do, apart from reading. I would be reading and drawing my weekends and holidays away. But, since my mental health started morphing from just depression, to include anxiety, I found myself finding it harder and harder to draw. I stopped keeping sketch books, and materials just sat unused.

I got an iPad last year, and decided to buy an Apple Pencil to use it. To try and get back into doing things. It has gone unused. Because I didn’t like anything I made. I felt like any skill, I once held, was gone. I began to feel unhappy every time I picked up a pencil. Everything I made was a mess, it was a waste of time. I felt betrayed, that that one thing I thought I was good at, I was rubbish. With a clear mind, I realise that any skill has to be refreshed, you need to keep at it, to keep your skills up to par. If you don’t practice, the quality can slip. But my anxious mind tells me it’s because I fail at everything.

I tried to draw myself.

So today, I came to a decision. That I was going to try and draw one thing every day. I started with a drawing that I did on my ipad. Whilst it doesn’t seem very good to me, it’s a start. It’s something to build on. Start getting my confidence back. The good thing is, that I was pretty happy whilst I was drawing away. I have tried to hold on to that feeling, rather than focus on my disappointment at the end result.

One step at a time.