how does one rebuild a sense of creative imagination and discipline when it's been suppressed by self-loathing for most of your life?
when i was a kid, i was extremely imaginative and i drew and wrote stories and sang songs all the time. then at age 12, i got severely criticized online for some bad drawings i made, and it affected me so bad that i stopped making art altogether. now i'm 25 and i'm just starting to regain my ability to create things without shame, and my artist friends even say that my art is good, but i just can't help feeling the regret of all those years i lost.
these days i do a lot of figure drawings and still lifes and studies of artists i like, and i can see myself improving, but i feel completely useless to applying it. when i think of trying to draw my own characters, i can barely even imagine what i want them to look like, and all the shame just comes rushing back. it feels like there's this impenetrable wall around my imagination that i can't break through, and i can't remember what any of that joy and excitement and recklessness that i used to get from art felt like.
does anyone else here deal with this? how do you get through it? how do you find that kind of inspiration again and actualize it consistently without getting debilitated by the shame and doubt?
>>3mv6tyhqgrd2k
i've definitely struggled with this myself, and i often feel like my works are neutered usually to the point of non-existence by some internalized shame that doesn't even surface in my conscious mind. for a while i maintained an identity of 'not being a creative person', ie STEMming the hell out as my only form of personal expression, but recently i've been trying to pick up artistry again. i don't have any answers as im still a novice and still struggle with finding a unique voice, but i think routinely creating art and engaging with your creativity is rly the only way to expand and further it, as emr also said. i think even copying or attempting to copy the art of people you look up to can be useful to this end--in any case i would say it would be a mistake to worry about being derivative, as that is the case for all art ever made
wanting your art to be good is what made me stop making art for years, and sharing it for even longer. most of my irl friends are professional artists who are all really amazing compared to me and went to college for it and shit and i help them table at cons and shit to sell now and they're all just ... so burnt out in comparison ......... they don't seem like they enjoy it at all...... it just sells well...having fun Making anything regardless of quality, just enjoying the process of creating, and talking to other people who enjoy the Process of creating (regardless of quality) is the thing that changed me back to wanting to make art again. a very 'good' art piece that doesn't convey anything might get notes online but leaves me feeling unfulfilled, pointless, unhappy. art as a tool of social expression makes me feel like the quality of the work doesn't matter at all. is there an easy way for you to work together with your artist friends (who already like your stuff) to draw for fun without the end result being the point, so that the creativity becomes a byproduct? challenges you can make up and play with each other creating? we make and decorate really godawful ugly cookies together sometimes. i go to cafe's in small groups to task people to make terrible poetry in 2 minutes and then read it out loud. we had a halloween gingerbread house decorating contest last year and someone put a AAA battery on the roof and i put slenderman on the back and then someone else set it on fire. is that art, maybe not, but it was creative! i can spend 30 hours trying to make one image look amazing and it never feels as fun as that. art is a never-ending process that will make you feel lousy as soon as you view it as a static representation of yourself and your potential, i think. you're not finished Making or Being a person ever, so there is no one narrative of your life that you missed out on by not drawing for years. i hope you can refind that joy and excitement and recklessness.
I lived with an abusive partner for a long time who used to ridicule what I made, and I found a roleplay community where I started floating some of my more unhinged ideas half out of spite and half to kind of hoist a flag and see what sort of response I'd get: if someone tolerates a real freak design at a tabletop / roleplay setting, you know that you have the capacity to be a little vulnerable and sincere about the kind of fantasies you want to experience.
I struck out a few times, but then a place was like, "We'd like you to never leave and to keep making weird freaks. We'd like to consult you if we ever need a freak. We'd like to consult you for any NPC that is supposed to be compelling, provided you're comfortable designing a character with limited context."
Knowing that I could produce slime, but in a positive capacity, was really good for me. I started penning-out ideas and then I started drawing those ideas to help convey them, and then I was just kind of like, making stuff.
I think finding a decent community where you feel 'heard' is good, permitting yourself to sometimes be inspired and a little derivative is also good (there's a weird push to demonize taking inspiration from something as trite, and I feel like that is unfair...) and y'know.
Be a little greedy with it.
The creative process should be a little self-indulgent!
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