Happy New Year everyone! I hope you are all well. I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about some goals I have for 2022. Not only to keep myself responsible and see how I've grown but also to try out this new format over here on Buy Me a Coffee.
The first goal I really want to dive into this year is to branch out and allow myself to grow as an artist online, so far I've been focusing almost exclusively on Instagram but I don't want to be forced into a corner with what I make just to try and please some ever changing computer algorithm. I want to explore other platforms and focus on content that I want to create. I've realized that while art is a huge hobby and passion of mine I've gotten to the point where what I post online feels, not inauthentic per say, because I do enjoy making what I've been posting and I'm often proud of the finished result, but I do feel as though my work isn't as personal as I would like it to be.
I want to draw more of my own characters, talk about my stories, draw fanart of media I enjoy. I want to share mistakes I've made and lessons I've learned and messy sketches that might not ever become something more. I want to share my experience with art without worrying about if it's aesthetic enough for a single platform.
I've also realized thanks to a Tiktok video by @briannaaugusteart that in order to grow online and as an artist in general I need to take the steps that would make room for that growth. She says "If you want to grow, you gotta get bigger," and there are things I want to do artistically that I haven't done because I thought I wasn't good enough yet, that I had to be "better" at art and have more followers before jumping into things like Buy Me a Coffee where people could support me financially or give tips or tutorials on Tiktok, or live stream on Twitch, or work on the graphic novel I've been wanting to make for about 4 years, or anything else other than drawing things I thought people on Instagram would like.
In terms of goals specifically about making art I have a bit of a list in no particular order:
1.) Do more traditional art such as painting (watercolor, gouache, acrylic), mixed media/collage, colored pencils, etc.
2.) Practice fundamentals such as anatomy, foreshortening/perspective, composition, etc.
3.) More backgrounds, landscapes, characters interacting with objects, etc.
4.) Experiment with short comics, and other forms of storytelling art
5.) Experiment more with 3D modeling
Frankly I want to just make as many kinds of art that I can, I want to experiment and practice with all of the things I've neglected because I thought I had to focus on making things that were "good" instead of making things for the sake of learning or for the sake of my own personal enjoyment. I want to make things that are bad, that are incomplete or that I'm not proud of. I want to allow myself to learn and make mistakes and post about things because I learned from them instead of posting things because I think they're good enough for other people to like them.
I want to branch out and be as authentic as I can with my experience with art and decide from there what to post instead of deciding how I experience art based on what I think is suitable to be posted.
Currently all of the above is easier said than done given the fact that both of my hands are injured and I'm physically incapable of things such as holding a pencil or taking the cap off of some paint but hopefully having this written down will help me stay motivated and keep track of my accomplishments later in the year once I am healed enough to work on them.
So here I am taking that plunge, giving myself permission to grow and learn and make mistakes and hopefully by this time next year or even in 6 months I'll be able to look back and see how far I've come.
Stay creative and stay curious my friends lets see where this year takes us.
~ Eliorea