Creative

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Beehaw's section for your art and original content, other miscellaneous creative works you've found, and discussion of the creative arts and how they happen generally. Covers everything from digital to physical; photography to painting; abstract to photorealistic; and everything in between.

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Do you ever feel like art "art" is not your thing? [Question/Rant I guess] (feddit.it)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I do, most of the time. I've always felt creative, I always have thousands of ideas and concepts for anything, be it a drawing, a song or a text of any kind, but regardless of what it is, anytime I sit down and try to make something I hate it, I hate it so deeply it disgusts me and kills any will to continue whatever it is I'm doing.

I tried to write some lyrics some days ago, it felt okay-ish until I wnt back and read it, at which point it feelt as if I was seeing someone else in the mirror: all the things, the ideas, the feelings I thought I put in it just aren't there. It feels hollow, alien, repulsive.

I know I can't be good as a beginner, but I've been a beginner in everything since I was a kid. And I kept trying and trying and trying, and every time I felt that feeling of disgust and repulsion, outrage even. I just can't stand it anymore, and maybe "art", or rather artistic self-expression, isn't my thing? Maybe I keep trying to open a door that simply isn't the one I'm supposed to open?

Did you ever feel this way and overcame it? I don't even care about making whatever I make public, I just want to feel as if I gave shape to something I thought or felt.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

Using drawing as an example, because that's what I'm used to:

The problem (or good thing) with art is that it's definitely a matter of mindset that lets you improve. See, everyone is a beginner at art!

There's no such thing as an artist that doesn't need to practice. Every artist has to practice gestures, figure drawings, environmental drawings, all those fundamentals that pop up in beginner courses. Eventually, they start to learn shortcuts. They start to memorize specific ways of drawing the torso bent a certain way that pops up in their art a lot. These shortcuts speed up their art, makes it seem like they're a master, but...

They're still beginners. They're skilled, but they're still in the beginning of their journey, because art is a life-long journey. It's something you constantly improve at, constantly decline, constantly go on a roller coaster of failures after failures and success after success.

A beginning itself isn't a failure. Actually, the majority of failed art isn't a failure, because hey---your observation skills are good enough that you know whats wrong in your mind, you just have to figure out the way to get there and improve.

Some people are good at the artist mindset, and some people aren't. It's not a matter of talent, beginners vs pros, so forth. It's just a matter of how you think of self-improvement and how you cope with things.