Expectations.Cause I've been having those notions time and time again. I saw a stamp once that said "Art is 1% talent and 99% HARD WORK!" and I think it speaks true.
I put effort in what I do, because it's what I'm capable of producing when I really work hard for it to look right, but after a while, I just feel so tired of working so hard on something, only to feel like no one even notices.
Many people tell me that I draw fine, that my work is interesting to them, unique, even the scraps, no matter how scribbly they are, but I sometimes find myself douybting those words, and I don't know why.
I love art. It helps me vent ideas and thoughts, try expressions and whatnot, even though I only post about one ounce of the junk I actually draw. I only post the stuff I feel is refined and clear enough to display what I want to share, even if I later feel it really wasn't that good, I share because I have SOMETHING I WANT to share. A thought, an idea, a plotline, or just something I thought was nice or pretty, or something worth making someone smile.
I'm not exactly a talkative type, and I always take forveer to figure out what I want to say. Right now, I'm just typing whatever cause it's really churning something inside of me, and I'm not quite sure how to describe it...
I'm frustrated. Partly at myself and partly cause I feel no matter how much effor I put into my work, it'll never be noticed for more than its 'value date', which lasts maybe the first two or three days since it is posted. After that, people never look at it again.
I really wish people had the ability to tell the difference between "add to favorite" and "collecting" ... they're NOT the same thing! But this a whole different topic altogether so I'm just gonna skip this...
Some artwork is like wine; the older it gets the, oddly, more attention it garnishes, while new work is overlooked. Others are quite the opposite though I have nothing to set an example about to describe it...
Sometimes I just feel like I want to quit, but then I tell myself that's its stupid. Just cause there are others out there who draw 'junk' that surpasses anything I could EVER come to DREAM of achieving, doesn't mean I should just quit!
... okay, I have the right to mope and feel depressed over it for a few days, go emo if I'm pushing it, but that really wont improve MY abilities better, it'll either push me off a cliff to quit drawing, or just try harder to try, TRY, to be something close to that talent.
I love drawing, I've been drawing as far as I remember, as far as the mmemory of being able to hold a pencil! I remember my first doodle of a swan; to my eyes, no more than a five year old at the time, it was a masterpiece at the level of Leonardo Da Vinci! Years later, all I saw was a scribble of an awkward looking duck... or... something that looked like a duck...
I smiled, cause I knew I had come a long way in my passion for art to manage to get my abilities to improve. Even though it takes me double the effort to make anything right, I try cause I WANT to get better, even if I know that a few years later, to my eyes, it'll probably suck in the end comparing it to how much better I'd hopefully had gotten.
Some have it in talent, they memorieze all the things they need when drawing to the point it becomes a second nature, something that works on automatic. To me, I know anatomy, but it takes me double the effort to make the figures look right. The more I practice posing and perspective the more awkward I feel them becoming.
Human, animal, anthro, bird, serphent, it doesn't matter what the thing is, some body structures follow the same rule: BALANCE! If I cant find the balance in the piece, then it will always look wrong to me.
Then comes consistancy. Lord knows I can NEVER draw the same shape or person twice and make them look identicle. I just never could figure out how people do that. It's almost as if every time I try to draw something, a carbon copy of the same person, from multiple angles, they always come out looking differently every time I draw them.
Then comes the colors; I love colors, but I cant trust myself with them half the time, cause mostly I don't even know if they MATCH. Most of the time I just put whatever and hope to get back to them later, but end up sticking to the whatever I already put cause then my brain already is working on matching the other colors to the whatever I already picked.
Then comes the core of this journal... improvment.
They say the first step is the hardest step, and a thousand miles road starts with one step... and here I am without my heavy-duty shoes.
While writing this, I keep fighting the urge to cry. I don't know if I'm frustrated or just ANGRY I've not improved as much as I HOPED I would in the past few years. I blame my hormones... it just keeps feeling like no matter how much hard work I put into improving, it's just never enough.
Throughout writing this, I really had the urge to just delete this and post it on my LJ, but barely many on LJ do artwork, or read my LJ anyway, so I'm not sure how much they'd relate.
I'm an artist and an aspiring author, my personal projects consists of an original novel and illustration of said novel, that I plan to have my work published one day. So how am I supposed to do that, if I don't feel like my own work is GOOD enough to be published?
Sometimes I wonder if I'm just lacking confidence, but I'm pretty sure that's not it... there is just so much more I want to be BETTER at, but it keeps feeling like I'd never ever get there... I know it's all in my head and I just need to believe, but it's just so HARD...
It's just so... frustrating...
Gloomy
Daily Needs
Chapter One: 
Optimism
Seasonal
Once you/I finish the trade, don't post yours before you tell me via Notes! More than once people finish theirs and post it before I get around starting mine, so gradually I feel like I owe them a trade I'm unable to START, hence the question in the beginning of this journal. 
Winter Downs
