Edit 12/12/2017: Wow the amount of comments surprises me. Thank you so much for the support. As much as people care about me, I care about those around me. There is still warmth in this community. I am slowly going through the comments in chronological order. I read quite interesting comments.
I may a bit slow with writing, because try to be thoughtful in my replies. This journal consists thought that bottled up for a long time, but at the moment I feel better and stable enough to talk about it.
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It has been a while I posted something on dA. Actually I have been slowly getting inactive on all my social media accounts. I kept these feelings bottled up for years, but it has been getting worse. The bomb dropped around June, since then I slowly tried to crawl up. Right now I just want to write down everything I held back, I thought it is an unprofessional thing to do, but I have nothing to lose right now. I'm not seeking for pity or encouragement, I just want to express myself.
For a long time I tried to impress people with hard work, but it was never enough. I thought everything I did was for myself, but a single flaw brought fears that I could not show to other people. Why would I show something just to criticize? Knowing that perfection is impossible, I could only look down. I limited myself, blocked my creativity, but still continued with no question. I seek for critique, because it's a chance to grow and perceive from different perspectives. At the same time, I don't want any and do whatever I want. I'm torn between decisions and don't know my priorities, which results in doing everything on average level.
Back to something less abstract- Speaking of dA community aside from my watchers and people I follow, I'm really disappointed. If you read this and don't feel addressed, this is not about you.
The event back in June totally cracked me
. People criticized me because of their own perception and opinion, without a single regard of mine. I've been through a lot, but
it really made me feel like to leave this site. Oh well, when communities get too large, it will get toxic. Especially around the time things were tough in real life. My grandfather passed away on my birthday last year. I had difficulties viewing the same date again.
I have tried experimenting a lot with styles and concepts, but every time I get the same feedback from my professors.
"You only make beautiful things. Why don't you draw ugly for once?"
- I don't consider my work 'beautiful', as I only pay attention to flaws. What I consider "beauty" is totally different than what I create. I just create to express myself and what is comfortable to work with. Beauty and ugly are relative and subjective terms. If I were to create something ugly, it is the same concept as creating something beautiful.
"You experiment barely."
"You only stay in your comfort-zone."
"Your improvement is slow."
- I've been drawing non-stop since I realized digital art is fun. I've strained both arms, neck and back due drawing too much. I have been skipped training and sacrificed competitive sport to work on art. I thought things were going well and I slowly got more satisfied with what I do. I always try to come up with something different in every new illustration, whether composition, color or concept. In some way, I try to keep my style because that is the fun part. Out of curiosity, I tried experiment and do things totally out of my zone, but still it wasn't enough. For
reasons, I keep a lot of my work behind curtains. I enjoy telling stories, and use that in my work. Guess what? I always fail Story-telling class.
I've had so many rejections that I deny praises. At my current point, I'm lost. It hasn't been a long time, but I forgot what fun is. Whatever I do is for the sake of growth and approve which I will never get. I lost fun in everything. I don't create personal works anymore. I stopped going to trainings and lost all my table tennis matches. I lost trust of people. I stopped trusting people. I was 24/7 stressed. Especially at sport it was like right in my face 'it was your own fault' - 'repeating the same mistake' - 'loser'. A team member started to put more pressure on me, it was nearly impossible to crawl up because I get stressed when upsetting people.
My teacher addressed me as a 'horse that doesn't want to jump', as I'm always standing in comfort, but he said after '-that horse would jump high when they do.' After all those experiences, I try to gather the few pieces left of myself. I sometimes read about artists who went through hardships that either stopped drawing or changed their style entirely. Who knows which path I take, as long as I keep my joy. I make my own decisions, I grow for my own sake and happiness is my own.