Ask Lemmy

Once I start I enjoy it but can procrastinate lots

My creative output is programming demos.

I do enjoy the process. Changing a bit of code and getting immediate visual feedback is a very enjoyable loop to be in until I've achieved what I set out to do. And those heureka-moments when you make giant leaps are just the cream on top.

It's 10 in the evening, and the kids are asleep. The house is organised for the chaos of the next morning. It's dark and quiet. I browse Flickr for inspiration, and when I find some, I pull out my oil pastels and spend the next hour in bliss, unaware of the passage of time. Just me and colours, their blending, smoothing, scraping what doesn't work, perhaps some texture with a palette knife, etching out details. Oil pastels are very forgiving, and they don't let you go into too much detail. They are perfect for people like me who didn't have too much art training, and who really enjoy the process of art creation. So, in short, I enjoy the process naturally, through a medium that allows me to do so.

(I've done my share of charcoal works, but there the final product is far more enjoyable than the tedious process. I prefer the process.)

I don't enjoy the physical activity of painting. I enjoy seeing a picture start to emerge from the marks im making and I enjoy having a finished painting that I know i made.

Right now Im participating in the 100 day challenge by making a small painting every day. Its day 58 and im keeping up with it. I post my results in the artshare community, and even though no one would probably notice if I stopped, it still feels like more accountability.

Eta: check out artprof.org. There's a discord and they offer one on one critiques. Dont know if it will meet your needs.

I do remember thinking, years ago, how weird it was that I drew all the time but actually didn't seem to enjoy the drawing process itself but just wanted the finished thing. Now I think that was because I'm also ADHD and there wasn't enough dopamine in my clumsy attempts but luckily just enough to keep me going. Not that I would call myself "good" now but I know what I'm doing a lot more than 10 years ago. So I guess when I start a picture now I know that it's likely going to be "worthwhile" and even if I don't finish it, I'll be learning something new.

Tangentially, that thing about wanting the finished product more than the process is something I recently heard from notorious AI image proponent Shadiversity. Which only convinced me more that people who like AI generated images are simply too weak to actually go through the pain and suffering AND has given me appreciation of my own efforts.

That's the only barrier. There really isn't any talent involved, it's persistence.

Because they enjoy drawing they do it often, and get a little better each time. I imagine some of them enjoy writing, but aren't quite as good because they don't do it as much.

I enjoy the process naturally, but it's not joy as in watching a movie or eating some dessert or sex.

It's enjoyment comparable to playing a game, but not quite either. It's challenging, you need to sharpen your skills, you can fuck up at any moment, you can fuck up and not even notice. You will, in fact. And that's just the hands on part, I'm not talking about the ideas or even the sharing and communicating. Which is also tied to it.

For me the most challenging part is overcoming inertia to get started. Finding that motivation when you are depressed is very hard. Once I do the rest unfolds on its own. Problem with motivation is that it's different for everyone and very elusive. For me, I need to either get paid, or have a practical reason to do the art (ie. Someone needs it for a specific reason or cause), or have an audience that engages with what I do. Feedback, back and forth. Healthy competition. Those things used to exist for me online a decade ago, but has been eroding ever since AI boomed, also platforms have been getting worse and worse, designed to curate a feed for you with little to no focus on the comments or community behind the work. Basically I thrive and find motivation in places where I can engage with my audience more personally and become others' audience in that way, where discovery is up to me and not an algorithm that automatically ranks things for you, where I can see people's reactions to my work as opposed to a number of views or likes.

I've been trying to find an online group of people to keep motivation up, something with tasks you are held accountable to similar to a class but with no accreditations or curriculum. So far I haven't been lucky. Things seem to be either courses or prompts given out at large on popular media platforms. Neither works for me. One lacks the peers or is too expensive, the other lacks the interpersonal aspect.

Anyway, end of rant, but imo your motivation for visual art shouldn't be too different from your motivation for writing, whatever that is. I don't write fiction because I know for a fact I have no interest (not consistently at least) in exploring a myriad narrative plots or characters backstories , or to polish my prose, or to figure out how to best keep interest while narrating something. These do occur to me from time to time but I'm not driven to exploit that vein. It's different with designs though, where I do. I look at different materials and I'm compelled to experiment with them at least once. The list goes on.

If shame or shyness is the only thing stopping you, remember, you don't need to publish anything you don't want to. Start, see how you feel, remember you can always revise work later on.

Multi-principled artist here who spent most of his time on digital art, early on when I also wanted to be a comic book artist/writer, I wanted to skip forward to the completed product. After a few years, I had to realize my main frustration was not with the process, but with a certain kind of elitist artist, who really wanted me to "discover the joy of oil-painting from life" rather than telling me how to do things. Besides being an artist, I'm also kind of a failed musician, as I had issues with having a bad sense of rhythm for the most part, and I noticed that many of my favorite musicians didn't have classical training in the same way I also did. I got angry, that a guitarist can be fine with knowing a few chords, but any kind of artist suddenly had to go through what it seemed to be a full course of everything.

Then as I realized I had to give up on my comic artist dreams due to getting a full-time job (I've sat on my story for almost 10 years with many really bad reworks anyways - might recycle some of the characters from it for games or such), I begun to fully embrace the process. I not only started to like the process of making something, but also somehow developed my skills way more than before. Sure, I'm still bottlenecked by the time I can spend on it, but it also kind of acts as a filter on me. Currently I'm learning Blender, both to make fucked up 3D hentai with it, and to get some kind of employment option on self-employment (at my age, not having 15+ years of portfolio with developing accounting software in a currently trending "nu-lang" is considered a "red flag" for employers).

I've been drawing ever since I can remember. There are parts of the process I enjoy and find satisfaction in, and other parts that can just be a chore. The feeling tends to vary with time as well. Some days I enjoy drawing/painting, and other days it feels like I'm only doing it because it's what's expected of me.

I've always enjoyed the process. But it wasn't really natural in my case. The only reason why I got to the point I am at today is because of envy in a way. Everytime I would see a beautiful painting or picture someone made, I would want to elicit that same feeling through my own art. So, that's what I would try to do. And, when a picture turns out well, I'm happy.

So, in a way, I forced myself to enjoy the process.

I'm various flavours of neurodivergent. for all my life I've struggled doing anything, even things I enjoy. So I had to fight myself really hard to get competent at drawing/ painting, and I managed to get ok enough to get paid to do it.

Creating art is a multi step process. The part I enjoy the most is laying the foundation, creating a strong base drawing, there are subjects I also enjoy most. Like figure drawing or portraits... Doing landscapes/backgrounds or fully rendering a piece... i don't like too much. It's normal not to enjoy every part of the process and have certain inclinations/ preferences... that will also influence your style.

My advice is: show up to your sketchbook / canvas everyday no matter what. At least 30 min. Don't get too attached to the results "good" or "bad". Carry a small sketchbook and draw something when you are out and about .

Study the fundamentals. There's plenty of good material on youtube, but if you can, enroll in some classes to get feedback ( you can also post on c/artshare and ask for feedback there) . If you want to do comics, focus on perspective and gesture drawing/ anatomy. Maybe join.some figure drawing classes

I enjoy the process.