I'll be taking a break from art through the month of December to reassess whether it's actually worth my time, and to see if it's still fun for me anymore. Realistically, art is just something that I do because I can. Because I want to improve more or I want to make an OC project or something. Most of the time I have the expectation that I'll get a lot of views or supportive comments on the art that I do, but I always seem to fall short of the ever higher expectations I have for my work. Lately I've been comparing myself to others more and more, wondering how I'm going to compete with anyone if I ever decide to do commissions. Instead of feeling inspired by other creators, I feel threatened by them. I use their art against my own self-esteem to the point where I'm not confident in my own abilities. And I feel guilty about my impatience with art, something that makes me leave projects half-finished and sketches with no lineart or color. I heard someone say recently that art is what they do for fun. Immediately it struck me that I didn't agree with that statement at all. I rarely draw art "for fun". It's always for a project, for a friend, for my next art dump, etc.. But rarely do I think of it as fun. Art isn't my fun passion activity. It's hard and stressful work that I do to impress others. It's a constant nagging in the back of my mind that I need to do better so that I can compete against the millions of more advanced, more confident artists out there. As I come to a point in my life where I'm under increasing pressure to make a living for myself, I'm putting more and more pressure on my art. It's the one skill I've devoted myself to over the past seven years, and I always assumed that I could just join a social media and make money that way. But that isn't the way the algorithms and statistics work. And without people-pleasing my way into a good following, I likely won't be getting a single cent out of my art. I think it's finally time to step away from art for a while to explore other options. I need time to decide whether art is truly something that I care about, and whether or not it's healthy for me to continue.
