Just....Sketching

Sometimes frustration really hits you out of no where and lingers for far longer than you can imagine. Right now I feel awkward about my artwork and where it is going as of late. Been looking through my sketchbooks from high school all the way up to the last plain air watercolor studies I did in college.

Sometimes it's helpful to do things like that, see how much you have improved over the years, see where your struggles have shifted. See where you finally got courage to do new things. And see what it was that you loved to do the most.

For me it was free pen sketches in my sketch book, on rolls of receipt paper from when I was waiting tables, on napkins at bars. Just sketches that you let flow out of you.

Here's one I did today. It's not perfect, it didn't have to be. I did it on the computer...sad to say I miss my watercolor block and actual painting. I just haven't gotten into the mood to pick up an actual brush and spread it around on paper.

I know I'm very dependent on line but, well, it's kinda something I enjoy, the sketching that I do, more than anything else. Lately I feel so anxious, and awkward about all the art I am making for one reason or another. Even now I keep thinking that I was able to do this drawing yet I haven't been able to get into the sketch I am doing with Raven at all, or the D&D screen I need to finish in the next couple of weeks.

Guess....I'm just feeling like I am losing myself more and more these days with what it is I want anymore, or what it is I do. I thought I knew but....now I'm not so sure. I question things all the time, which is no good, and those sorts of things I think show through in what I am doing. People say to follow your heart and do what you love the best, but what if you don't want that to be your down and dirty work?

For along time I have struggled to pull the way I draw together with the way I paint. Just like the levels of doneness when I draw...cartoony or realistic.....I seem to fall into an area where it doesn't look right. Like I need to be at one end or the other....I just can't seem to compromise.

I'm not sure how I feel about working digitally....I think it's one reason I keep using it. I like sketching digitally to a point, but I don't really like coloring I think. Some things are nice about it. In the colored version of this I like the rendering in the face and parts of the veil because it almost reminds me of a wash of colors. But...it's still not the same. I want to print this out and color her by hand, but no scanner at the moment or printer.

Thinking about just doing some personal pieces during the spare time I have, between my other little projects I have going on. Just let it out, see what happens, and try not to really think about it's application so much, or anything of the like. This image certainly was unexpected, not something I ever have rendered before...

Anyways, I'm just caught up in the madness of my own self right now. I'm not too happy with a lot of things I am working on, and I dunno what is gonna happen in the short term or the long run, but I don't think I will be able to put my art aside irregardless of how much it hurts to think about what I am doing about it.

BTW...That is me.