Has anyone tried ASM124 - Artist In Me - Draw?

[matthewj]

Anyone who has used this file, please respond on whether or not it has affected you and your artistic progress, and if so, how.

[Endo]

"Art" is a skill, and thus it must be learned by performing the act by yourself. A file that ENCOURAGES the practicing of art can be a pretty good file, a file that claims to make you a better artist effortlessly is going to be pretty sketchy.

[matthewj]

What about Cardigan - Artist's Resolve? Truth be told, I draw a little, but only because I feel obligated to do so by society, which says "Do stuff! You'll feel better." I haven't even finished most of my drawings, let alone posted them, and I can't really see the point, other than "you should be doing things." Does a hypnosis file work if you just feel obligated to use it? I'm not sure it does.

[ProfessorPig]

cardigan is a good hypnotist so if the description sounds like it might help there is no harm in listening.

some of your problems may be resolved as easily as talking about them and learning workflows that work for you. you would be amazed at how much little changes in your workflow can make a tremendous amount of difference in the work you make.

i am an artist myself and i may be able to help a little with that. some basic questions i have are, what are your goals with art? why do you want to make art? what kind of art do you want to make? do you have a dedicated space to make art? is that space conducive for working?

[matthewj]

"Some of your problems may be resolved as easily as talking about them and learning workflows that work for you. You would be amazed at how much little changes in your workflow can make a tremendous amount of difference in the work you make."

The problem is I'm not finishing or posting my art when I should be.
Everything else is irrelevant.

"What are your goals with art?" I don't really have any goals; at least, not any I'm actively trying to accomplish.
"Why do you want to make art?" Because it looks cool, but I don't post it, so I can't see the point in drawing.
"What kind of art do you want to make?" Furry art.
"Do you have a dedicated space to make art?" The office/TV room in my house. I use Paint Tool SAI.
"Is that space conducive for working?" Maybe. There is a Wii U, an XBOX 360, and a TV in there, but I can invoke laser focus when needed. Also, I'm not allowed to hole myself up in the bedroom.

I tried listening to Cardigan - Artist's Resolve, but I had to force myself to listen, and all I felt during it was anger and self-hatred that I was so lazy. Also, I feel that art and entertainment are honestly needless because all they do is waste people's time instead of improving the quality of life.

[ProfessorPig]

for furry art Furaffinity is still the best place to post your work. the uploader is easy to use. the interface is the best of all the furry art sites so its easy for others to find and view what you make.

it only takes a minute or two to upload an image so i am guessing the part that would be the hardest for you would be the photo documentation of what you make since it sounds like you are working with traditional media. when i started posting art online it was really common to not have access to a decent camera or scanner but nowadays the average phone has a good enough camera to take a good photo of your work. the best advice i have for taking a photo is natural light seems to work well. the best light is on an overcast day

if you want to make art more you have to make it a part of your life. creating rituals around making art is a good way to make it a part of your life. some people like drawing for the first 15 minutes after they wake up, that way no matter what else happens they drew that day. the idea of studio space is another ritual that helps many artists. by creating a space that you only use for making art you develop a strong association with that space and making art. another artist i know liked to start out each drawing by making a huge scribble in the middle. he considered the scribble a mistake, and by starting out with a mistake he disempowered it, thereby eliminating his fear of making mistakes.

a ritual that might help you would be to check Furaffinity (or whatever site you want to post on) every day. just being on there might be enough to remind you to post what you have made.

finishing your drawings is a little more complicated and it would help if i knew a little bit more about them to give you advice. how many hours does a completed drawing take you? are you doing detailed renderings, loose sketches, comic style or anime style drawings? what do you feel that makes you stop working on a piece? what do you feel when you look at an unfinished piece?

some general advice would be to set a certain amount of time apart each day to draw. alternatively set aside 3 hours or so when you feel like drawing and say that whatever happens at the end of this 3 hours the drawing is done. once you get a change in your rituals that you start being able to complete work and start posting it, it will be very easy to keep doing it.

the most troubling part of your response to me is that you view art as "a waste of peoples time". i think this could be one of the sources of your issues. why would you want to devote more time to something you value so little? i think you are off base on arts value. art in its many forms is the core of culture and culture shapes how and what we think as a society. art is at the core of all the design fields so literally everything around you that is man made has the hand of an artist on it. is it good art/design thats always debatable.

its also worth noting that making art can be incredibly cathartic and its much cheaper than therapy :P

[matthewj]

I have been a member of FurAffinity since September 13, 2011, and I am on the site every day. I use a drawing application on my computer called Paint Tool SAI, and I make barely passable to crappy loose sketches. I don't post any of my stuff because I hate it all, which is why I purged my gallery twice on two separate occasions, even though I have posted worse stuff before. Even though they would probably try to encourage me, I don't want them paying attention to me or looking at me. I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I am taking citalopram for depression.

[Kcenv]

"Art" is a skill, and thus it must be learned by performing the act by yourself. A file that ENCOURAGES the practicing of art can be a pretty good file, a file that claims to make you a better artist effortlessly is going to be pretty sketchy.

*whacks you with the worst pun of the year award*

Pretty sketchy...

[Alien4420]

I tried listening to Cardigan - Artist's Resolve, but I had to force myself to listen, and all I felt during it was anger and self-hatred that I was so lazy. Also, I feel that art and entertainment are honestly needless because all they do is waste people's time instead of improving the quality of life.

Matthew, I have to agree with somehopper here. The evolution of art was a milestone in human evolution. We're a join species -- what biologists call eusocial. That means we function not primarily as individuals, but as groups. Why did we evolve speech? So that the group could benefit from the experience of the individual. Why are we subject to suggestion, as in hypnosis? So that individuals could share their experience of emotional outcomes. Art is a tool of social communication. The artist, whether he knows it or not, is a teacher, someone who conveys experience and wisdom. It isn't inessential at all, but rather fundamentally important to our species -- and even if it were, I don't think many would say that art doesn't improve the quality of our lives.

As to not posting what you draw, you might want to listen to EMG's Stop Procrastinating, which I think is on Hyno-Files.com. What you have sounds a lot like writer's block, a common affliction, or depression. I'm particularly concerned about the latter. You said that you had felt suicidal in your other post and I'm sensing the hopelessness of depression in what you say. If you're suffering from clinical depression, you should not mess around here. Go see a clinical psychologist. There are very effective treatments for depression -- both talk therapy and antidepressants are effective. It's important that you not let it go, because left untreated it could get to the point at which you're too paralyzed to seek help.