[But first I'd like to say thank you to KatySue at *~Not All Who Wander Are Lost~* for awarding me the Liebster tag! I'll be posting it very soon. :) ]
One of the things I really miss in my life is drawing (pencil and digital). It kind of went the same way as my violin-playing--just when I was reaching a high point, school became time-consuming and music fizzled out of my life. There's nothing more pathetic than unintentionally quitting something; the only optimistic side to it is that I don't have to admit I quit (sort of equally pathetic, though).
With digital art, I used to be pretty active in an internet forum several years ago, but as my objectives changed and the forum changed, I stopped progressing and, if anything, lost some technique. Pencil sketching was something I did on my own. I've long had the goal of combining the two and making use out of my digital graphics tablet, but it's still just a goal.
Website design is another art-related hobby I'd like to revitalize.
This is all a symptom of a bigger problem, my trouble with balancing school and real life. It's easier to blame school, but the fact is I can do better personally. With my hobbies, I'm not good at thinking outside the box or trying every possible solution to make the time and opportunities for them happen. I'm bad at rationing out my energy, too, so that if I spend it all on school I have very little left over. So obviously this is something I need to work on.
I think the first thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was an artist, and on a broader scale this is still true. German has a good word for this: Gesamtkunstwerk, or "total art." Artists (even amateur ones like me) have a strange challenge, in that they have to create work for themselves. That's not something you think about when you start creating art (of any kind), but it becomes a very real thing when you have to have a legitimate reason and outlet for your art. One would think that it'd be easy to find an outlet for "total art," but this involves its own problems, maybe greatest of which is losing focus. You can get swallowed up in what you feel are the separate nagging demands of each of the art forms, losing the common ground they all have. It's worse when you juxtapose this with school, where the common ground is simple: get good grades.
I don't have an answer for this right now, but it's at a point where I need to start working on this seriously, and making priorities instead of letting them evolve in negative ways.
With digital art, I used to be pretty active in an internet forum several years ago, but as my objectives changed and the forum changed, I stopped progressing and, if anything, lost some technique. Pencil sketching was something I did on my own. I've long had the goal of combining the two and making use out of my digital graphics tablet, but it's still just a goal.
Website design is another art-related hobby I'd like to revitalize.
This is all a symptom of a bigger problem, my trouble with balancing school and real life. It's easier to blame school, but the fact is I can do better personally. With my hobbies, I'm not good at thinking outside the box or trying every possible solution to make the time and opportunities for them happen. I'm bad at rationing out my energy, too, so that if I spend it all on school I have very little left over. So obviously this is something I need to work on.
I think the first thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was an artist, and on a broader scale this is still true. German has a good word for this: Gesamtkunstwerk, or "total art." Artists (even amateur ones like me) have a strange challenge, in that they have to create work for themselves. That's not something you think about when you start creating art (of any kind), but it becomes a very real thing when you have to have a legitimate reason and outlet for your art. One would think that it'd be easy to find an outlet for "total art," but this involves its own problems, maybe greatest of which is losing focus. You can get swallowed up in what you feel are the separate nagging demands of each of the art forms, losing the common ground they all have. It's worse when you juxtapose this with school, where the common ground is simple: get good grades.
I don't have an answer for this right now, but it's at a point where I need to start working on this seriously, and making priorities instead of letting them evolve in negative ways.
