Rediscovering My Creativity

The first job I wanted as a child was to be an artist. Not because I had people praising my incredible artistic ability or anything. It was merely because my uncle was an artist, and he is left-handed like I am, so I figured it was a good choice in life.

While I’m grateful to my parents for letting my sisters and I explore our hobbies and such, I eventually learned that I am not cut out to be an artist. I remember taking classes outside of school, but I definitely didn’t have the ~talent~ (although now I know even more that talent comes from practice, and not only inherent ability).

Side story: the one time I remember my mom confronting a teacher was when I got a bad grade on an art assignment. My mom knew I wasn’t going to be an artist, but I had gotten upset, because why do we grade art like other subjects? Art is subjective!

It’s not even like my realizing I’m not “good” at art is why I abandoned it. Kids change their mind! I jumped to a lot of different career goals, and the one I have now would have never made the list. I also did a lot when I was a kid and stuck with dance as my big hobby (also, an activity that I’m not “good” at, but I had fun with it and still miss dancing). These activities are expensive!

Creativity is a weird thing. Most people assume they’re not creative, but there are so many ways to be creative. While I gave up art, in my case, drawing and painting, I still dabbled in other pursuits. I wrote fan fiction and poems. My dad is big into photography, so my sisters and I enjoyed taking pictures when we went to new places. I love taking pictures from unusual perspectives, or finding something others may not see. My mom taught me how to cross stitch. I did these things for me, not anyone else (although I do get a serotonin boost when I get notifications that people like the fic I’ve posted on AO3).

I kind of hate to admit this, but what got me back into art (and writing) was ACOTAR. I really responded to how Feyre used her art to get through her trauma, and I had been through a lot prior to reading the series and it became a balm for me. I bought a little sketchpad…and then the pandemic hit. What better time to explore a return to making art! I didn’t do much, really just some recreations of Webtoon characters. It was nice to stretch that muscle again.

And lately, I’ve done even more. I noticed that a local restaurant was doing a paint party for Star Wars Day (May the 4th) last year and decided to check it out. The teacher was very kind and patient, and I made my first painting in years. Being in the class environment kind of screws with my head. I feel like I finish too fast, and then I stare at my painting and only see the flaws. So, then I try to “fix” them and that tends to make it worse. Ugh. I’ve gone to four more classes, and I’m finally hitting a point where I can shrug it off. And I like my paintings much better the next day! Maybe it’s the stress of having other people see it, I don’t know.

In regard to regular drawing, I met up with some friends at California Adventure last month, and we did a drawing class at Animation Academy. I had never paid much attention to this building in the past, but now I’m more excited to go back and try other characters. We did the Remy class. Once again, I was a bit hard on myself. At one point, I was convinced he looked more like Goofy than Remy, but now I’m really happy with my drawing. Our brains can be so frustrating and negative!

What about you? Do you consider yourself creative? What creative hobbies do you pursue?