Struggles As An Artist + Obsessions with Anatomy

Regrets. I have used this word many times as an artist, as a student, as a human. In fact, I have regrets right now: colouring my drawing (see ugly featured image), wasting time colouring my drawing (because all it did was waste my time and ruin my drawing), and quite possibly in the future-posting this. This is one of the biggest struggles as an artist:

1. You have this perfect image in your head but then as you continue to develop the image…You discover, it is the UGLIEST CRAP ever.
2. You mentally slap yourself for devoting hours for crap.
3. You frantically try to find ways to save your art and your soul.  
4. But you still end up regretting your decision. You wonder, was all that worth it?

What a process. This was mine today:

1. I had this cool skull print in my mind.
2. I drew it. Praised myself that I can actually draw without a reference photo.
3. Coloured it. And instantly regretted it.
4. Frantically drawing a background in attempt to mask the ugly colours.
5. Failing miserably.
6. Frantically reaching for Fotor to add some filters to make this crap more beautiful. Was it worth it?

Often times, things don’t work out the way I imagine it to. But that’s okay! Failures suck but in many ways, it rules. I discovered parts of me I never knew. And I learned a lot. Through my efforts of salvation, I created a piece with greater mindfulness and level of completion, more so than I ever imagined. I almost value the final edit of my drawing more than the original. This goes to show that the process of an artwork is more significant and valuable than the actual piece itself.

Time to address my obsessions with the human anatomy. I hope to pursue a career in the sciences after I graduate university. Whenever I can incorporate science and art, I am happy. Just recently I was really into figure drawing and I gladly learned the major muscle structure. “Oh! So this is the gastrocnemius muscle!”Now I am slowly venturing towards the skeletal system. It’s wonderful.

Thank you for reading my rant and things in between! Feel free to leave me a comment! Bye for now.