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I've never considered myself an artist. Growing up I was always into computers and video games and taking stuff apart. I made lots of attempts to learn to draw using how-to books and later youtube videos but I never felt like anything I made was good enough so I always gave up in the end. Even once I started making games I looked for ways to avoid doing art or hired artists.
This year has been maybe the hardest one of my life. I launched a game that flopped miserably and a long term relationship came to a very messy, very bad end. To cope with some of the crushing weight of 2023 I started sending random people on spacehey compliments, just to have some positive interaction with other people. It helped! I got a lot of positivity back and everyone here has been exceptionally kind!
I also started drawing again, but without any particular direction. I did it in ink because I like ink - and because it bypasses all the techniques I was told to use in the past. I decided to come at art from a different angle this time; I'm just doing whatever I feel like doing and I'm posting it for other people, regardless of quality. I started dumping phone pictures of my doodles on spacehey like this:
Or doodles I had messed with a bit digitally
And people were still kind to me! I was surprised by that, so I started doodling and posting more often. People started saying they wanted tattoos of my art?!!? I was shocked, but I think reading those comments was the first time I felt like I was capable of making art.
So I kept posting and people kept saying nice things. All while I'm essentially doodling for therapeutic reasons. I asked people what some of their favorite doodles were and started keeping track of the popular ones and experimenting with different styles. I made a discord and people joined, and continued being kind to each other and sharing their own art which helped me stop worrying so much about my own. (You can join us here if you want!)
Eventually I worked up the courage to try coloring and stickerfying some of them, and people were excited!
So for the last week or so I've been completely consumed with learning how to make stickers, how to make a website and ship stuff, and even how to color. I wasted a lot of material and it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, but I think they turned out pretty well!
A few people have even decided to buy them, which is still shocking to me but very validating. (If you want to see the shop it's here)
I'm in a different place now. I'm okay with art, and I enjoy it in a way I haven't enjoyed it before. The other stuff I'm working on, but the trajectory is up from here. So thank you kind people of spacehey and all my internet friends for helping me build a healthy relationship with art again, and thank you for being kind to me.
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Annie Ann
I am so happy for you! Art is such a wonderful thing, it truly is. During some of the hardest points in my life it felt like all I had was my #2 pencil and the few blank pages of my school notebook. I am so happy to see how your art has helped you. I'm sorry your 2023 year was so rocky, I hope 2024 is good to you! I really like your art, its inspiring to see that you've done so much with it in such little time.
Thank you for being so kind!
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