Why do you make art?

xin li

@carlianne figuring out art stuff takes time, it is all just process. I tend to think of it as collecting puzzle pieces. I have no idea what the big picture is going to look like, but every little thing I understood about art, it is a puzzle piece I collected.

I was also very spoiled with my personal projects for a while. Then client projects kicked in. The way I got through them is to think of them as mileage - I believe the volume of completed pieces is an important thing for beginner artists. I use the client based work to accumulate the volume of completed work, as they have a clear defined deadline, and I have a commitment to do so. Once there is limitations, I have to work creatively to get through. I do see a visible improvement after painting a big volume of work over a relatively short time period.

I also want to play with medium this year

Tiffany Thomas

@carlianne I do a bunch of different things for my company but I'd say my primary job is curating and designing art for hotels. I am still dealing with designers, art directors and timelines but I'm less emotionally invested since the purpose of the art is to design for a specific location. It's challenging at times, depending on the project & how many revisions are needed, but I really enjoy the variety. Sometimes I'm collaging photography in photoshop, sometimes I'm painting abstracts or ocean scenes, etc. I think what I enjoy the most is how much I learn from each project, it could be experimenting with new art material to try and get the right effect or just simple things like exploring color or composition. I've also learned so much about curation, design, sequencing images, merchandising, marketing, branding (haha, I still need to learn how best to apply this knowledge to my own work).

Whitney Simms

@Tiffany-Thomas I’ve always wanted to do hotel art. And wondered who actually did that. Now we know. That’s pretty cool.

Neha Rawat

@carlianne Great question! I think it's easy to get lost in the flow of things and self reflection like such is not only helpful but also necessary!

Technically, I've been freelancing since 2015 but after spending 4 years feeling lost professionally and personally and grasping at straws, I have only just gained confidence that I'm on the right path. There are so many life lessons I learned in the past few years which I see being so wonderfully and creatively expressed in children's books which is why I am attracted to them.

I do believe that purpose can keep changing with time. I recently found a stash of my old artwork from 8-15 years ago. And my art at that time was purely a vent of personal emotions. My current purpose revolved around being financially independent and also contributing to a child's life through children's book. Like Xin mentioned, since finding representation, I've been missing creating personal art and just connecting with people and experimenting on my own. But I feel I've been hustling for so long without results, so I'm allowing myself to enjoy the fact that I'm able to make a living by doing something I love. I know in the future I want to author-illustrate a book and teach others as well. It's nice to have some clarity of though after a looooong period of clouded mind.

donnamakesart

I usually do art because I have an image in my head I would like to share with someone or there’s a certain action or change I want to incite in others.

There are times I can’t explain how I feel in words so I say them through art instead.

To share, here a short podcast which really changed my mindset on “finding a purpose in my art” which I found comforting: http://www.makersandmystics.com/makersandmystics/2018/6/8/hans-rookmaaker-art-needs-no-justification

Hope it’s useful to you

Tiffany Thomas

@Whitney-Simms haha, some projects are definitely cooler than others. There are a bunch of artists and companies out there that specialize in hospitality art. It is a pretty cool job, I have yet to see my work in a hotel but when I'm researching for the project I get to learn a lot about the town/city the hotel is located in, so I get to let my imagination travel to all these different places. I highly recommend if you ever get the opportunity ;).

Nyrryl Cadiz

@carlianne Off the top of my head, I have 3 reasons why I make art:

It makes me happy to create something beautiful
It makes me happy when people appreciate my work and have the work move them in some way.
It pays my bills and allows me to live.

I did notice that my third reason is starting to be my first as of late. I'm not that bothered because I do want to save up a lot of money asap so I can go back to school. But I also noticed that my best works are those I made because I wanted to, because it was fun for me, not because some client or Art Director wanted me to do so in exchange for money.

I'm currently researching new avenues where I can make the art that I want and earn just as much. I'm considering making comics for Webtoons. I'm not sure how that will turn out but I'm willing to give it a try.

Melissa_Bailey

@Nyrryl-Cadiz my reasons are the same as yours, and I'm also running into the same problems.

After 11 years of illustrating for clients, I found that I didn't have time to work on my own projects. So this year I'm trying to set aside time to do personal work. And I have found, like you, that it resonates more with people and I tend to like it more.

But, being a glass-half-full girl, I figure that this is a good problem to have. I can work from home and do what I love for a living!

carlianne

@donnamakesart oooh I'm excited to listen to this one! Thanks!! I

carlianne

@Melissa-Bailey-0 @Nyrryl-Cadiz yes I think this is totally how I've been feeling as well. I was taking client work for 10 years, and stopped doing personal work, so now that I'm making personal work again, I realized how much better quality it is and how much happier I feel making it! But then realized I didn't know what kind of personal work I want to do lol

Actually, since starting this thread I have started to think I want to try doing some 4 panel comics. I realized in college I was struggling to decide between illustration and story boarding, and comics really fall between those two worlds. Plus they can be funny, I can document things about my life I want to remember, and they can be simple and sketchy rather than rendered.

@Nyrryl-Cadiz I actually don't know about webtoons, is that just a place to upload webcomics?

Nyrryl Cadiz

@carlianne yes, it’s actually like youtube but for comics where they’ll pay you if you meet their requirements like having 1000 subscribers and having at least 40k US monthly views.

Here’s some of their rules: https://www.webtoons.com/en/terms/adRevenueSharingPolicy

carlianne

@Nyrryl-Cadiz ooooh that is nice

Navya Raju

This post is deleted!

xin li

@carlianne I totally see your art in comic format. Would be really interesting reading comic stories from you. I was huge indie comic reader some years back. My passion for narrative art started with reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and Art Spiegelman, Marjane Satrapi‎'s biographical comics. I am following Lucy Knisley's biographical comic since 2007 when her first book was out :-). Right now, I really love Grant Snider's comic (he also does beautiful, simple and profound children's books :-).