Five Years of Being a Hobbyist Artist. Reporting in!

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/13n8dz6/five_years_of_being_a_hobbyist_artist_reporting_in/

2023-05-20 20:48

alex-and-stuff

I am hobbyist artist who did Draw-A-Box course (hi u/uncomfotable) five years ago or so. Here is my post from back then. I wanted to share my story of being a hobbyist artist, while having a day job for the last five years.

When I initially started on my art journey in 2017 I had a pipe dream that this can be passion/calling that will eventually become full time, replace my day job and I can make a living out of it. Oh man, how naive I was.

As I mentioned, initially I started by completing the Draw-A-Box course and got comfortable with ink as a medium. Part of the course was drawing insects and I decided to draw a series of insects and posted it for sale on Etsy.

I had very basic skills and I knew it, however I badly wanted to engage with reality and get at least a couple of sales. First I was checking my Etsy shop every day, but nothing was happening and I eventually lost interest. Several months later I checked my shop and to my surprise I made a sale! The sale which I already failed to ship I was long overdue, somehow I managed to miss the new order notification. I worked it out with the buyer and had one more sale a couple of months later. This was a positive feedback from reality my art was good enough for somebody to actually pay money for it.

Getting this validation was pleasant, however it pushed me towards an unhealthy mindset. I started to think about what I should draw/paint so it sells well, instead of sticking to my ideas. Maybe nursery art? Does it sell well? Maybe a series of sushi art? Or a series of nudes? Looking back this was a fruitless tendency all pieces that were driven by desire to sell did not sell well at all. Which begs the question, did my genuine pieces sell well? Only some of them, to be honest. But my takeaway was: I should work on my ideas and do genuine art. Most likely it wont sell, but at least it would be genuine and I would have more fun while doing it. I remember during this time my wife told me: You know it is actually good that your art is just a hobby, you can do whatever you want with it. Back then it did not resonate with me, but later I realized how right she was. Art being just a hobby gives freedom.

In parallel with expending my Etsy shop inventory, I kept working on my skill. I learned human proportions, basic face and figure drawing, and most importantly started experimenting with watercolor. This was a major mental shift. Watercolor in a way is a completely opposite medium from ink. Looking back I understand why I embraced ink at the beginning of my art journey. Being from an engineering background I had a natural inclination towards precision and full control. And ink pens fits my mindset perfectly I can control the ink pen tip precisely. Watercolor however is a completely different story, it is about controlling chaos with gentle touches and willing to go with the flow and to embrace mistakes. It was very hard at the beginning, paper was buckling, strokes were either too watery or too dry, water was flowing not in the direction I wanted to. Chaos, complete chaos. All this was so against my nature that my back was clenching. But I decided to stick to it and gradually got better. Here is the recent work I am proud of: link. I also started to combine watercolor and ink, watercolor was easier to work big and cover large areas and ink was suitable for fine details and finishing touches. Here is an example of it: link

Now I want to talk a bit about conventional success and unique art style. I cant help but notice that the variety of styles, mediums and themes in my art is too wide. The net I am casting is too wide. Being creative is a gift and a curse simultaneously because my mind always wanders and wants to try different styles and mediums. Same stands if I zoom out from the art as a hobby. I had many hobbies before art and I kept switching, because (sigh..) my mind kept wandering. Five years ago I decided to stick with an art hobby for long time to see it through. Now I am experiencing the same dynamic but in context of styles and mediums.

When I look at successful (in conventional meaning) artists I see that their mind was wandering as well. They tried different styles until they arrived at their unique style and stayed locked on it. With instagram feed it is particularly easy to see, since you can scroll down through the years. Example of it would be crap_panther. I really like her art, and I can see how she arrived at it as I scroll her feed.

As I think about how I will evolve as an artist I am wondering if I will keep oscillating between styles or I will arrive at my unique style and stay locked on it. I dont know right now, but I will let you know in five years :)