The Times and Seasons of an Artist's Life

 Hi! Welcome to my little corner of the internet. Whether you arrived here by accident or on purpose, I'm glad you are here! While this is the home to both my author pen name and my artist/illustrator name, you can just call me Violet. 

So who am I? Well, suffice it to say the answer to that question has been quite the adventure with more twists and turns than you might expect. While that would be quite the harrowing tale, I won't go boring you with a detailed biography because, let's face it, you're probably here more for the art and less for the artist, am I right? So I'll simply say this. I am someone who has loved to write and draw since I was a young child, going all the way back to elementary school. 

The very first poetry contest I won sealed the deal when it came to writing. When it comes to drawing/art, you can thank the late Akira Toriyama (RIP, my friend) and his anime Dragon Ball Z. I remember racing home after school to watch DBZ every day with more excitement than a kid in an ice cream shop. I began drawing Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan constantly. I filled countless pages in a spiral notebook with (let's be real) kinda tragically bad attempts at recreating Toriyama's work. After that, I took every art class I could in high school and fell even more in love with drawing and painting. I got better, and as I got better, I did it more often.

Now, before you get too excited, no, this isn't a "she loved drawing since childhood and persevered through hardship and criticism in art school until she blossomed into a masterful artist" movie. The name of this entry is the times and seasons, after all, and that's exactly what it was, a season. After high school I don't think I did any serious drawing until I was in my thirties, and even when I started doing art again, I started with painting, not drawing or illustrating. (I know, splitting hairs a bit, but to be fair, they are somewhat different processes).

Why did I pick up the paintbrush again after more than a decade? The art therapist in the psychiatric ward is the short answer. Yep, we have a bonafide tortured artist here, ladies, gentlemen, and gentlfolk. You might actually be quite surprised just how much inspiration comes during a grippy-sock vacation when all social media and contact with the outside world is taken away. 

I found that when I painted (or colored), the depression and anxiety that landed me in the psych ward melted away. I found I was able to actually embrace mindfulness (Oh, did I mention I'm also a mindfulness/meditation instructor? There's a fun fact for you). I found a love for creating (beautiful??) art. And what was the result of this newfound passion? Here's the first painting I did after returning to the world of art:

Ooooohhhh Ahhhh... isn't it spectactular.... ly not even slightly good? I know, this painting really shouldn't see the light of day where others might stuble across it. It does kind of look like an elementary school kid made it right?

So why am I showing you this piece de tragique? To illustrate where I began. Okay, maybe that's not 100% true. If I was REALLY showing you where I began, I'd dust off an old drawing of Goku to show you, but alas, those drawings have gone missing. Like actually, not in a "the FBI stated the files on aliens went missing" kind of way. I think they might have gotten tossed out during a move many years ago.

When someone looks at this watercolor painting, they might give me a sympathetic smile and pat on the head for the effort, but when I look at this picture I see the beginning of journey that would unfold for many years. I see the beginning of a battle with imposter syndrom, with self-criticism and self-doubt. I see the starting point to a journey I wouldn't dare turn away from, becauset it's a journey that led to this:

I drew that yesterday. Obviously, there are still things I need to learn and ways I'm going to keep improving, but I want anyone out there who wants to do art to know that even if your first attempt looks like a tragic first-grader watercolor painting, it doesn't mean you're hopeless. In the modified words of All Might, "You can become an artist" 

IYKYK

Now what happened between tragic watercolor painting and illustrating the main character from my novel Dark Offerings? A lot, and I mean a lot, of paintings and drawings. Many hours spent making mistakes, countless times seeing the way my painting/drawing didn't turn out the way I wanted, and many nights of just resigning myself to never pick up the paintbrush/pencil/stylus again. I have given up my hope of ever being an actual artist more times than I can count, but the difference between me and someone who actually quits is that I decided to try again. That's it. It really is that simple. I wallowed in the dirt and self-doubt for a bit, sure, and even took weeks or months off, but I could never give it up. Akira Toriyama has inspired millions of people around the world, and even after his passing, he still inspires me. Sometimes, I even silently ask for his spirit to help me get better at drawing (but that's because I'm kinda crazy... you know, tortured artist and all). 

What I mean by that is every great artist, painter, mangakan, and illustrator started with their own tragic watercolor painting, so to speak. Akira Toriyama loved drawing animals as a kid and was deeply inspired by Disney's 101 Dalmatians of all things. If we could go back and look at his first attempts to draw animals or even characters from 101 Dalmatians, I guarantee they weren't great. Some of them were probably tragically bad too, and yet before he died he created one of the most popular (if not the most popular) mangas/animes in the world. Can you imagine if he'd decided to stop drawing when it wasn't very good at the beginning? My whole life would be different, as would countless others. I might not have even gotten into drawing as a kid, but I digress.

Now, people do tend to like to quantify things, as in how long did it take for me to actually get semi-good at drawing and illustrating. While the overall journey between watercolor painting and my most recent work took many years, the vast majority of my increased ability has come during the past 6 months or so. Between the end of May and now my drawings went from this:

(P.S. You should follow my instagram, it's great! Also ignore the messenger icon lol)

To this:

 

(my attempt at drawing Juvia from the anime Fairy Tail)

Now, I didn't do it all on my own. I took courses in drawing through 21 Draw (highly recommend if you want to learn basic to intermediate skills). I learned about things like contrapposto (angles of shoulders vs hips), line of action, and the rule of thirds, among other things. With that being said, there is no better teacher than repition. Drawing every day or nearly every day. Drawing different things. Drawing from reference, hell, even tracing has merits (although, don't play it off as your own work, not unless what you trace is very small and you drastically alter the image to sufficiently create a novel piece of art, and even then you should probably still give credit to the original artist).

 One of the best exercises I was instructed to do was to watch a video of ballerina dancing, pausing the video every few seconds and sketching her pose. It seriously taught me how to draw the flow of movement:

(certainly no masterpiece but it wasn't meant to be, it was simply to practice)

What I'm getting at is that practice makes perfect. I know, I hate it too. I wish I could just effortelessly be awesome at this whole art thing, but if I was, I'd probably be bored with it. It's a cliche for a reason.

Practice is great but there is something more important than anything else, and that's to not care what other people think of your art, at least at the beginning. There might be merit to caring later on when you've developed some skill, but in the beginning no one else's opinion matters because all they see is what you've already drawn, not all the many things you are still yet to draw. While it can feel like an accomplishment to complete a drawing, the reality is once it is finished, it's now a work from your past. The only thing to really do is move on to the next one. Sure spend time admiring it or sharing it on social media (have you followed my IG yet? you should), feel all the good feelings of accomplishment, but don't stop there. Move on to the next one and bring those skills with you. 

Okay, I think that's enough for an intro entry. Please subscribe, favorite, do whatever to remember to come back later. I'll be posting loads of things from written entries like this, to posting chapters of my webcomics Dark Offerings and H2O. So stay tuned all!

-Violet LaVere