(kinda long) I finally realized something recently; I love drawing but it’s not drawing that I love, like sure I can have a great time drawing fabric + hair and w/e but the fact is if it’s drawing that I loved, I’d enjoy drawing more than like, 2 characters, which I clearly don't

I more or less always knew this but could never put in words why, but I think I can finally connect the dots now

what I REALLY love doing is spending time with my thoughts and I enjoy drawing cus it’s a great way to do it, and I keep going back to it like someone eagerly showing up to a boring study session every time because they get to be in the company of someone they really like there

it makes sense now why I have a good time spending 50hrs drawing painfully slowly and making the same mistakes over and over, and only feel shitty about doing this after learning the terrible expectation of “this could’ve been done more efficiently if you knew wtf you were doing”

it makes sense now why I don’t care for learning or adapting when I'm a rational person and I KNOW it saves me time and effort in the long run and lets me draw more stuff I want

& it makes sense why even if I dig the subject, drawing anything for anyone else makes me miserable, doing studies makes me miserable, but somehow taking forever to draw baby veloce’s cus I’m fucking terrible at basics doesn’t make me miserable and I'm sure I'm not the only one

I think it’s critical to be able to identify motivation accurately because we're really capable of using our discipline to ruin ourselves; the most useful general art advice out there is always to Practice and Get Good, but in the end not everyone is here to/obliged to get good

I know if did the Right thing I would’ve been a much better artist, and then I would have 1) become depressed and 2) quit art, neither of which would’ve been conducive to good art or a good time despite ironically having superior skill