Oh I can't help it, don't you worry about that.

A very good practice. I went through a phase for a while where if I was to draw for a half hour I would turn on a timer for 15 minutes and close my eyes and visualize my piece in as much detail as possible first. When the timer went off I would attack the piece like a mad man. I would go back and forth like this, always visualizing for as much time as I would draw. I don't do this any more, but I think the practice helps me visualize things in a mental "flash" now.

Haha bottle some of that enthusiasm for my prattle and send it to my wife.

Thank you! Currently on a gig at a studio- a nice dose of that familiar creative environment.

You honor me. Thank you for dreaming me into existence.

Hopefully you find more things to get inspired by and get better with characters and stuff tread lightly on your art journey and Happy Drawing!

@@stardustobserver7454 I hope so too. Thanks for the encouragement! :)

My pleasure! Truly. Uncertainty is a natural occurrence on the path of art- but it is an illusion. You are already certain that you want to be where you are- this must be the case as art is done for its own sake, especially before it's your job. Next time you feel uncertain about anything in art, remember it is only symptomatic of a mind fully engaged in creating- whether any is getting done at the moment or not. This may not be relevant now, as it sounds like you currently have a focus. Yes, don't forget to practice communicating, there are many world class technicians out there who no one will ever notice or pay.

That's great to hear! Thank you.

I will consider the discord recommendation, seems like a good idea. Very busy at the moment, not much time to start that with any momentum. Will give more thought to it soon.

Thank you!

My pleasure! I hope it helped.

Don't avoid and repress your feelings, at least not as a default position. Take a few deep breaths, close your eyes, feel what you feel, and thank whatever is around you for the honor of having any experience at all. Then open your eyes, return to life, and fight joyfully.

Thank you! It was a pleasure to draw.

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it!

::holds up a sea shell::

Haha, I couldn't resist pointing out how well you phrased it.

Indeed, the front that artists put out online is engineered to to make them look sure- almost none of them are. I'm not! I'm constantly encountering uncertainty, doubt, and vagueness. As time goes on you gain the ability to operate well even when that uncertainty sits heavy on your shoulders. Yes go find your unknown self, and learn to make friends with every moment of uncertainty, every field of vagueness- these empty gaps are the pool of potential from which anything can spring. They are chances to reinvent yourself over and over and over again. That is an essential skill as an artist, otherwise you'd make the same drawing over and over until you were dead. I do enjoy being on stage and moving around and miss it these days, but I'm sure my future holds many opportunities for that.

It could go either way, really. You won't know unless you try. Always veer towards courage. I think beginners should AT LEAST keep sketchbooks where them make tiny thumbnails that express their imaginative ideas. Some beginners can spend 6 hours on a drawing that would have worked better at an inch tall, and I don't think there's anything to regret in drawing- but if you're hell bent on skills those 6 hours are often better spent. Watch your interest carefully and let that guide you. You'll gain more long term data from being enraptured with an awful drawing for a few hours than feeling sick to your stomach over anatomy you don't even care about.

@@StevenZapataArt Thanks, I'll keep that in mind

Haha no worries, I knew you couldn't have meant it in an insulting way- that would be crazy! To insult Ross draws is online suicide, you would be ground to dust.

What matters is that you stay interested and get exposed to the ideas. No source for art knowledge is perfect or even exhaustive. The trick is to actually try the stuff and not worry so much about what you’re hearing

Well thanks! I don't feel starved for ratings, though. I'm happy to provide a little joy to anyone I can.

@@StevenZapataArt Not just in that I feel "deserves more views" but I find this immensely helpful, really reinvigorates the psychological, even spiritual side to drawing, something I've felt diminished in myself for quite a few years now.

rotring 500, i just dont know what lead

that black pen

But the video was great, thanks for making it

I deny that art forms, and ideas as you say, have any intrinsic value. Whatever meaning you imbue into a drawing exists outside of you only if the audience happens to gather the exact same meaning. Books, also, do not have an intrinsic meaning that is communicated equally to everybody. Some people love Catcher in the Rye, others hate it. They can even understand the themes equally- completely- and for one person it will be a nauseating slog and for the other it is a life-defining work of art. Did JD Salinger anticipate both of those outcomes in the "meaning" he crafted? I doubt it. Between artist and audience there is this gap of emptiness, where whatever meaning or value the artist has intended to create disappears completely and it is up to the viewer to reconstruct it brick by brick- or not. Sometimes they recreate it exactly, other times they make a grotesque. The breadth of possibilities is not insignificant- for that to be possible there must not be an inherent, solid, immovable value. Where would it be anyway? You can't point a finger at it. I know this is probably "obvious" to most artists but most seem to then take it for granted and create delusional self constructs that ignore this "obvious" substrate. We will likely disagree on this on a level that is beyond argumentation because I suspect these points grow out of different fundamental intuitions. To sum up: I do, basically, deny the whole concept of value. Observe, however, that this does not prevent me from making work about myths and symbols with the hope of healing some amount of pain in the world. To me these actions and my outlook are not contradictory, in fact they enrich each other because the lack of a concept of inherent value allows me to operate with absolute freedom and a minimum of insecurity in a field almost defined by insecurity and angst. Thank you for the kind words about the video, I was very happy to make it! And thank you for engaging my ideas, it makes me feel alive and it is greatly appreciated.

Maybe we are saying the same thing essentially, but I don't understand how what you wrote is grounds for the denial of value.

@@olibianchini2472 My pleasure, I love chewing this stuff over as well! I'm very sorry to hear you've been made to draw on toast, I can't imagine it's a good medium. I think we are probably saying similar things when we get it down to practicality, given I am not some iconoclast running around telling people not to care about the arts- quite the opposite. Indeed, I think our confusions came from your use of the word intrinsic, as stated in your edit. To me intrinsic implies an inviolable quality of the work itself once it has been created, I did not think you meant intrinsic to the individual. I would consider that more a subjective value. And I certainly don't believe value is only a valid concept if it works for other people other people or the collective. To me that is more a relative value, as it fluctuates wildly, is totally undefinable, and births other relative valuations like monetary worth. To be clear, I am denying that art has intrinsic self value that is always present, not subjective or relative value. You would have to be a raving solipsist to ignore the way people feel about art when consuming it or making it and I'm not denying the reality of the art market or people's love for pieces of art. That said, I don't believe I can find any intrinsic value to a piece of art on an individual level, either. Not when I consider the way my feelings about even my own art change through time. I can be enraptured with a drawing while making it one day and wake up the next to find I loathe it. Now where is that seemingly joyful intrinsic value it presented yesterday to this individual outside of any collective concerns? I have also often experienced the opposite, being utterly bored by a drawing while spending a few days on it, and looking at it after a couple weeks to find it's one of my absolute favorites I've ever done- full of personal meaning and quality seemingly from nowhere. So I think my position is possibly more extreme than you are interpreting- I don't believe in an intrinsic collective OR individual value, thus leading me to not believe in any intrinsic value at all. Even the physical materialist value of a drawing is problematic since, for 99% of artists, drawing on any sheet of clean paper reduces its value on the market of sales, and it's the rare artist indeed who can sell a drawing on nice watercolor paper for more than the paper cost at the store. My views are lensed- I am trying to communicate particular ideas to artists who are paralyzed with fear, experiencing angst, and drowning in uncertainty. I encourage artists to focus only on how they feel while they work on something, not before, not after, and to not think of anyone else's viewpoint or opinions. Aspirations but no expectations, complete detachment from accolades, approval, validation and success. You might, then, point a finger at that moment to moment experience of creation and say "There! THAT is the cash value of art! That's the value, idiot!" To that, I would smile, agree, and wish a few more people thought that way. And as to things without egos.....well....for another comment thread I suppose....

@@StevenZapataArt Ok, this clears it all up I guess. By your definition of intrinsic value (being, if I understand correctly, something which has constant and undeniable value), I think we're on the same page. Thanks again for the response.

That’s a pentel sharp .5