Thoughts about my art recently

Hello! I wanted to jump in and share some of the thoughts I've been having about my art style, the direction I want my art to go in, and what I've been thinking about in relation to growing my business and brand.

As an artist who loves experimenting with different media, I love working with both traditional and digital media. Learning gouache, watercolors, oil paints, acrylics, charcoal, graphite, and digital (in Photoshop, Krita, and Procreate) is so fun for me. I love switching up what I'm working with, and maintaining a pretty basic subject matter (mostly portraiture). I think my skills have been improving in all those areas, but slowly as I navigate all the different media and techniques. I've been relying on switching up my medium in order to get out of art block, and to feel motivated to keep working. 

I didn't realize what the actual issue with my art block has been--inconsistent sketching and thumbnailing. I don't love ideating anything, I genuinely don't! As an artist, that is WILDLY inconvenient, but I'm not a creative person! So I've been relying on interesting references from Pinterest to essentially mash up together and copy, and I've been displeased with my artwork. On top of that, I've been focusing on trying to create more aesthetic videos documenting my traditional work, and for all the time and energy I've been putting into them, their views are much lower than my digital painting videos.

I've been struggling with the relationship of my views and artwork for a while now. It seems that my digital paintings and sketches get the most views, and my watercolors, gouache, and oil paintings really don't get a lot of traction. As someone who has always planned on improving myself classically, this is super frustrating. I don't feel like my audience wants me to pursue a more classical style, and so I haven't been motivated in my digital paintings or sketches at all. I just have been feeling stuck, which is no bueno. 

I sat down yesterday and wrote down my goals, and what I want for this next year. I thought about the successful brand deals and sponsorships, and the unsuccessful ones, and the delineating factor was good quality digital art for the successful brand deals, and oil/watercolors for my unsuccessful. Dang, that's hard to think about. I wanna grow in all aspects of my art, but my watercolors and oil paintings are essentially hurting my business. I don't want to create just digital artwork, but it's definitely the most impactful for my audience. 

I think a big switch in my mindset in relation to all of this change and growth was thinking through the perspective of my audience. I remember trying to absorb any and all digital painting tutorials and speedpaints when I was 11 and just starting out with digital, and it was sooooo helpful and inspiring for me. While I was still interested in watercolor videos, I was much more daunted by the fact that I didn't have amazing art supplies or the skill to create beautiful paintings. Digital was different because I could make so many full-color, full bodied paintings and improve noticeably. I feel caught up in making tutorials and digital speedpaints sometimes, and I feel that there's no more for me to teach or talk about (and that's just not true). I forget that my old digital painting videos on color theory or anatomy are so far removed from my current style, and that I can remake so many of the video topics I've already covered. In addition, I can thumbnail and come up with larger, creative concepts for my digital paintings. 

And that's what I did for November's postcard; I sat down and thumbnailed in my sketchbook, and then took my time with the painting. I love the outcome, and I know it's something that resonates with my audience. I feel that for the moment, I should put my traditional artwork, apart from sketchbook sketches, to the side. I want to be effective in the time I spent working and creating artwork, and I want to be impactful for my audience. All this to say, if you want to still see traditional work from me, I can post it here! It can be behind-the-scenes looks into my art, and it might be beneficial for you!

I want to take my Youtube channel back in the direction of digital painting tutorials, process videos, reviews of tablets and hardware, and looks into my Procreate workflow. This is something I'm going to test out and see if it's more successful. I can work within limitations and still grow in my skills and process. 

Let me know your thoughts! Is this something you've struggled with as well? It's very hard for me to narrow down on just one medium to just consistently, so I'm wondering if you've had a similar experience to me!