Welcome to my first of many crimsonowl chatter, where I reflect or ramble on anime, art and everything in between.
My bish @ishanvirtue and I created an art-curation chamber at Noise.cash named ArtPark (@ArtPark). Its ultimate goal is to help artists on the platform in any way we can, such as give more exposure to lesser-known artists on the platform, help them fight back reporters, tipping them as hefty as we can.
Every week, we have a recreational activity called "Draw this in your style" which is a popular challenge on Instagram. We introduced this activity to give the art community at Noise.cash a little nmph. At first, the purpose was to introduce the chamber and invite artists to post their artwork there but it had personally helped me in the most unexpected way.
I have been "married" to art block and been stuck with each other for several years. I tried different ways to recover, start an art blog at a different crypto-blogging platform, watch art videos on Youtube, watch anime more, but I failed to achieve my goal of making art religiously. If I'm not making art, I don't know what would have become of me. So, all these years of art block, I sort of lost myself, too. I won't get into details so as not to upset you, who are reading this, but I felt like a thirsty, unwatered plant. Before joining Noise.cash, I did a few to no artwork at all and my art gadgets were just rotting in their corner.
One fine January day, I finally decided to join the platform after my bish mentioned it months ago. I guess I made the right decision and even more so when we decided to make the ArtPark chamber, a month later, and do the Weekly DTIYS. I was very skeptical and very anxious whether the activity would continue or just be a one-time gig. I thought that if we had no feedback, @ishanvirtue and I would be the only participants and it would still be a fun activity since we get to kick our lazy asses to draw again, at least.
Unexpectedly, we had good responses since more and more artists join our activity each week. Personally, I haven't put too much thought and just a little effort into making my artworks since I thought, I would only be administering the activity and summarize it at the end. Also, I work full time on the weekdays so I wouldn't be able to participate much, or so I thought. Thinking about it now, I was practically putting up a wall and making excuses to myself, for myself.
Juggling my work, personal life and online gigs is quite a lot for me but it turns out, I was enjoying the DTIYS. I am excited to do it every week because I had a reference to draw and a "deadline" to follow. I won't have to think too deeply about what I should draw. One day, @ishanvirtue told me suddenly...
@ishanvirtue : Bish. I'm proud of you. We're less lazy (in making art). I remember when we started ArtPark so you can draw weekly, if not daily.
me : LOL. I know right. I realized I'm so pumped to draw lately.
What he said caught me off guard. It's only been exactly 2 months since we started the DTIYS activity but when I checked my gallery in Procreate, I have a few artworks that I'm sure would take months to finish when I was just mopping around, making love with art block. My gadgets are now being used as intended. My iPad even broke down once, maybe due to the shock of being frequently used again.
It goes without saying that ArtPark has become more than just a Noise.cash chamber for me. It helped me find a community of artists, although we only communicate through our art and never really had a conversation but are willing to join us and celebrate art with us through what we thought, at first, was a light-hearted activity. While each week is a surprise on how many participants we will have or whether people will be interested in the week's reference, when Presentation Day arrives, those little worries are washed away with the willingness to participate by our fellow artists. Again, with my hectic schedule, I always tend to draw on Presentation Day and submit it at some point in the night. But I would almost always feel like enter a zone and be sharp-focus on drawing, I would forget to eat or go to the bathroom. You might think that's just normal for an artist but I didn't know I forgot this feeling until I'm doing it for ArtPark.
ArtParks aims "to encourage artists to create to their fullest potential". While writing this article, I took a peek at ArtPark's introduction article, and this line gave me feelings. At least for me, it has encouraged me to the core to grab that damn pencil and draw.
I am thankful, grateful to the people at ArtPark, our fellow artists, the audience/reader who have supported us, and to my bish, my yesman, my do-man, my do-it-man, my i-will-do-it man ( ´∀｀ ).
I am still light years away from my goal of drawing religiously but one step, one stroke at a time, I'm getting there.
Creativity is contagious, pass it on - Albert Einstein.
Amazing kau ang bumuhay sa art dun... congrats naka tip.ka na sis