Hiiii and welcome to my February (posted in MARCH cus im stupid) 2023 blogpost, it will be quite the journeyyy!
I will talk about what inspired me to expand and explore my art recently. It will get quite personal at some points, but I think especially if you are an artist too, it will be interesting to read. I will also talk about my NEW YORK CITY trip in relation to that. Quick update about the sticker project before we start, for now I will stop doing it, but I am working on other sticker related thingsss. Without further ado (that looks weird when its written), let's get into ittt ♡
MARCH UPDATE : I also changed my name now to SirahHaris instead of just Sirah. okay now lets get REALLY into it.
What caused all this?
The 3 main factors that influenced me to seek out to innovate and develop my art are:
1. My dissatisfaction with my art and wanting something that connects to people more.
2. Advice I was given by the amazing illustrator John P. Dessereau (linked below) during my NYC trip.
3. A random TikTok I heard, but sadly can't find again (FOUND IT IN MARCH, its by Dahlia Raz)
1. In the past few months, I have been feeling very much confused and lost as an artist. I felt dissatisfied with what I have been creating, because I felt like it lacked a certain connection to the viewer and the outside world. I was in a very introspective era, and I do not find that bad, but I just was getting bored and dissatisfied with it. I really want my art to mean something, for people to relate to it in a way, for my art to tell a story and in general for it to evoke emotion of some kind in people. With that in my mind I went to NYC with 2 amazing artist who are two of my closest friends, Bogi and Ifeta (linked below) I sketched A LOTTTT in NYC and it was so much funnnn. I will make a video /vlog going through my sketches soon, so stay tuned for that!
2. During my travels, my friend Ifeta interviewed John P. Dessereau who then ended up talking to me and my other friend Bogi too. He is an amazing artist, a very kind person and passionate about art, so he gave us a lot of amazing and insightful advice. He then went through our sketchbooks and gave us individual advice about what we should do. One of his pieces of advice we got was to explore colour and shape to create fun compositions. He said he does this so when he is experiencing a bit of an art block, he can look in his sketchbook and let himself get inspired by these more abstract sketches. He said his sketchbook then becomes a book of inspiration and references that came from himself. When telling my friend/roommate/amazing artist Ipek (linked below) about this process she mentioned how it's like looking at clouds and seeing things in them. That is exactly what it feels like to me. It feels like first I'm reconnecting with my inner child and just having fun with colours, materials, and shapes. This all just happens automatically, trying to not let my conscious judge anything I do too much (which can be hard sometimes). Then after I did it, I let my conscious mind look at it and see things in it. It is a very fun process and feels very childlike to me. It also feels very satisfying because, just like John said, you are using what you created as a spark for your own creativity. You are watching clouds, but you made the clouds! The same day of meeting him I immediately tried this out and at first, I was a bit doubtful but the more I let loose and tried stuff out the more fun and effective it became . I kind of adapted this mindset to just sketching without thinking too much, but I dont just focus on abstract but just anything I intuitively wanna do that second. This method is really what I needed right now, to just not think too much about it, to have fun, to create and not judge what I create. Having this mindset is very freeing during the sketching and convergant part of my artistic process.
The face on the second slide at the right bottom ended up inspiring the zine "Fly", which opened up so much for me in my art.
3. Finally, this leads me to the TikTok I saw. I don’t remember who made it and I cannot find it, but it goes something like this “I used to always create hyper realistic art and felt guilty when I draw something simpler, and I realised now it is because I felt like I always had to prove my skills as an artist to other people. However, I do not have to prove anything to anyone and even if I'm able to potentially create realistic art, it is also okay to not do that and create what I like.” (this is me putting what I remebered from the tiktok into my own words) I can relate to this in a way because I have this deep, urgent, and desperate need to succeed, not just for me but mostly for my parents and family. Subconsciously, I think this need made me worry too much about wanting to be a "good" artist to others. I never ever had this as a concious goal or thought, but I do believe to a certain extent it was a box I put myself in subconciusly. This pressure of having skill, having your “thing,” and wanting success, held me in a comfort zone where I at one point cannot grow anymore, because this thought pattern made me stray away from mistakes, when mistakes are the number 1 way to grow. There is no way to be a good artist, the only thing I can be successfully and happily is myself and create what I create. Now I am much more experimentative in my sketchbooks and this has already let me on this new path that I am enjoying sooo much (aka making visual poetry zines). This TikTok is probably the best thing to come out of TikTok for me hahaha.
What does this all come down to ?
I feel much less lost now due to all this, I know I will be lost again eventually and that is fine. For now with this more open mind when it comes to art, I feel much happier and at peace.
One little saying I also am trying to really live by is “I trust myself, I trust my destiny and I trust the universe that I will end up where I am needed and supposed to be” Even if that potentially means I might not become a huge successful artist, or if that means that I do, I will be fine and I will be in a place I love as long as I love the road I am going to get there. Damn that’s deep, someone write that down, oh wait I'm doing that, this is a blogpost, I'm so funny. Actually, I think I will never arrive somewhere, life is the road, and I should just love the road cause the end is death and I can't enjoy death, I'm queer, I'll go to HELL!!! (Just kidding, idk what comes after death obviously, but I'm not going to hell, I'm too nice)
I feel like the blogpost so far might seem like I'm going to do something completely different now, that the art I did before is "bad" or unauthentic, but its not, it is work I love and am proud of, all I want to communictae with you right now is that I just feel far freer to create what I want to create from an honest and central place in myself. Both artists advices just came together in a way that broadened my horizon and really just set me freeeeeeeeeEEEEEE. Its an evolution not an improvement.
(to flip through the zines go to my instagram)
With all this in mind I have already created 3 zines in 1 month, several drawings, a lot of sketchbook pages and even started my biggest project yet, an A2 drawing. I am in a very creative state of mind right now and am very happy and satisfied with the work I am doing right now. I feel like I have a purpose with my art.
I am going to be honest, probably not a single soul will read this far, but it felt really nice to write this all down, but if you did read this, THANK YOUUUUU ♡
Special thanks go out to my amazing friends and amazing artist that are linked in the article! If you read this far you are legally obliged to follow them! MWAHAHAHAHA ♡♡♡♡
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