jumpingjacktrash:

nicerobotfriend:

i always see advice to artists from abled guys thats like “draw every day even on the days where you feel totally uninspired and like you cant even pick up a pencil” and i actually think that advice sucks and is terrible because some of us will spiral out of control into horrible depressive episodes if we force ourselves to draw on days where we feel terrible and end up with something less than spectacular so my advice to artists is “take breaks and love yourselves”

ok here’s advice from a disabled guy:

if you are living on a tight spoon budget, you have to make hard decisions about your priorities, and the world is a massive spoon vampire that is always trying to drain you of precious Can. there will be days — weeks — months — when the demands of simply staying alive, or other things that are more important to you, will not leave you enough spoons to make art.

and it is okay for other things to be more important to you! your health, your personal relationships, other hobbies/interests, etcetera. don’t guilt yourself for choosing something else over art. a lot of the really gung-ho advice comes from people who not only art for a living, they’re extremely focused by nature and have few other interests. but say you’re into drawing, and writing, and knitting, and hiking? that’s me right there and oh yeah also gardening and home maintenance, and i have pets, and i love my husband to bits and don’t want to skimp on spouse time, and fantrolls is great and i’m into minecraft and i play dnd — yeeeeah it’s not surprising that i haven’t drawn for months.

but you know what? in those months, i’ve adjusted to new medication, tried multiple treatments for my poor sick kitty, quit smoking — and a whole list of other stuff that is really quite important, and which i would not have thanked myself to skimp on.

what i’m getting at is, an abled person might be able to do all that and still draw on a schedule. a highly focused person might not even try to do most of those other things because drawing was so important to them. but doing things my way isn’t wrong, and doesn’t make me a ‘lazy artist’.

also? imma tell you a secret. you improve somewhat during breaks. it takes your brain time to process what you’ve learned by practicing, and if you’re constantly pushing and pushing, you don’t get that processing time. push a little, rest a little. you may notice that when you go back to arting after taking a break, you’re a little better than when you last drew. watch for it.