Kristina Ness  ✨

ooooh lemme think on that!

I think I have a good eye, and so I'm really good at hiding that struggle—my personal work takes me a WHILE because it feels more like whittling or carving marble than just putting things down onto paper more instinctively, like I might have done when I was younger.

I almost always come away from my art feeling like it's more stilted than I want it to be—I can tell when I'm overthinking something and relying on particular angles when drawing characters, faces, anything.

(Incidentally I started a secret sexy side blog and not having the pressure of an audience has relieved this pressure somewhat? So, as with all things, maybe twitter is to blame)

I also freeze up when I don't have everything figured out from the get go—loosely painting a landscape breaks my brain because I go into "well what about the GEOLOGY" mode and I can't just put pen to paper and feel something out.

I've also gotten to a point where I'm not letting myself fail, like I'm not letting myself just be BAD at art, even in private, which is such a bad idea! I have like ten copies of Art & Fear on my bookshelf and yet I'm having a hell of a time actually taking the advice

This is all really insightful, btw- thanks for opening up about it. I don't want to be reductive- but would you say it would be a fair summary to say that progress for you would look like "less fear"?

I think "less fear" is like half of the key, and "just puttin' my nose to the grindstone" is the other half? There's a lot of stuff I want to do that I know is just going to take conscious effort and practice!