I haven’t improved since high school. How could I have? I’ve not practiced.
But I had not lost my love of it. Indeed, I rediscovered it.
Art is something I want to keep in my life. I’m currently struggling to create art, but I’m planning on turning that around. I hope I can manage it. My mental health has taken quite the beating of late, and I find I’m not able to do much when I’m spiralling.
Anyway, I’m planning to create more art.
This is another project of mine that has some potential for income, but like my writing, is likely unable to ultimately get me there. Perhaps if I get very lucky, the two of them combined will help me on my way. It is also one of those things that I will be doing, even if I can’t make any sort of income from it, so I may as well offer originals and prints to sell and maybe make enough in a year for a hot chocolate or a fancy ice cream once in a while. The only problem is that, unlike books, I’m going to have to find some physical space to place my art as I create it.
That is a problem for future me.
Like writing, Patreon often comes up as a way for artists to make some money on a monthly basis. Unlike writing, I have a tonne of ideas about how I could make that particular platform work for me. However, I don’t have nearly enough people interested in me as an artist to even bother with it for now. Perhaps one day it might be a thing for me to more seriously consider. For now, it's on the backburner as a serious possibility.
Similarly to writing, YouTube is also something I can do to both sell my work and a platform that in and of itself can generate some income. If I get big enough. Again, that comes down to luck as much, if not more, than hard work. Still, I’m going to give it a go. I don’t think that too many art channels present videos the way I am with a focus on the folklore/myth or the fiction behind each piece, so maybe I’ll be filling some weird niche that will gain traction. In any case, the channel will be devoted to my art, and to the stories my art tells; be they from folklore or my own imaginings. I also plan on adding a communal art night once a month as a live stream, but that’s not going to happen until I have a fair amount of community engagement.
It may well never happen.
Still, it will be a way for me to keep up with my art, and to share it and maybe earn a few pennies a month. There is already one video up. And I hope to eventually upload one a week... which is a pretty strenuous effort when it comes to art... and video creation. Video editing takes a long while. I will begin with one video a month unless (until?) I earn enough from any one or any combination of my various projects affords me the ability to devote more time to it without sacrificing my financial security.
In case you’re interested in my art and feel like showing my channel some love, you can view it here. Subscribe if it feels like something you might want to keep up with. I’ve not properly launched it. I still have to film and upload a channel trailer, which I’m yet to decide on, but it has had a soft launch (which is to say - one video uploaded).
I’ve got a lot work to do, clearly, so I’m off.
Ciao!