The Artist's Dilemma

Emma Frost, inking drills :)

I wanted to write something about being inspired (or the lack of it) but when I think about it, it is something I cannot fully grasp.  When I was in college I often felt disconnected from this whole "Fine Art" thing because I really wasn't interested in self-expression. When I think of art I think of robots and comics and spaceships and dinosaurs. Those things excite me, they fill my head most of my waking hours then even until now. I guess being inspired based on how I feel is foreign to me because I don't think that deep when it comes to art. I know that there are times when what I give to my client makes me feel happy and during those times I like to think I am inspired but more often than not I just do what I need to do and hopefully there's something in what I need to draw that will excite me and if there is none, I switch on the documentaries and everything is alright again.

I've worked as a commercial artist since I graduated in 2004. This meant that happy, sad, depressed, ecstatic or whatever I needed to submit something irrelevant of how I feel at the moment. Most artists frown at this and think that what artists like me do is soul less because of the lack of the "self" in our art but isn't that how commercial art/illustrating works? Our inspiration comes from the material provided by the client and the world that we make out of it. This offers plenty of opportunities for imagination and regardless of how I feel making stuff up will always be fun.

But I don't frown on people's emotional because sometimes they help. I know, because I've been there, just not as often as how people like to imagine us artists whenever we are working. Art is a very fun thing to work with and if our emotions keep getting in the way then it will be very hard for us to enjoy this life and there'd be so much less dinosaurs, comics, spaceships and robots in this world that we live in.