[repost from my deviantART account]
Ever since graduating college, I’ve found my motivation to do anything creative to be at an all-time low.
When I was in high school, I drew every day. I spent hours in school, drawing comics, sketching people in my classes, or just doodling on plain sheets of typing paper with a ball-point pen.
When I got to college, I drew a little less, but I was taking illustration courses, and still producing a large volume of art, and experimenting with new techniques like brush and ink.
Later in college, I became much more interested in photoshop and web design, and found that I spent less and less time drawing and more and more time creating digital art.
And now I find that where I used to spend hours reading about web design and trying new techniques and constantly experimenting in photoshop, nowadays I open photoshop once or twice a month, and I just can’t find motivation to do web design after spending all day sitting in front of my computer at work.
The same thing is true of photography. I took basic photography in middle school, two years in high school, and even a quick course in college.
I went from carrying my camera with me everywhere to rarely taking photos because I couldn’t afford film. Then I couldn’t afford a digital camera of decent quality.
So due to a variety of factors such as money, time, and interest, I’ve found my motivation to produce artwork in any form to be at an all-time low.
I want to change this.
I spent a good chunk of money buying myself a nice digital camera partly in the hopes of combatting this by at least removing the barriers that stood in my way of photography. I bought myself a nice small camera bag, and I’m trying to get back in the habit of carrying my camera with me whenever I go out.
I’m also trying to set up a photoblog on my website so maybe I can get in the habit of posting a photo every week.
The sad reality is that if you don’t use a skill on a regular basis it will atrophy and die. I look and the illustrations I did in high school, and the kinds of photos I used to take, and I have to admit that I was much better at that time than I am now, and it’s because I used to do art and photography every day.
The only way I’m going to get any better is to just start doing it all the time again.
Hmm… I set aside a half-hour every day to exercise - maybe I need to do the same thing for art.
I'm a 30-year-old 
A challenge!
After running the St. Patrick’s Day Dash here, I realized that running is something that still makes me happy. I have made a commitment with myself to run at least a few days a week, if not every day, and to continue to look for races to run in.
And also, I’ve felt the same way about my artistic outlets. In school, I had access to the tools of my artistic ventures, so I have a bit of an obstacle there, but there’s nothing stopping me from stealing paper and pencils from work, so I have no excuses.
Will you be posting your artistic ventures? I will join you in this commitment! I will set aside some time to persue my arts (photo, drawing, etc) and try to weekly post something to my site.
March 17th, 2004 at 12:21 pm
Damn. This sounds like something I should be in on. Not the photography part (though I will still continue to bring my magic camera to parties), but the drawing and exercising part.
It’s funny, but working on games all day can absolutely kill my creativity. I was reading through old word documents and flipping through drawing notebooks and found tons of ideas for games I wanted to make and stories I wanted to write. I don’t have those sorts of ideas anymore, or at least I don’t feel any motivation to record them.
I don’t have a website, though. You’ll have to take my word for it.
March 17th, 2004 at 4:40 pm
The gauntlet is down, dude. Challenge!!
March 17th, 2004 at 5:24 pm
Here’s a suggestion: the Fojar Art Wiki . . . we could set up a wiki and all of us could post our various artworks . . .
As for honing your skills, my suggestion is to have kids! My photography skills have stayed sharp because I’m not only trying to monitor my exposure and composition (I hate to crop photos, and insist on getting it right in the camera), but I’m trying to catch a moving target.
It helps.
March 17th, 2004 at 8:00 pm
count me in. and since i exercise my creativity all the freaking time, i should own you (all?) pretty readily. ;)
March 18th, 2004 at 1:12 pm
Whoo! The guantlet has indeed been thrown down. I’d better eat my words and get that photoblog set up and start thinking about time management a little more…
Are all of you going to post your art on your own websites, or should I set up a community site to keep us all motivated? (Miles already tried this once).
March 18th, 2004 at 3:32 pm
You should definetly set up a community to keep people motivated. I’ve been meaning to get back into photography, bought dark room supplies, etc etc etc, but I still seem to have no motivation. Going to DA motivates a little, but seeing other people in the same boat would really help move things along.
Just my two cents.;)
March 18th, 2004 at 5:36 pm