Make The Art That Makes You Feel Good – A Ramble « PekoeBlaze

Well, I thought that I’d talk about one way to get inspired again, namely just asking yourself “What art would make me feel good right now?“. For context, I’d been going through several months where I had often been uninspired with the original art I made for next summer/early next autumn. I was still making daily art but, every fortnight, I’d maybe only make three or four good semi-digital paintings. The rest were often mediocre at best.

This was due to a combination of factors, including being busy with other stuff, being stressed out about various things and also the fact that my personal art journal was where I went whenever I wanted to make any deeply meaningful or emotional art. Without the pressure of an audience, I could express myself a lot more and get a lot more emotional benefits from the art I made in there. Also, random worries that people would get bored if I didn’t constantly post drastically different paintings. In that context, I sometimes had less enthusiasm or inspiration for the art that I post online.

This all changed in about mid-April this year. After some seriously depressing and dystopian things in the press over here, I needed every source of sanity and peace that I could find. And I was actually smart enough to ignore my “inner critic” and tell myself that “Your own sanity takes priority over variety” and, in my original art sketchbook, I started making a series of paintings that actually felt good to make. Yes, virtually all of the paintings have very similar character designs and vaguely similar costume designs, but just the fact that I was now including things like dramatic compositions, occasional dynamic poses etc… again felt amazing.

Here’s a full-size preview of one of the semi-digital paintings and I’ll explain the emotional process behind it:

(Click for larger image) This digitally-edited painting should hopefully be posted here in early November next year.

Why was this painting such a feel-good painting for me? First of all, although the setting is fairly “timeless”, I decided to set it in 2004 – a time before all of the current stresses. The rainy weather was one of my favourite types of weather, with the staticky background fog not only helping the character to stand out visually, but also being a bit of a hat-tip to the original “Silent Hill 2” (2001) – a game which I first played in about 2002-5. I also absolutely love contrast in art, not just visual but also emotional too – hence why the character is smiling and joyously dancing in weather that most people consider “depressing” for some weird reason.

The costume design was partially inspired by an outfit I vaguely remembered seeing someone wearing in about 2004-6, although I had to change the design on the hoodie from the logo for HIM’s “Love Metal” (2003) album (another awesome piece of early-mid 2000s nostalgia) to a more generic pentagram design. And, although gothic rock is one of those “When I’m in the mood for it” genres (if you’re new to it, start with The Sisters Of Mercy, Obsidian, Creeper and/or The 69 Eyes), the goth subculture is a really cool one. Even if, in terms of musical subcultures, I probably fit more into the “metal-head” one.

The bridge was partially inspired by a bridge I remembered from the time I spent in the amazing town of Aberystwyth during the 2000s. I could go on for a long time, but it was a mood-boosting painting.

Anyway, the whole point of this is that – sometimes – you just need to make art that feels good on an emotional level. You have to ignore whatever you think will get the most views or worries about making “repetitive” art or whatever and just make the art that actually genuinely makes you feel good when you draw or paint it. It can be nostalgic art, stylised art, political art, fan art or whatever. But one of the ways to get inspired with art is just to make art that actually makes you feel good when you are making it.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂