The Woes of a Misunderstood Artist

Today, I was very happy and bubbly and energetic just like I usually am. Then, an unfortunate incident occured that put a little damper on my spirits (good thing it's the end of the day so it won't affect the rest of it.)

First, I need to explain a little something. I see myself as an artist, not like a specific artist like a painter or anything, but an artist of many talents. I write, paint, sketch, draw, use various mediums, the whole nine yards. Well, to be fair, I'm a Poet artist. I'm a poet first and foremost, then an artist in many senses of the word.

So, today - well, now that I think about it, it's been an ongoing thing for a while - someone close to me, whom I view as a great artist and a great inspiration, discredited me as an artist. Here's how it went... *coolie flashback vortex*

We're sitting around the table, a friend that we just met sitting beside us. We're still getting to know this guy so he says to us, "Which one of you is the artist?"
My someone-that-is-close-to-me immediately says, "I am."
Come on, let's be fair we're both artists, I put in.
"No, I am." then she proceedes to talk to this friend about her art and blah blah blah.

*coolie vortex ends*

I'm left there, feeling put down and discredited and....I don't know how to describe it. It's like telling someone they can't be who they are, they can't be short or can't be a woman. I already knew this person doesn't respect me as an artist and that was fine (she respects me as a writer, but not an artist), but to totally bash me like that was...cruel. No matter how good my work is, no matter how hard I try, she can't see me as an equal. I see now that I've never shown my work to anybody because if she can't respect my art, how can others? If the one person I trust everything to can't accept me and be my equal, then how can I let myself be exposed to others?

Maybe I just think too highly of this person's approval. I don't need approval from anyone to be who I am and to vent my creativity....

....

It still hurts.

Digital Get Down

Ok, so I'm kind of prejudice when it comes to art. I don't like digital art, to me, it just seems like it doesn't take true talent to make, same with abstract. Well, I took some pictures and experimented with some digital effects and stuff. It's not as easy as I thought! While I still prefer traditional art, digital art isn't so much a taboo thing anymore.

Here are a few pictures I touched up/altered on the computer. (I took the pictures first then messed around with them.)

This one is called Violets are Blue. It was actually very complicated to make this picture. I wanted the floweres to be a really strong blue, but then they took away from the rest of it. To fix that, I cut the leaves and the grassy part in the corners and put them on a new layer so that I could sharpen their color without changing anything else. Then I had to soften the reds a little in the top corner. Part of the rocks ended up on a different layer so that I could move the leaves around. I finally got it all together, just the right hues and everything. Va-la!

This one is Star of the Show. Really all I did to this picture was tone down the orange (the light when I took the picture made it look very very orange) and take out my palm from the background. Oh yeah, I also cropped it and took out the other half of the apple so it was more balanced.

Fountain of Stars. I just adjusted the contrast so that the trees were really dark and the water was brighter. I toyed with the idea of somehow putting shooting stars coming out of the water like droplets of water, but I figured it looked good like this (and it was too complicated to figure out XD.)

Life is a Balancing Act. This one is the most drastically changed and digitalized. I took a picture of my foot on a cement ball that we have in our drive way. Then, I edited out the ball and put the Earth in its place. I didn't intend for the background to end up like that, but I was messing around with renderings and stumbled upon this one that I thought looked cool. After it rendered though, I had to move it around and change the radius so that it was behind the Earth and looked like it was...well how it is.