Many of you may have noticed that I have been submitting new artwork as of recent, thankfully due to taking classes for the first time since I was 17. Many develop one of two impressions of me as an artist:

The first is that I am technical, mechanical, logical. I work with computers, I enjoy numbers even though I'm not good at them. I love challenges working in that field. Those who know me there are surprised when they find I am also, loosely, an "artist." And I use this term in the strictest manner of the word: a person who creates art, or at least believes they do, I suppose.

The second is the person who meets me as an artist, gets to know me as an artist, then is shocked to find that I'm an IT technician, and working to become a network administrator. It takes some time in watching me work to realize that it is at the very least an equal passion to my artistry.

A few, a select few, knew me as neither, watched me grow, and watched as I developed into both.

This has become a dilemma for me, however.

I get good comments about my works, one person even comparing me to Da Vinci, which I take lightly because it was in reference to my mathematical composition of my works. Some days I enjoy looking at images. Other days, it's depressing. I somehow doubt that any of them have much more knowledge than I do. At least, of knowing the principles. I know and understand how shading works, that outlines create more animation than realism, how reflections work. I have an extensive knowledge of form, perception, parallax. However, for the life of me, I cannot create a realistic work. Turn an image to black and white, try to create the right shades in all the right places. It is either a failure or lacks the realism that many others can create.

It is frustrating.

I understand the techniques, but fail to accomplish them. Either of impatience or lack of talent, I am not sure which is more. I have studied countless paintings, drawings, etches, and whatnot. Down to fine details where I could pick out mistakes. I know I could do what I see, but that potential never comes to life. Briefly, in very fine moments, I have this capacity. I have created images that I could even deem to be proud of. Mania, they call it. Merely a side effect of a mental dysfunction. Which only leaves me all the more frustrated when I'm not in those times. When my work, that I put so much effort into, comes out at not even half the level of a work created within minutes in those dysfunctional times, I want to just drop it all and never return. But I do. Images enter my head and I try to get them down on paper, and it never quite comes out right.

I know it can be said that I have much more talent than many people, including here on dA (usually critical of their own work), however there may always be a frustration of unrealized potential.

I know that mechanics and art can blend. I have done, and seen it done. Not that I truly compare, but Da Vinci WAS a brilliant mind, which was capable of both. I certainly am no Da Vinci, but I sometimes wonder if, in early days, he was frustrated as well, trying to combine mathematics with a flood of images that beg to be given life.

I will continue. I don't think I could not. And I have seen my artwork, the uninspired, become better with practice. But I blame none of it on talent, which I think so many carelessly attribute to my functionality. It is merely an accumulation of skills that I have seemed to manage to put to use. Good or not, I have no idea. I can only hope that my skills will build in time to what I have seen myself do, and be able to do it while sane.

Completely unrelated: Journal Skins = Awesome!
And you shall all suffer for it.