How Off-The-Mark Criticism Taught Me to Meet My Inner Artist Where She Is

When I stopped being the one investing all the effort into relationships and started matching their energy, my “friends” disappeared. Now I’m like the new kid on the playground, wondering if there’s a spot for her at the monkey bars. To build new connections, I created an account on <a href="https://meetup.com/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Meetup.com</a> and started attending events. No one can be my friend if they don’t know I exist. One meetup, a virtual draw-together event hosted by a visual arts school, sticks out in my mind like an itchy scab. Social stuff has always baffled me, but I was committed to bumbling through the session to find my place in the local arts community. On the day of the event, I sucked in a breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and forced myself to click the terrifying button that would plaster my face onto Zoom. At the beginning of the 1-hour get-together, the group leader gave us a reference photo of an attendee’s pet tortoise. She said we could use anything we wanted to create an art piece from the photo, so I whipped out my iPad. I started as a traditional artist, but since moving into a 300-square-foot space, I’ve learned to love creating digital art with the <a href="https://procreate.com/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">ProCreate app</a>. I noticed the attendees were older than me, and I was eager to learn from experienced artists. Excited about the assignment, I created a canvas and got to work. I found having a conversation while I was drawing tricky. But I enjoyed listening to them talk as I nursed my lukewarm coffee and concentrated on illustrating. <a href="https://medium.com/@nicolepdotme/how-off-the-mark-criticism-taught-me-to-meet-my-inner-artist-where-she-is-4ccbdbfd3854">Read More</a>