Bjulvar's Sketchbook

[John]

Constant comparison to others, be it classmates or the industry, is very stressful. But it's also very focused and concentrated. Like a patterned maelstrom of reaction, you get sucked into it.

Have you tried doing a private sketchbook? Like a bunch of doodles or painting that you don't show to others. Your environment is a very competitive one, and there's no doubt that sometimes the pressure of that need to one up the guy next to you is crushing. 

I'm not saying competition is bad, but maybe it's a good idea to just do something for the sake of doing it. It's so easy to lose track of the reason why people do things in the first place. In your case, the people around you gave you that impression of drawing is a serious, throat cutting, one-upsmanship experience. Probably it's a good idea to reflect why you're in this business from the get go.

Sometimes, artists lose track of what attracted them into art in the first place. Drawing is fun. Creating something that wasn't there before is fun.

 I'm kind of over-stimulated in my brain in that there's so many ideas that want to escape but I don't feel good enough or have time to explore them.

A lot of people start off with that feeling of not being good enough. But ask yourself, will not being good enough stop you? No doubt that Stephen King has a boat load of crappy unpublished stories during the late 50's and only broke in with Salem's Lot during the late 70's. That was 20 years of him being "not good enough" before he wrote something that's widely accepted as "good".

Everybody starts at shit. Difference between the ones who make it and the ones who don't is the degree of how much that feeling would stop you from doing it.

So what if your art sucks. Or your creative ideas fail. At the end of the day, you are not your art.. People sometimes forget how resilient they really are.

I'm not proposing to shut everyone out. I'm just saying be open minded. Not just to be aware of other people's opinions, but also be aware of your own self dispositions. It's just that now, it sounds like you're a bit off-center.

That being said. You're alright! Good luck with the internship! Hope you have loads of fun!