UPDATE // goodbye, 2022!

Loish

that sounds incredibly rough and I totally understand why you would want to leave that situation. I hope you're safe right now!

Alex

Hope my 2023 will much better that 2022. I used to live in Russia till this year, but then war started and it was terrible to find out that your home cant be home anymore. So my year was full of documents, tickets and countries. Hope my 2023 will be great and peaceful and full of art)

Alex

Hi! Your kitties are so cute! Thanks for this post, I feel inspired by it)

Wictorian-art

It seems like you've had a lot of fun so far! Been fun to see your journey here. I really like the new take on your Patreon and do hope I'll have the time to participate on the challenges. The only thing I got around doing was the lineart for the flame dtyis, no colors. Hope 2023 will be more of joining in on these ^^

Loish

try linking your discord account to your patreon account, you should automatically be added then: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/212052266-How-do-I-connect-Discord-to-Patreon-Patron- if you've done that already, try disconnecting and reconnecting. you should get access to the server as soon as you've done that!

Loish

definitely! I've been there which is why I decided to set up this patreon page - as a way to force myself to make more personal art and really commit to it.

Wictorian-art

2022 was a year with little art, and especially personal art. I mostly did art for work, or freelance. I do hope to change that in 2023, and focus more on fun challenges or things I really want to create. Always making art for others isn't that inspiring 😆

Sharon Tu

Where is the discord for this? So that I can share.

Loish

I agree, I think AI could be quite helpful for various purposes. things like content-aware fill and the spot healing brush are already great. and I think using machine learning tools for science and medicine can do incredible things. but for commercial uses I think that it needs to adhere to a different set of rules, since fair use doesn't really cover commercial uses. they are indeed the most curious cats! they want to understand everything and need to inspect every space. it's very cute to see! I wish you the best of luck with your artistic goals this year :)

Fabian Watermeier

Interesting to hear that. Not everything that comes from AI is bad but it is bringing change and I can understand the fears. Just as an info, most of the time AI does not understand what "two legs/arms" means or what is "well formed". Anything AI generated comes with bugs (visible or not) and the best ones are more or less coincidence. Makes one wonder if it was not easier to draw it yourself anyway. Or it has to be fixed which is also extra work. Cats seem to have the most curious expressions ("what are you doing?") but maybe it is their relaxed face. We always tend to compare it with human faces. May the force be with them. It seems working on shading had unexpected results, so I might have to intensify that. I would like to be able to express the things as they are in my head. It feels far away but I think I am getting there eventually. While tools or the way we create might change I will continue to create what I need to do and everything will follow this path where my heart is in it. No matter what you release, there is not much sense to it if your heart is not in it.

Loish

that's wonderful! best of luck with developing your skills in 2023 :)

Loish

gouache is a great medium! sounds like you've got some ambitious but also fun and attainable goals set for yourself, very exciting!

Loish

that's so great! once you've integrated something into your routine, it's a perfect time to think about improving and honing our skills. best of luck with keeping that momentum going in 2023!

Loish

that sounds like a great goal to have! looking forward to seeing your art in the server :)

Loish

that's exciting! wishing you the best of luck!

Loish

so sorry to hear that! sometimes we need to go through phases like that to be motivated to do things differently. i also had a rough year but overall i feel i grew a lot, so it was worth it in many ways!

Loish

thank you! I am in awe of them every day honestly, haha.

Loish

thanks! one of them was already called obi so the choice to rename the second one chewie was easy :)

Cat names are awesome)

I enjoy your kitty stories so much! I can't wait to see more art from you again this year! Gelukkig nieuwjaar <3

Cherice

Your kitties are beautiful!!

Rob Callicotte

Charging onto 2023! Happy New Year, Lois. Looking forward to what we will do this year.

The kitties are adorable! 2022 I’m happy to leave behind. It was a tough year of growth. I think I spent most of the year crying, lol. But I’m ready to take the lessons I learned into 2023. I hope everyone had a happy new years!

Klara Art

My goals for 2023 are focus more other stuff then drawing. I am beginning work out and more studying English. And my biggest goel is get to the university and master admission exams.

SaliuAi

2022 brought out alot of improvements from me and I'm happy with that. 2023 is the year i take it a step further and develop my illustrations skills, so I'm excited for this year

Kat Craig

2022 was kind of a blur for me. I know I wanted to create more pieces with backgrounds, and I've done two. I'm pretty ok with that. I think I want to expand on that in 2023, but also expand on my skills by creating more viz dev elements like props, scenery etc. I'm excited to see what the future brings :)

I hit my 6 month mark a few days ago! I started drawing digitally in June and made a goal to make it part of my routine--I’m really happy I’ve managed to do that. My goal for the next few months is to focus more on refining the skills I’ve learned so far. Expressions and hands are at the top of my list, but I want to get more comfortable with poses and gestures. Overall I feel more confident in my art than I did months ago and hope to keep that energy in 2023!

cloudie s

in 2023 I’d like to go back to my quest of improving at drawing masculine people (and just generally people of varied faces and body shapes) and multi-character compositions. I’d like to improve on anatomy so that I feel more comfortable with full-body drawings; I did several copies of my Morpho books this fall and I’m gonna go back to it because it really made certain parts of the face click for me. and I want to continue doing various animal studies because I really enjoyed the ones I did. I also got a student gouache set and I’m excited to tool around with that!

Melody

My goals for 2022 were to make drawing a regular habit and to make enough new art to do Art vs Artist. I haven't had a regular practice in 10 years. I achieved both so I'm feeling great about 2023. Art was my first love and it's good to be back. Next year is going to be developing my style and tackling things I've always struggled with like backgrounds and hands.

Loish

i'm glad i'm not the only one, i think this is what makes human art appealing.. the way that it's a reaction to the things we experience in life!

Dominique

2022 was busy and chill at the same time 😅 I’m ready to start the new year fresh and do all of my art goals. I want to get back at just making more art in general. I feel like I didn’t do as much during 2022 and need to get into the habit.

2022 was really chaotic for me, especially art wise. I lost a huge amount of data and work in the middle of the year that put the bigger plans I had on hold for a while. I was able to bounce back surprisingly quickly. Even though it's been stressful, the end feels really rewarding and has me pumped up for 2023

Aurelia de Bouard

I feel the exact same. I was having this reflection yesterday when I saw myself going back to my art mark from my teen age with more pink pastel tone and when I question it the answer was to differentiate from what I see in AI that reveal the trend. I want to explore more my roots and what really please me instead of what please other. Beautiful letter that you write today. It speak to me a lot! ❤️ thank you Loish