Should I Post Drawings On Instagram

The Upsides of Social Media

If you're anything like me, you probably take a love/hate relationship with social media. It can be an amazing tool with huge benefits, specifically for artists like us. I use Instagram the most, and it'south helped me in numerous means:

Improved Productivity: I depict something every 24-hour interval and post it on Instagram.
Accountability: I'grand more probable to post a drawing each mean solar day (and thereforemake a drawing every solar day ) knowing that I've committed to it publicly on Instagram.
New Connections: I've met amazing artists from around the world through Instagram.
Inspiration: I see inspiring work created past other artists on Instagram, and it gives me ideas, influences me, and drives me to make more fine art.

Overall, I retrieve we're lucky to have this method of connecting with other artists around the world. Imagine how tiny our artistic world would be without it! Just the benefits of social media can quickly dissolve and gave manner to the darker side of social media.

The Downsides of Social Media

Instagram—and any other platform—tin become a harmful, stressful, and stifling space for artists with detrimental effects to our art. Every bit much as Instagram has helped me, information technology's also hurt me:

Decreased Productivity: I go along to Instagram to browse "simply for a minute", and suddenly an hour has gone past and I'g still staring down at my telephone instead of cartoon.

Pressure to Perform: Knowing I should mail service my work adds actress pressure to not only the deed of drawing, just besides in what I choose to depict, and I can autumn into the trap of wanting external validation.

New Comparisons: Seeing so many new and amazing artists can ofttimes morph into the comparison game, leading me to believe my work isn't good plenty.
Bad Intentions: I can draw something in my private sketchbook for the dearest of it, but if I draw something with the sole intention of posting information technology, the fine art can suffer. I brainstorm creating work for others, instead of for myself.

Take it from fellow Might Could Studiomate and super-inspiring artist, Linda:

"Information technology could be just me… Instagram is a great place for inspiration and connecting with like minds but if you are not conscientious it can be highly addictive and derail you from why nosotros're here in the outset identify. I'm glad I've found IG (sort of) and can say with certainty I've fallen in those pitfalls… simply I now consciously know that simply fifty-fifty that still takes energy that could all used elsewhere."

Information technology's not only Linda. And it's not just you or me. It's all of u.s.a.. We all struggle with how to play the game of social media and not lose our minds—and our fine art.

The Game of Social Media

We get so caught upwards in the game of social media, we beginning assertive nosotros have to play past the rules given to usa. Instagram is built to hold your attention for as long as possible and grab your eyeballs as oftentimes equally possible. They want you coming dorsum again and once more, for longer and longer. They tell you in club to win this game, you just have to post more, get more likes, and get more followers. The more than you lot sign in, the more you lot post, the more y'all become, and the more you win.

More, more than, more.

But I'm not here to tell y'all to delete all your accounts, give up social media completely, and kickoff protesting the tech world. Social media can be beneficial to u.s. artists, remember? I still want all those upsides!

The claiming is to proceed the upsides, but get rid of the downsides. Nosotros can stop letting social media lure u.s.a. in and rule the game, and instead we can take charge. We tin can exist in command. Nosotros tin can make our own rules.

So I'd like to share my social media philosophy with you. It's not perfect, and I definitely still slip-upwards from fourth dimension to time, only hopefully it can help y'all brainstorm to have back command of your social media tools. Because remember, these are tools that we use—nosotros don't take to allow them use the states.

Make Fine art for Y'all, Not for Likes

Social media and I are already at odds on ane major front: Social media does not similar mistakes and imperfections. And I love mistakes and imperfections. Social media likes squeaky-clean-polished work, gallery-ready fine art, and mag-photoshoot-ready desk shots. I like wandering process work, quick doodles, and my desk is always a mess.

Then what practise nosotros do? Do nosotros alter our work to cater to the stranger-filled-mass of Instagram? Do nosotros erase all the stray marks, clean upward our desk, and obsess over photo editing every fourth dimension we mail a drawing? Practise we change who we are to win the social media game?

We can and then hands become defenseless up in the pursuit of pleasing others, and social media amplifies that tendency. We begin to see trends in what people like, and we brainstorm to create for that random, cryptic group of people, when nosotros need to be creating just for one person: ourself.

"Never play to the gallery. Never piece of work for other people in what you do. Always remember that the reason you initially started working was there was something inside yourself that, if you could manifest it, you lot felt you would empathize more about yourself. I think it'due south terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other people's expectations." –David Bowie, musician

If you pander your art to getting likes, you'll probably find them. (Hot tip for the ladies: evidence some cleavage and I guarantee you'll get 500 likes instantly—it's easy! **puh-lease hear my vocalization dripping with sarcasm** ) If you cater to trends and popularity, you'll get the likes you wanted, simply you lot'll also cease up with art that doesn't experience like you. Y'all'll feel empty and unfulfilled in your piece of work, and your art volition reverberate that.

Alternatively, if you create the art y'all want, and y'all like, and that feels virtually like yous , you lot may or may not get 500 likes. Merely which is more than important in the long run? Finding your voice and making fine art you're truly proud of? Or finding a horde of 15,000 strangers who care about work you don't care about?

Peradventure you're thinking now: 'well that'southward easy for Christine to say, she has almost ii,000 followers and regularly gets 100 likes on her work.' Simply to me honest, that'south all new to me only within the last 6 months. I sat at ~200 followers for years, and I honestly don't actually know what happened lately to change that. I've been posting my work regularly on Instagram since 2013 and it's taken this long to go more than than 2-3 likes on a postal service—including my mom.

Allow me tell information technology to you straight: likes don't matter. I know it feels so much like they practise, but trust me, having a bunch of likes won't make yous feel any better about your work.Your goal of what is an adequate corporeality of likes will just keep climbing higher and college the more than y'all get—it'southward a constantly moving, unachievable goal.

You think you'll exist satisfied and validated when you lot get l likes a post. And so you decide it'south 100. Then 500. And so you run into that artist over there gets 2,000 likes on every drawing! Why can't I go 2,000 likes on my drawings?! Information technology never ends.

"A goal is something that goes away when you hit it. Once yous've reached it, it'south gone. You lot could always set some other i, only I but don't function in steps like that… I approach things continuously, not in stops. I but want to continue going — whatever happens forth the manner is just what happens." Jason Fried, author + CEO of Rework

And gauge what—it makes no sense what people like, and it's close to impossible to conceptualize! (Besides, cleavage and puppies. Those are solid bets.) Sometimes I'll spend 2 hours on a drawing, think it'due south amazing, postal service it, and… crickets. Information technology gets 15 likes. Other times, I'll spend literally 2 seconds on a cartoon, call back it's terrible, mail it, and… out come the cheers and hooplas and 100 likes! What gives?! That thing was terrible!

People'south opinions are weird and unpredictable. There's no sense or reason to cater your art to what yous call up other people like. Yous'll usually exist incorrect, and if you happen to exist right—cough, cleavage—it'll lead y'all down an even worse path of inauthenticity and deep defoliation in your art.

We can't control what other people think of our work or how ofttimes they similar it on social media. We tin just command how much effort, time, and thought we put into making our art. Nosotros can just command how much of ourselves we put into our art. We can simply keep exploring, keep drawing, and keep sharing.

Do what y'all have to do to make social media work for yous. Notice other outlets for sharing your piece of work if yous take to. I simply want you to make more art. And I desire you to share your art, because I want to see information technology.

When you lot make art you love, art that makes yous happy to create, other people volition see that, and they'll like it. And I mean they'll really like it, not just tap an empty middle icon on a screen.

You have to make art for you, not for likes. You have to brand the art that speaks to you. You lot accept to make the art you like.

And that's the only similar that matters.