for happiness

• new good music
  • for dancing
  • for smoking
  • for drawing/painting
  • for drinking
  • for driving
  • for other recreational substances
  • for shooting pool in a dive bar, drinking scotch and gin
• long drives in the rain
• painting with a friend
• coffee
• tea
• playing...winning
• throwing darts
• making soulful music, your voice and fingers on an IV to euphoric and abysmal passions
  • singing
  • instrumental
• getting lost in a strange land, wandering

for despair

• beauty is fleeting, usually superficial
• you paint beautiful women but know the truth--that they would probably be shallow and uninteresting if you could breathe life into your canvas
  • cynicism and misanthropy poisoned the well that you used to draw from.
    • so don't get spent on loathing. use your misanthropy constructively. audit humanity. audit society. look at yourself, and drag that out for crucifixion, while you're at it. point to flaws. put solutions just out of their grasp. bring it closer, then take it away. that's what they get for being human--ha!
  • so paint real people who you feel passionately about, whether it's loathing or love. Or amusement.
  • there are enough subjects in the world that you don't need to make up the ludicrous Vogue or Vanity Fair runway model Mila Jovavitch/anime/mall/videogame/blockbuster hollywood characters that are all polish and no dimension. Real people, whether you care for them or not, and regardless of the degree, are infinitely more interesting.
  • Try to really SEE people. And illustrate that. Write about that. Go beneath the surface. Ridicule, drag out their darkest secrets. Not the boring secrets they know about--the secrets they keep from themselves. Create characters, build them up, then destroy them for being flawed. That should suffice.
• you wrote stories, but can't figure out the plot...like life
• living life is more interesting than writing about life. writing is comparatively boring. you only used to write because you never used to live. now it's just an archaic habit.
• you should work out more. :(
• you should finish what you start. :(
• you paint the head but forget the rest of the body
• what is the plot of a painting? what are they doing? where are they going? who knows and who cares? nothing, you're only interested in the face and the mind, the personality; pose? context? they're of no interest. How the hell can you ever be a good artist when you don't give a damn about context or pose?
• professionalism appears to demand these things. so what? so get creative. get over it.
  • paint tons of portraits. Just portraits. Let other people suck it up. Sure you should get good at everything, artwise, but it should suffice just to hone formidable portrait skills. Paint tons of characters. Animals. People. Faces. Textures. Styles. Colors. Shapes. Sizes. Challenge yourself, but not to the brink of utter despair. Although despair at sucking at least means that you're growing. (Despair + competition) + resolve = growth/improvement.
• As you said, those who abandon all that they amounted to.