Yes. As I said in my last news post it was extremely likely that this break (or rather, deceleration) was going to happen, and I am now informing you that it has. This post is mainly as a way of reaffirming it to myself but I'm also attaching a couple of explanations since I think they would be helpful to anyone who might find this decision strange.
-Why do I need this break/deceleration?
To start off I would like to make it clear that this is not because I'm burnt out. In fact, I am so far from that that my being this way is itself sort of the issue. Basically, I've been spending too much time on art, to the point where I feel like I've forgotten how to invest my time in other things. Being as I have many hobbies and interests outside of art and, more importantly, am in university for something generally entirely unrelated to art (in the sense of drawing at least), I don't like that recently I've let art sort of eclipse the rest of my identity.
-What other interests?
Several, but for the big ones there's literature (both reading and writing) and music (both listening and making the stuff.) Going to uni for electrical engineering. Most of these things are incompatible with drawing, at least at the same time.
-Right then. Well, if I've been spending so much time on art, where is it?
Well, some of it (quite a bit of it in fact) is in this forum thread, and some of it has been the type of stuff I only share in what I would describe as intimate environments so it hasn't gotten shared here. The reason that the stuff hasn't left that forum thread is that I haven't viewed any of the images therein as, as it were, worthy of their own art submission.
-OK, but surely if those drawings are "quite a bit" of what I'm doing I can't be spending that much time on them, right?
You would think, but I draw with a mouse. Part of the reason that I currently don't have any plans to make a living off of art is that I draw with a mouse. It's slow, and I shouldn't do it, but I do, and I really do need to find the opportunity to learn how to draw digitally with...not a mouse, but as of now that's how I be and there's nothing doing.
-Will this mean I stop posting art?
Nah. What I mean by deceleration is considerably limiting the amount of time per day I spend on drawing to hopefully make use of it for other stuff. In fact, I will be posting some art a couple of days from now, hopefully, though that one is mainly a compilation of things I did before starting this.
-Who are you anyway?
I dunno man. Who are you? Who can truly say who they are in these tumultuous times?
-When will this end?
Almost definitely by the time my exams finish, and it's unlikely I stop before then. If something happens that makes me keep this going after the fact I'll try and make another post explaining what's up.
In the meantime here's something from a project I've been off and on about since I know people like to see pictures to keep them entertained: