I have been a bit more active on Instagram lately. One thing it’s particularly good for is exploring all the wonderful artists from around the world, many of which fly under the mainstream radar.
On Instagram, and any social platform for that matter, there is an unsaid pressure to be active and post regularly. I was able to do that for a while, but after a few days I started to run out of ideas. It’s not that I wasn’t working. I just didn’t have anything ready to put out to the public. After a few days of not posting anything, I could feel the pressure grow.
The problem is, being inactive to the public is often a necessary ingredient of good, meaningful work. You need time to think, create, and explore ideas. You need to shut-off influences from the outside world to let your ideas brew and come to life.
In this sense, pleasing the social media algorithms might mean compromising the quality of your work and your enjoyment in its creation over the long term.
This doesn’t apply to everyone. Some people work well in the public eye and are able to push out frequent works of high quality. But I don’t, and neither might you. Just some food for thought.
Happy painting!
Dan Scott
drawpaintacademy.com