I wanted to introduce myself and, for the first time, share the little story behind this drawing and how it has impacted me.
Over 2 months ago I was in my graduate class doodling while the professor worked through his material. Having the attention span of a snail (which I assume is very little), I had found that doodling was ironically the one thing I could do that would allow me to stay engaged to a lecture for the space of 4 hours(graduate class is at night 2 times a week so our classes last 4 hours). For the past 1.5 years, doodling was my routine. I attribute it to helping me maintain a 4.0 in my Healthcare Administration program. Also part of my routine was to toss my doodle on the way out the door, as it had served its purpose. This was the fate of at least 60-70 other pictures I had created up to this point and time and this picture was slated for the same routine.
However, this time somebody found it before it met its demise and grabbed it from me. Worried that my image as the frivolous note taking student was soon about to change into the student who draws curves during class, I embarrassingly braced for whatever comment was about to shoot forth from my classmates mouth. "Wow, this is awesome!" she said. I looked up at her to hunt for the sarcastic look that I assumed would accompany such a comment but I never found one. "You should not throw away your art, you should keep it" she said.
Surprised at the positive attention for my random doodle, I sat on her comment for the next couple days. I wondered if she was an anomaly or if there was a possibility that there were others who also liked my art. By nature I am my own worst enemy. Up till this point I had never really thought that my doodles could even be considered art.
I took a chance and posted a picture as artwork on reddit. A large part of me was prepared for the negativity that I felt I deserved so I also had a plan to delete the post soon after too many negative comments hit my inbox. It never happened. I became astonished that people really seemed to like the post. Then the comment that changed everything. Someone requested to color it. I thought to myself, reddit should have a coloring book so people that want to color others artwork have a place to go. I created r/redditcolor for that purpose.
I posted other pieces of art to the new subreddit and slowly subs started to trickle in. A couple days after I get a message from a user who tells me that he has aspergers and that although he only liked straight line art, he really enjoys my art to the point that he prints it out and places it on display.
That was all the motivation I needed to make sure I kept filling r/redditcolor with content. It drove me to continue and improve my control and post all the pictures I make during lecture.
Not much longer I get another direct message. Somebody asked me to sell them an "original". As a father of 4 who is a professional at barely staying afloat, I said sure! I thought it was a scam but I had nothing to lose. I asked him, what is it worth to you? He told me $250. "These Nigerian prince scams have really changed" I thought. Although the money would have helped I assumed it was a scam. It had to be a scam. However, he pushed further and asked how I would like the money. I gave him my venmo account and within the hour the money appeared. I was shocked. How could this happen? These were doodles. I was excited but then sickened when another message popped up from him. "I also would like this other picture". He linked an older drawing that had met the trashcan fate. Not longer after his purchase of my art, it felt like a hurricane of commissions swept through.
In a panic I reached out to a community of pen lovers to get advice on better pens for my art. A random redditor messaged out of the public eye and offered to send me a variety of pens so that I could see which ones worked for me. He did this for nothing in return. I accepted his generosity and within a week I had over 100 different pens to test. I asked him why and he told me "because I want you to continue making your art".
To say that these last 2 months have been anything but humbling would be a mistake.To this day, I am drawing any chance I get to keep up with the commissions. The moral is that I undervalued my worth because I felt I never met a bar that actually did not exist. I justified why I was not allowed to be an artist because I had chosen to be a healthcare professional instead.
I have since accepted that I can be both. I now know that my art holds value to someone else. It means a lot to me and I cherish every compliment I get. I have chosen to improve my art and it has led me to so many new avenues. It is also how I ended up here.
Thank you to all of the people who spoke up to me and helped me see the value in my art. It has helped me realize how important it is to compliment others because you never know how it might impact them.
TLDR: My name is Tyler and I am a healthcare professional and an artist. I am happy to be here.
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Hi, welcome to SteemIt. Good luck on your Steem journey and I wish you the best. I've been here since 2016 but it was only last June when I fully committed to take Steem seriously. Please feel free to read my STEEMJOURNEY.
Here are also some tools that I use and I hope you can find them useful too:
Cheers
Neil
Wow that's a really cool story into your journey as an artist! I used to do the same thing as you in school where on the way out from class I threw it in the trash bin, in my case most of them belonged there tho.
Haha I had to laugh at the part where he asked to buy your doodle you had thrown out, ouch!
Yeah a lot of artists undervalue their art, I know someone here on Steem as well who blames it on "being too new and unknown to ask for higher prices", oh well at least by posting their art at the same time and staying invested for the future it won't come back to haunt them as much when they become really popular and their early works start selling for a lot more!
Great to have you on Steem and hopefully it'll be a nice addition to your short but successful journey as an artist so far!
Thanks for being a part of my journey!
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That is a great entry story into the world of art and I wish you a warm welcome to Steem too. You have a quirky style that I think will resonate with many around the world - good luck!
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Hi and welcome here! When I started on steemit, my biggest problem was to find interesting people to interact with. So, to help newcomers getting started I created a directory with other interesting and or talented steemians to follow or interact with. Feel free to check it out at https://www.steemiandir.com I am sure it will help you find like-minded people. Enjoy your stay here and do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions!
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Welcome to Steemit myopart. The official FAQ can be found here and has A LOT of information https://steemit.com/faq.html - Also remember, Steemit is just ONE of the sites built that uses Steem the blockchain. You should also check out DTube and DSound for starters and if you're a gamer, Splinterlands! There are many other cool apps but I can't list them all here, there's just too many! But I'd also like to mention Steempeak, it's a better blogging platform that has a lot of cool features. The latest project you should also check as a new member is a palnet! Welcome to the blockchain! :) Oh, and if you're interested in creating your own tokens or smart contracts, check Steem engine!
This is such a great story! Thank you for sharing it with us. Sounds like a real ripple effect happened for you which started with having the courage to share your work - keep on doing so! :-)
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It was definitely something that spawned through the summation of kind words and encouragement from multiple people. Thanks for reading! I look forward to contributing more
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That is an awesome story and shows, that it sometimes only takes one genuine comment of a person, to totally change your own perception of what value your creations have :)
Keep at it, I really like looking at it, it is somehow soothing!
The rest of the story simply is amazing, not only have you conquered your fear of not feeling worthy enough for sharing your art, no you even created a space to share your creativity with others who would like to participate.
And KUDOS to people like this selfless stranger who sent you 100 pens just to further support you and your art.
Just out of curiousity, are you still in contact with him and thanked him appropriately? I hope so ;D
Arriving any day now should be a picture that I made for him with one of the new pens he sent me. I did not tell him I made him one because at the time I was in over my head from commissioned projects. It will be a surprise to him whenever it arrives.
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Wow, that is awesome!
Love to hear that, people like him are the real saints of this world, selflessly supporting wherever they can :)
that is really awesome! - good work I wish I could do that :)
By the way, as I see you are still quite new to steem. You might want to check out the recent addition of tribes/tokens.
They are more focused communities for different purposes (sharing gaming content, art, photography, essays, etc.)
and therefore gets your content out to more people that might be interested in the specific topics!
This post for example could have been tagged with: palnet (very supportive community for nearly all types of content),
creativecoin (especially for art) and probably even more.
Your content will be shown in the respective front-ends and you can earn multiple tokens that have some value, besides STEEM ofcourse!
I'll be following you and looking forward to more doodles ;)
Another thing, are you familiar with "Sacred Geometry"?
Your style reminds me of that :)
I am not but I will look Into it!
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Thanks for the advice. I am still very green here
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Hello!
This post has been manually curated, resteemed
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Much love to you from all of us at @helpie!
Keep up the great work!
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Hey! Thanks you so much!
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Good post
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I second @acidyo and say that is an awesome story... a multipotentialist you are. Funny I too just posted the other day about my doodling and a follow up to that doodle just now.
Great to have you here on Steem.
ps, I believe one of my co-workers, before heading out for medical leave, left a doodle note similar to your drawing... I will have to a take a pic of it now and post it here for you to see. All these coinkie dinks.... I think not.
Thank you so much for being an awesome Partiko user! We have just given you a free upvote!
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Welcome onboard
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This is an excellent story! I too was drawn in by the image, so these persons aren't wrong. There's something very lively about this 'doodle', as though it is a breathing entity rather than simply in on refined trees.
I too am a doodler and it seems that you may have inspired me to begin sharing as well. Swirls, curves, and triangles tend to be what my in ends up as.
**Welcome to Steem Aritist Tyler **
Thank you anaclark! I appreciate your critique and kind words. I look forward to see your work as well
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