Question for the artists of lainchan

Would you agree with me if I say that there are basically 2 different states of mind when it comes to art, in the sense of either, "You're making art for fun" or "You're actively trying to improve"? Because everyone says, "Making art should be fun!" but it feels kinda paradoxical, because usually the less fun I'm having in art, the more progress I'm making. Obviously progress CAN be fun, but it's also often very difficult, uncomfortable, time-consuming, and awkward. On the other hand, if you're not really concerned with progress, then making art is generally way more fun & enjoyable, but you also tend not to "grow" much this way either. And so often times, if you see an artist who you used to love start putting out mediocre work, then it's less likely they "lost" their abilities and more like they just stopped 100% putting in the effort, because the existential reason they once had to try so hard just disappeared. But what do you guys think?

I don't think because it si 3am

>>101287 If it’s something you’re truly passionate about then you won’t mind putting the effort in. Not to mention people have a negative view of effort/discipline because of our heavily optimization focused self help culture that’s drip fed to us online. Basically, the idea that you have to suffer endlessly to improve every square inch of your life rather than just taking small sensible steps towards accumulative gains. I read somewhere that if you only read 15 pages a day you could read the entirety of Ulysses, Brothers Karamazov, In Search of Lost Time, and several other novels within a year. If you practice perspective drawing for only 15 minutes a day that’s 1h45m (105 minutes) which is 420 minutes a month which is 5,040 minutes a year (84 hours). That’s 84 hours of drawing improvement that compounds with experience you accumulate while drawing for fun. Which I guess doesn’t answer your question, but I guess I’m trying to say that demarcating art between these two groups, to me, seems to imply some inherent hyperbole about the pain of self improvement and conflict between improvement and fun.

>>101287 To me, "fun" is reductive. Enjoyment is not proportional just to fun but can be derived from the process, the difficulties of improvement. Even when progress is not obvious, there can be a joy in doing something difficult. "Fun" is the wrong word to use I think.