I find myself struggling a lot to complete my own artwork. I'm illustrating a book right now which is super fun. But since I'm teaching art all day long and usually demonstrating how to do the kids' class assignments, I don't feel as motivated to do my own art later at home. Sure I try to do my own stuff during class, but when you have a pesky 7th grader asking you questions every 5 seconds...it kind of interrupts the creative process.
Any of you art teachers deal with this too? How do you get out of the slump of school artwork vs. your own artwork? I'm excited for the summer so I can be to my own thoughts, but that's only a few months of the year!
Plus I have this fear that my own work isn't good enough because I'm in the junior high art mindset so often. I don't want my art to be junior high art. Seriously I could do my own art show right? But wow that's putting yourself out there to be critiqued and what if "they" don't like it?! Scary! I need to get over my own fears and just do it, but how? I want to. I've always regretted not getting my BFA. Ugh. One day I'll get an MFA maybe. For some reason when I was younger I had this idea in my head that artists are not successful and I needed to do art where I could have a "job." I wish I would have had more people around me that could encourage me that YES you can be an artist AND make money. Don't get me wrong, teaching is fulfilling and honestly I think I'm pretty good at it. But a part of me wants to just be an "artist" with no other responsibilities.
How does one be an art teacher and an artist?
