So please, take it from someone who was just as enamored with early genAI as anyone else, who couldn't draw a recognizable human face six months ago:

You can learn art.

You can learn anything.

You can learn.

I have permanently shifted my perspective. I look at other peoples' art, at light and shadow, differently now. I have an understanding of how intention, experience, and context appear in an authentic work of art that no AI can replicate, because no AI has a lifetime of human experience to draw on.

Turns out passing down knowledge from generation to generation of artists for millennia means that we have very good, accessible instructions so that people who can't make art can turn into people who can make damn good art.

2. I learned the fundamentals of art.

Something you'll figure out if you try a few crafts or hobbies or art forms is that every seemingly impossible thing actually has a pretty straightforward set of steps to understanding and getting good at it.

So I put down the plagiarism machine and took a class, maintained consistent practice over the last six months, and I got two priceless things out of doing things the hard way:

1. I'm no master, but I got better at art than I ever thought I could and am still improving.

Reference by Filipp Romanovski on Unsplash: unsplash.com/photos/woman...

So excited for this!!

I was the artist being commissioned actually

They didn’t receive any art from me so there’s no real loss, I was wondering if this is the norm with commissions or if there is some kind of scam related to getting PayPal names/emails. My artist friend thinks he changed his mind and was just too awkward to simply tell me that, hoping that’s it

I didn’t go there to commission, I actually don’t advertise commissions at all. Someone commented on art I’d shared there and asked to commission me. I was skeptical initially, but the profile didn’t seem like a bot or scammer to me and the request seemed genuine up until they blocked me

I’m sketched out that it seems like they just wanted my PayPal info, but I have additional security set up on my account so I’d think they can’t really do anything with that. But idk

Of course! I try to be open about mental health, I grew up with a culture of silence and it’s no way to live. I’m always surprised how many people struggle with the exact same thoughts and feelings when I open up

You may also benefit from switching therapists if you feel like you need a new perspective or have learned all you can from your past one - every counselor or psychologist has a specialty and won’t necessarily be able to give you a complete picture