A Weekend Q/A: Session 2.

I couldn’t go live this weekend because of reasons, but I still wanted to go ahead with this Q/A session that I have decided to do every single week. So I put up a question sticker on my Instagram and asked people to leave me questions about writing and art, and I am not surprised to have received more questions about art than I did about writing, which is perfectly fine by me because I love interacting with my readers.

In case you have more questions to ask me, fret not; I will be going live every weekend for a Q/A with all of you, or I’ll put up a question sticker that I will definitely respond to every question that I’ve been asked. If there are way too many, I will probably answer them in next week’s post. Either way, I’ll never get tired of answering these questions.

Here are the questions I got this weekend:

1. What was the inspiration for your latest digital sketch? 
I really miss standing on the rocks by the seaside at Bandra Fort during the low-tide. I can’t go there right now, considering how things are outside. I used to go there all by myself, sit on the rocks and either sketch or write while I watched the waves crash over and over until my notebooks were sprayed with water. The sketch was also originally supposed to go along with my poem Tides of Memory, but because it took so long to make, I had to post them separately.

Made some art today, you guys! Please validate. ✨ pic.twitter.com/pDA7mk8vYa

— Shubhangi Srinivasan (@_The_Shubhster_) September 16, 2020

2. How long do you usually take to complete a sketch (traditional and digital)?
Traditional sketches/ paintings take me anywhere between a few minutes to 10-12 hours, depending upon their size and complexity. When it comes to digital sketches, it takes me way longer because I don’t use a stylus for sketching; I sketch on my laptop using my mouse cursor, so it’s slightly more difficult. My digital sketches take me anywhere between 12 hours to 3-4 days, depending upon how detailed I want them to be. My recent sketch took me 3 days to make!

3. What’s your take on artists struggling hard to get some reach these days? 
The whole ‘It costs $0 to RT an artist’ thing started because people simply would ‘like’ a tweet/ post and then scroll away from it. The thing about getting any kind of reach on social media is that you need to be as interactive as possible. Your interactions with the artists’ works are what help them gain the reach that their works deserve. Instagram is always messing with the algorithm and pushing celebrities posts to the top and burying art way down. Everyone who tells artists to ‘try harder’ to gain reach is forgetting the fact that they need to interact with the artist if the artist needs to gain reach, too! It goes both ways.

4. Why do you think it’s important to support the smaller accounts rather than the big, famous ones?
Well, everyone has started somewhere! But, I think that smaller accounts are often overlooked in the whole clout-chasing game that social media has now become. People want to keep up with the more ‘famous people’ to stay ‘relevant’, and frankly, for the gossip! It’s not like you need to be a big account to gain recognition. But, if, as a friend, you can’t even support your artist friends by interacting with them or sharing their posts instead of promoting celebrities’ posts all the time, you’re being a grade-A ass because you fail to support the ones closest to you.

5. Tell us about your favourite character(s) and character growth from books/ series. 
I think that my all-time favourite character growth is Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Everyone says that the show is for kids, but I think that it has a lot more to offer when you watch it at a more mature stage in life. There is just so much growth there. I think that Jo March’s character growth (Little Women) from being an angry little woman to a mature, understanding and independent woman is also one of my favourites. Another one of my favourite character growths is Caroline Forbes from The Vampire Diaries (the CW adaptation!); I think that the way she went from being a high-school mean girl to a strong character is really admirable. Something about characters being strong after losing everything just gives you the hope that you’re going to be okay. My current favourite character growth is John Murphy from CW’s adaptation or Kass Morgan’s The 100.

6. Do any of your favourite characters from series/ movies/ books inspire your writing/ art? 
Only all the time! I always take away something or the other from anything I watch or read. I think that it helps me bring a whole new dimension to my writing. The more I read/ watch, the more I know what exactly I need my writing to be like. I wouldn’t copy a trope or anything, but I would definitely like to incorporate certain styles of writing here and there within my own style of writing.

7. Does writing every day feel like a chore? Do you feel the pressure to keep up the streak? 
No! Never. I love to write. Initially, I kept this up because I wanted to see how long I could keep the streak going, but now, it has become a part of my daily routine. I have started a lot of things that I left incomplete along the way and I couldn’t ever dream of doing the same thing with my writing.

8. What made you venture into digital art? 
Nothing in particular, really. I just decided that I wanted to expand my skill-set because I am always learning new things, so I gave digital art a shot. I’m still working things out, but it has been fun.

9. How do you do the glowy/ sparkle thing in your digital sketches? It looks magical. 
Thank you so much! I like that people actually notice these details because they’re what make my sketches, well, me. There’s two things you need to know here. One, you need to change the tip of your glow pen to a sparkle shaped nib. Two, play around with the settings of the pen such as the size randomness, space randomness, rotation randomness etc. until you get the desired sparkle effect.

10. What career options do you have, as a writer? 
It depends on what kind of writing you want to do, really. You could be a resource content writer, a creative content writer, a script writer, an editor, a columnist, a poet, a short-story writer, a published author, a blogger, a motivational speaker— you just need to know what kind of writing you want to do. Always be on the lookout for opportunities, but also be bold enough to take risks with your writing.

That’s all the questions from this weekend! There weren’t too many questions but I’ve always believed in quality over quantity and I genuinely loved answering the set of questions that I got this week!

Until next week,
Yours truly,
The Shubhster.

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Hey guys! I hope you liked this post. Let me know in the comments below or share with someone you might wanna show this to! You can also reach out to me and say ‘Hi’ on Twitter and Instagram. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.
Yours truly,
The Shubhster.

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Featured Image by Emily Morter on Unsplash