10th anniversary. Woo woo! If middle-school me knew I would still be friends with Nicole after all these years, he'd proabaly think it was a cruel joke meant to torment his awful bleak world. But yeah, ten years of doing a major project. The evolution for this is weird.
Nicole used to be my best friend, and she held that spot for a VERY long time. I also used to have a crush on her but didn't feel right asking her out until I deemed myself "good enough." Part of that was surpassing her in art. I didn't really surpass her until it was much too late. Its proabably for the better things played out that way.
In middle school and throughout high school, she was probably the most beautiful person I had ever known, and as an artist, I had to capture that. I tried, but it wasn't great. But she inspired me to try harder.
Quick art history note. There was a guy named Rembrandt. He's dead now, but before that he used to make a self-portrait every year. That was cool. It was a rare instance where he could document his change/growth as an artist and person year by year. As cool as that sounds, I was (and still am) the ugliest person I know. So while I did it to become a better artist, I also felt drawing Renee would be a nice balance.
Renee set a very high bar, so it wasn't easy catching up. At the risk of sounding supremely arrogant, I didn't even pay attention to my classmates work because no one ever came off as a viable threat. Sure, some people had short bursts of greatness, but Renee was consistenly beating my ass in the art game. Some people actually did worry on the side as I was pushing myself to the limit to make good work. Bad work is okay every now and again, but unacceptable from me.
I honestly thought I peaked during drawing class in college when I drew her. Between the beautiful graphite portrait and the detailed elementary school, I knew I hit a ceiling. Or, I thought I did. In retrospect, this is a stupid thing to get hung up on, but it did affect me when she didn't like the work on social media. That told me I was nowhere near done. If she did like it, I was ready to call things good and maybe move on to something else. Its probably for the better things played out that way.
I believe that if you do something nice for someone, the transaction ends right there. You should not expect anything in return. That said, sometimes it really sucks to be the friend that remembers everyone's birthday and have everyone forget mine. It also really sucks to be the one to have to start every conversation at the risk of the friendship withering. Don't get me wrong, I felt super grateful to have her as a friend, but is it really a friendship to just draw someone once a year?
For super project 2020 I asked for a song recomendation several times, and it went ignored. I remember texting her about my grandpa during super project 2021 and she actually ignored it. Whenever I texted her, she only responded to the first line and ignored the rest of the context. There came a point where I forgot the sound of her voice. Why was a putting so much energy making art of a person I don't know anymore?
In 2022, she delayed the photo reference shot by several months. I asked to take it myself but she said she had a friend that would do it. That's fine. The friend bailed three times and never took the shots. That's also fine, but frustrating. She eventually took the photos but honestly, they were not what I needed. So now, I had to invest more time and energy working around this limitation. And for what? She liked the work in the end, but the symbolism held little to no impact. Its fine, no one is obligated to like my work and its an absurd expectation to hold.
This project was supposed to act as the finale of sorts. I no longer felt happy, passionate, anything, when I was working on these. I wanted to draw her as many times as possible, to get it out of my system, then never again. Then something changed. I didn't expect our photoshoot to heal our withering friendship as much as it did. The massive disconnect got repaired and I finally knew the person I was drawing. I drew a sunflower in her book and wrote a quote from one of my favorite anime's. "Is there a limit to how much someone can love another? Despite how much I have been hurt and have hurt, I don't feel hatred, far from it. I wish I could leave a mark, like a burn, that way you would never forget me."
The idea here was to draw her so many times I get sick of it, so, if this is it, I will have no regret or longing for more. During the photoshoot I requested she bring a prop with the only instruction being, "suprise me." She very well did suprise me. SHe brought Carl. Carl is a statue like I have never seen before. He is perfect, I love Carl, I want to donate white blood cells to Carl and then have Carl sneeze on me causing me to die because I have no white blood cells to combat the holy sneeze from the holy bird. Anyways, to commemorate ten years, I wanted to include Carl ten times. He'll likely be evenly spaced and be the only thing with an assembalance of structure.
Renee will be drawn in the middle once as an actual portrait and colored with sunset colors. As of writing this, she doesn't know that project sunset man is cancelled. I'll tell her at some point, she is like 1/2 people on my will after all.
The main idea is to draw several floral versions of Renee in the background. Each one will have about ten leaf's, no face, only orbs, hair with petals popping out, and I need to shange the skin texure as to keep the uncanny look. The look is done, its just composition that will be a pain in the ass.
Quick development note: I've decided to utilize watercolor like I originally planned. I need there to be energy!
Renee's music taste is not quite like any music taste I've ever seen, so building a playlist around it was interesting. The inital theme of the playlist was hurt, fire, and a sense of finality as I had no intention of ever doing a project with her again. Now, there's a sense of healing, love, and happiness. What do I mean by love? Its complicated.
Despite our friendship being fixed, I think I was a little too content with the idea that we had drifted out of each other's lives. I can talk with her whenever I want but there's nothing really I want to say. But its not out of malice, I just can't get into it. I also can't find the same vigor for this art project like I had previously. Does that make me a bad friend? I value our friendship but at the same time I feel nothing. Renee deserves better. Perhaps I should have known my spot as the annual art fairy.
When I made last year's project, I was content with concluding our friendship. We're adults and we've moved on and that's that. This year has made me realize how much I would miss her if she exited my life. She's important to me, I mean, she's in my will for fuck's sake. When I told her about the will/project sunset man's cancellation, all she cared about is my well-being. I'm scared for her, it breaks my heart knowing she may never overcome this stupid disease, I get angry knowing terrible people want to hurt her, and I feel relieved knowing that despite it all, she's surrounded by people who care about her and mutually want to see her well. I think I love her. I don't like using that word often, I save that stuff for a rainy day, but she is in fact very important to me and I will do anything to make sure we never drift apart again. Even listen to bagpipes, and I fucking hate bagpipes.