My art, my way @prismfalls4

Dear Diary,

Alright. I'm Felix. 19-going-on-20, and I'm from Bucharest, Romania. 

I started drawing very young, maybe around 5 or 6 because I used to write poems and short stories and wanted to illustrate them. Eventually, art absorbed more and more of my world. I had a mentor who pushed me to keep drawing and painting and was even in a few student exhibitions as a kid. I got drawn into the world of digital art in my early preteens-teens when I discovered speedpaint videos. I had the very typical experience of starting out doing digital art on a phone with my finger, then eventually bought a tablet.

It's been a struggle to find a style I really clicked with. For a long time I'd just change my style into whatever was trendy - in 2019 it was that grainy filter, yellow overlay style, around the pandemic I pivoted more towards anime, and so on. 

@prismfalls4 (2025) This took so many hours pls enjoy 🙏🙏 [Instagram]. Available at:https://www.instagram.com/p/DG6aRKiogUr/?img_index=1 (Accessed: 1 June 2025).

My current style is really just a collection of shortcuts I take when drawing to save time and energy, but I'm pretty happy with it as a whole.

Social media and I have had a long, complicated relationship. From the second I started drawing digitally I've been posting it online — on and off — for almost a decade! During that time, I did many things to try to gain likes and followers; including drawing fanart of media or ships that I didn't actually enjoy, just because they were trendy... It took me a while to grow out of that mindset. It's not all bad, though. Through social media I've found some amazing artists that I look up to, as well as learned most of my digital skills. I think social media can be a great tool for artists.

Do likes mess with my head? Absolutely. Since I've posted art on-and-off for a long time, I used to run art accounts before social platforms pivoted to short form video content, and before the literal and metaphorical "en-shittening" of the algorithm. 5 to 6 years ago, I would get up to 300 or more likes on posts on Instagram even when I had sub-100 followers, but nowadays I struggle to make that amount of likes at 2.4k [followers], even though my art has improved significantly. I know it's not because my art is bad, it's just how social platforms work, but it's hard to not feel a bit demotivated, so I made the decision of disabling the like counts on my posts. It's a little sad to not be able to see how much people appreciate my work, but my relationship with posting has become much healthier ever since I made that choice, and I highly recommend it for other artists who get upset when looking at like counts.

Lately, what really sparks my creativity is definitely my friends. I've recently been doodling their OCs a lot, as well as prompts that they throw at me. It's way more rewarding for me to draw characters I'm invested in for people I'm close to, as opposed to drawing trendy things I don't necessarily care for, even if I don't get as much attention online.

What keeps me showing up online? Honestly, it’s the people who go out of their way to message me just to tell me they like my art, the super kind comments I get, and just fun really!! Social media can be super fun when you interact with it in a healthy way.

If my art had a message? It’d just be how much I love making it. Every drawing is a blast, even when I get frustrated or annoyed at it, and I hope people love seeing the things I draw as much as I love making them!!

That’s all for now,

Felix

Featured image: @prismfalls4 (2025) Timebomb 🕰️💣... [Instagram]. Available at:https://www.instagram.com/p/DH6KtPPoCFv/?img_index=1(Accessed: 1 June 2025).