Life is all about evolution.
Watching other people as they evolve as individuals has always inspired and motivated me to become better myself and to strive for the best possible result. As years passed I found my drive for improvement within myself whenever I looked back at my art and my progress. I hope that with this collection I can encourage other artists to never give up but also encourage my future self looking back at this post to not give up as well.

As a toddler I was painting 24/7. I was heavily influenced by my sisters and our obsession with anime and probably also by the constant positive feedback I received from elders (reinforcement -> happy hormones yes!).
BUT: I never actually wanted to become an artist and I always denied my love for art. I associated creating art with wasting time because many people I respected did so too. I felt like artists, especially female artists, were not taken seriously and I myself wanted to be respected and to be taken seriously though. Fortunately, I discarded that prejudice against artists after I got out of pre school. Nevertheless I always wanted to become a computer scientist and pursue art only in my free time. While I put hours into refining my web development skills as I knew that practice is key, I regarded being able to draw well as a gift you either have or don´t have. When I was 14 I realised this is not entirely true. If I wanted to enhance my drawing skills and evolve I had to put effort into what I was doing or else I would be stuck in that level I was in.

In 2012 I started to practice drawing:

In 2014 I started my own youtube channel to reach more people and to create little time capsules:

I frickin love the trashy intro!

(In the top left-hand corner is Thando Hopa, a south african model and activist with albinism, fighting to change perceptions of people who suffer from albinism.)


As you can see I only finished one drawing in 2016 (dec of 2015 actually). I especially struggled to put something onto paper in 2016; It was a tough year but i managed to find some motivation again last year and now I´m back on track.

I hope you enjoyed my journey so far and it would be awesome if you´d stick with me to see the rest of it.

Yours truly,

Liana Akobian

This post was inspired by Hive account@lioba who made an art evolution post as well. She definitely needs more recognition.