I pissed off my art mentor… help

[stable yoke]

My family friend who i consider as my uncle is mentoring me in art. He’s an entrepreneur and professional comic book artist, and he’s very successful.

I’m trying to get into art college and he’s been giving me a lot of assignments and critiques on stuff, and trying to push me really hard, i missed a deadline for one of the assignments he gave me and I made an excuse for why, and it kind of pissed him off because I think he feels like I wasted his time and he hasn’t talked to me since.

The thing is I don’t know if I share the same passion for art as he does, but I really don’t know what I want to do. Art is just something I’ve been doing for my whole life and I’ve gotten good at it, but he will draw for like 12 hours a day no problem which I can’t do, but I’m not really passionate about anything so I felt like art school is my only option since my grades are trash. And I looked into trades and those seem lame as well. I do sometimes really really enjoy art but a sometimes it’s unbearably boring draw from life for longer than 5 minutes.

I don’t even know but how should I apologize to him and re establish contact

[sharp galleon]

Ngl from an outside perspective, ur uncle is overreacting. You cant expect to meet every single deadline. Ive had countless exams and assignments pushed back from life jusy happening. As long as you communicated beforehand or during the occurrnce that smth has come up.

You can apologize and tell him that when smth comes up youll communicate. You cant force someone to reestablish contact or forgive u. And even if he doesnt want to work with you anymore, there are other outlets u can take to try to get into an art college

Art college wont automatically give u work in the industry if that's ur aim. Its jusy a networking stepping stone. Everything u can get from art school can be found elsewhere. Its like the sororities of art

[stable yoke]

Ok thanks

Well tbf I let him down a few times

[sharp galleon]

I mean did he make u sign a contract saying u cant miss assignments every once in awhile ?

Its one thing if its a cpnstant. Its another if its every so often. Not everyone works on the same wavelength

[unkempt horizon]

It could be that your uncle is teaching you a lesson about responsibility and time management. As you said, your uncle is a professional artist and if that's the path you want to follow, deadlines are crucial in business and the demands of people over you can be quite hard to handle at times especially if you take on or are given more than you can handle.

I think it would be ideal to communicate
your situation. Art takes a lot of time to learn and if you're not really interested in it, just the whole process would feel tedious not only for you but for your mentor.

[plain atlas]

that uncle sounds like me, i am someone who enjoys drawing a bit too much and can (and has) draw for 12+ hours, so, from my perspective idk what happens when you don't "enjoy" drawing as much as me or your uncle, he seems like a harsh master which is not necessarily bad, i am more worried about the fact you don't know what to do with art in the future, hopefully more people have better opinions.