>>7553978 (OP)I think this is a surprisingly obvious thing for many exprerienced artists
The more you draw and see the drawing of others, the more you learn about technique, pure drawing craft
You undersand more and more that while enjoyable, drawing in a realistic way is just a skill among many others, that you can rank objectively. It becomes less mysterious for you.
The thing that still seems eerie is art itself, aka expression of self, aka sovl, a subjective, unrankable thing that makes you *feel*
Thus you start to seek expressive, stylized works and those are usually less versed into realism
I'm only half of 40 but in 5 years my artistic preferences have changed substantially as I learned to draw, leaning towards expressiveness at the expense lg realism