Artist - A person who creates art

Its kind of funny. You spend time on a painting, working out the details, pulling all of the elements together. You finally get it done and decide to take a break. How do you spend your break time? Sketching. Sketching and looking at other artists' sketches. Getting inspired and sketching some more. Looking thru old references and sketch from them. Then one sketch starts to show potential. You develop it a little bit more. You start to see some possibilities. Its starting to show some personality. You take it further, adding details. You're moving from sketching into drawing territory. You're working lights and darks. You're forming a "back story" for the character in your mind. You're starting to think about settings and environments. Color palettes start to suggest themselves. You realize that your "break" has led you right back into the process that you were taking a break from. And you're flat out enjoying it!

I think, at this point, you can call yourself an artist.

And I think that this'll see paint sometime soon.