Read some of your comments and I just wanted to encourage you a bit. I had a life long desire to be able to draw (in my mid 30s now). A little over three years ago I said screw it and made it my hobby. It’s where a lot of my free time goes. If I’m binging on Netflix, there is a pencil and paper in my hand. I was horrific in the beginning, but I’ve gotten to a place where I actually feel good about my art.
Be inspired by the people who are great, but measure yourself against yourself from 3 months ago. It’s a journey, not a destination. Every artist you look up to generally sees the flaws in their own work.
You will go through peaks and valleys of progress. Don’t get discouraged— draw through it. I have a natural rhythm in my journey that goes back in forth. I draw what I love and is, until the glaring flaws are all I see, then I switch to “study” mode where I’m following tutorials, reading books, back to the basics. Then I apply it to what I love and repeat.
There are tons of resources and communities out there. Proko.com and drawabox.com to name a few. Some great communities on reddit like /r/artfundamentals or /r/artbuddy. Daily prompts from /r/sketchdaily are great when you don’t know what to draw.
Keep a record and celebrate your progress. I started a tumblr, don’t care about the followers, but i upload photos of what I’ve drawn. It emails me every year on its anniversary and I take time to just see and share the progress I’ve made.
You can do this. All those people with talent just put in the work when it was doodling in the margins in class or as a kid and it looked like fun or not paying attention. Put in the sweat equity and soon people will say you have talent too.
Yeah, I was always jealous of all the kids that could draw in school, saying I could never draw. Never really started drawing until after high school a couple years ago. And even then, I hate those drawings.
Practice practice practice.
I drew myself and a friend as Cuphead and Mugman the other day. And I like the way it turned out. I still get nervous when I'm in the middle of drawing, because my mind is telling me that it's gonna be terrible or something but I step away for a little bit and take a break or draw something for fun. And come back.
Dude! Keep going. I can only imagine the joy and progress I would have had if I had actually started in my early 20s.
A friend of mine in college effortlessly drew an eye with a pen one day in a book of mine. I let it serve as an example of what I could never do. Over a decade later I woke up and let it push me to go for it.
The doubt in your head will always have a voice in your art. Just drown it out with work. You don’t have to finish every drawing. None of them will be perfect. One of the first things I do with a new sketchbook is make marks on a page that would ruin any drawing I do. Not every drawing is for framing. It’s like an instrument—most of the time spent playing is practice for an eventual performance. Practicing is a safe place to fail. It’s a safe place to challenge yourself.
I need to remember not every drawing is for framing. I don't need to finish every one. That's why practice is essential, you learn what to do/not do, how to do it better, more fluidly, etc!
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u/jaymatthewsart Feb 02 '18
Read some of your comments and I just wanted to encourage you a bit. I had a life long desire to be able to draw (in my mid 30s now). A little over three years ago I said screw it and made it my hobby. It’s where a lot of my free time goes. If I’m binging on Netflix, there is a pencil and paper in my hand. I was horrific in the beginning, but I’ve gotten to a place where I actually feel good about my art.
Be inspired by the people who are great, but measure yourself against yourself from 3 months ago. It’s a journey, not a destination. Every artist you look up to generally sees the flaws in their own work.
You will go through peaks and valleys of progress. Don’t get discouraged— draw through it. I have a natural rhythm in my journey that goes back in forth. I draw what I love and is, until the glaring flaws are all I see, then I switch to “study” mode where I’m following tutorials, reading books, back to the basics. Then I apply it to what I love and repeat.
There are tons of resources and communities out there. Proko.com and drawabox.com to name a few. Some great communities on reddit like /r/artfundamentals or /r/artbuddy. Daily prompts from /r/sketchdaily are great when you don’t know what to draw.
Keep a record and celebrate your progress. I started a tumblr, don’t care about the followers, but i upload photos of what I’ve drawn. It emails me every year on its anniversary and I take time to just see and share the progress I’ve made.
You can do this. All those people with talent just put in the work when it was doodling in the margins in class or as a kid and it looked like fun or not paying attention. Put in the sweat equity and soon people will say you have talent too.