/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

[Anonymous No.3292695]

Do you ever feel art is stressful because your skill level isn't as good as you want it to be, even after intense practice for years? And this creates a negative feedback loop making you not end up drawing as much or deleting stuff you drew, therefore making it harder to improve?

How to overcome this?

[Anonymous No.3292706]

>>3292695
Yeah, I feel this.

I only started to hate myself and my art when I couldn't seem to get better, but I kept pushing hoping it would work out. But every time I tried to get better I kept being told that my work was still shit, even if I thought I was improving.

Of course you then start to draw less and less, cause whatever you put on paper will be seen as bad, so it becomes stressful. You get in the mind set of "what's the point" if everything I do is wrong. But then you get worst cause you are not drawing as much. Which then leads to not feeling like drawing even more....which leads to more stress....

Sometimes I get out of that mindset, and I draw for weeks on end...only to show someone and they tell me the work is bad...just for it to start all over again.

As for solution...no idea.

[Anonymous No.3292736]

>>3292695
Is that your work? The head and features of the face seem out of proportion. I suggest looking up the Riley method and seeing if your face measures up correctly. The nose looks very long and because of that you (Or whichever artist drew this) made the face too long. The face can be measured in a box with 0.75-1 ratio proportions(ex: 4inch height/ 3inch width). Cutting off the first 10% from the top gives you where the hairline would be, and dividing the rest into 3 parts for the top of the brow, bottom of the nose, and where the teeth are. (Note that the lips are a little higher than the teeth, check in a mirror)

The head to body ratio is important to note as well. In the image the head is just too big. The body should be wider, or the head smaller. Look this up.

You people need instructors who are trained in this sort of thing. There are just so many benefits to having an instructor on site.

>>3292706
People need advice when they're lacking in the art department. If someone says it's bad and you don't get any reasonable feedback/advice on how to get better then discard the opinion until someone can tell you why your drawing is weak. This kind of thing can sap your soul away if you're not looking at art as a practice that requires discipline.

[Anonymous No.3292854]

>>3292736
>You people need instructors who are trained in this sort of thing. There are just so many benefits to having an instructor on site.

Sure let me go and pull one out from my magic bag of art supplies

[Anonymous No.3292866]

Push through it and love the pain, it gets better over time, as long as you are learning from masters who are at the level you want to be.

[Anonymous No.3292867]

>>3292736
>People need advice when they're lacking in the art department. If someone says it's bad and you don't get any reasonable feedback/advice on how to get better then discard the opinion until someone can tell you why your drawing is weak.

This is true, any moron can look at something and say its bad, or say its good, but only trained and sharp people can tell exactly what's wrong and how to improve it

[Anonymous No.3292889]

>>3292695
>Do you ever feel art is stressful because your skill level isn't as good as you want it to be, even after intense practice for years?
Only all the damned time.
Even professionals feel this way if the various interviews I've read and watched are to be believed. You're just going to have those days.

I find it's good to experiment. Take a different approach to how you usually approach things. Look at a recent piece you've done and consider what you like and dislike about it.

[Anonymous No.3292996]

>>3292695
>intense practice for years
See, this is the breaking point: I don't think people actually practice intensively, and I think most of them that say so are thoroughly lying to themselves. They may say they have been drawing for years but only draw once a day -at best-, and/or they don't actually allocate time to learn - they only draw using their current abilities and never going out their comfort zone. And even on the case of someone is actually practicing in a disciplined manner, there's the matter of efficiency, where you're using 4 hours a day to draw shitty OC's in your shitty style. Again, staying in your comfort bubble not actually trying anything different.

The fact that you know that what you are currently drawing is not good is already an advantage. Commit to improving by having actual dedication to the craft and learning the fundamentals. If you get to something you try and retry and can't just get, there's a myriad of resources on the internet (google has your answer 99% of the time), /ic/ being one of them.

[Anonymous No.3293018]

>>3292996
wtf is practicing art in a disciplined manner? not saying practice isn't a huge deal but what does discipline have to do with it at all? that's practically the direct opposite of being creative and sounds super fagtrain.

[Anonymous No.3293201]

>>3293018
Not the person you replied to but basically:

Constant self-analysis.
Taking on challenges rather than avoiding them.
Seeking critisism rather than praise.

Intense practice doesn't mean tons and tons of hours doing the same, simple shit. It means using your brain and doing everything in your power to try to understand why you suck at something. Find out what you're bad at, then do studies and practice until you're better at it

[Anonymous No.3293206]

>>3293201
what you've described only works for fundamentals and a narrow window of artistic styles.

[Anonymous No.3293208]

>>3292695

[Anonymous No.3293210]

>>3293201

Sounds right, really, I think this is why I have been plateauing for a while.

I also think that I am kinda screwing myself over by studying art I should be studying, instead of studying art I like.

[Anonymous No.3293214]

>>3293210
study life and reality, not art.

[Anonymous No.3293215]

>>3293206
What could possibly keep those three things from having an effect beyond fundamentals? They honestly seem like principles one should take with them for the entirety of their career.

[Anonymous No.3293220]

>>3293206
But I'm guessing you're not here to make modernistic art, making jars with pee or blank canvases and shit. As long as you can differantiate between what you think is good and what you think is bad, you can figure out how your art is worse than the art you want to be able to make.

[Anonymous No.3293221]

>>3293215
not all art is like training for a football match.

[Anonymous No.3293223]

>>3293210
Definitly study art you like. It's more motivating and your art is gonna look better and make you happier. But you won't understand what to learn from studying art unless you also study reality and fundies. That way you can make connections between how your favorite artists think and what reality looks like.

[Anonymous No.3293229]

>>3293221
elaborate. if you're not willing to practice/train to improve your art, then (to bring it back to OP's point) why even worry about improvement at all?
surely, anyone that professes to be a great artist with absolutely no training is either a hack or a scam artist.

[Anonymous No.3293234]

>>3292736
Anon that's a pretty infamous drawing by Tim Buckley of Ctrl Alt Delete

[Anonymous No.3293240]

>>3293229
linear improvement is only something illustrators worry about.

[Anonymous No.3293247]

>>3293206
>>3293221
>>3293240

[Anonymous No.3293274]

I'm coming up on 3 years of drawing.

I'm a somewhat mediocre intermediate. I've definitely come a long way from when I started, but I'm by no means good. When I had been drawing for a year I was happy to post my progress images because I was proud of the strides I made, but I don't do that anymore because at the three year mark I feel like the progress slowed substantially. I know it's normal, progress as a beginner is almost always fast if you put in even an hour a day, but it still feels discouraging at times to know that at the 3 year mark I could have been much better if I'd applied myself more.

That said, most of the time I'm content with the fact that slow but steady is better than nothing. Even if it takes another 3 years to git gud.

[Anonymous No.3293276]

>>3292854
Get a job or get a loan from the government and use the funds to attend schooling from an institution that teaches what you want and need to learn in order to be industry ready in a timely manner. Make sure to review the student works of said institution in order to gague the effectiveness of the programs offered.

>>3292867
It's a critical benefit people constantly talk themselves out of. Some programs even help you apply for studios and companies and will help you set up the right portfolio for your field of interest. Some instructors have been in or know people in the industry, so they have invaluable advice.

>>3293234
I don't know him. I only started my program in October, and art in general around that time.

[Anonymous No.3293282]

>>3292695
i know the feel op.

today i drew a bird. not for practise, not as a study, i just saw a photo of a bird that i thought was cute, and i drew it.

felt nice.

[Anonymous No.3293296]

Sometimes it helps to just take a break from art as well.
I'm super burned out from drawing for so long that I feel like a hermit at this point. I don't even post my work but I find it so exhausting.
Thinking of taking up a software coding course just to keep me afloat and sane for the time being.

[Anonymous No.3293318]

>>3292854

If you can't get good on your own art teachers won't make you good. They might actually make you way worse cause a bunch of them are retarded and have toxic mindsets.

If you draw for weeks on end without improvement, you NEED to change your approach somehow, cause you're doing something wrong. It's not because you're inherently bad, but there is definitly some trick or specific mindset you have failed to learn. That's normal, the point you start improving is the moment where you learn what you did wrong before. A teacher can help you with that, but so can youtubers and books.

[Anonymous No.3293398]

It's been 8 years. Every day I try a little harder. And every day I'm more disgusted by my work. It feels like all my knowledge and learning is scattered as soon as I put pen to paper. Proportion, scale, balance, composition, even my basic line work. It all looks terrible. I can't even make a basic sketch without making it into a disaster of continuously redrawn scratchy lines till I can't even see what I was thinking in the first place.

But these feelings won't last forever. I'll break through in time. It just feels like drowning in my own ineptitude for now.

[Anonymous No.3293408]

>>3293398
you've been at it for 8 years and you can't even combine fundamentals? either extremely bad studying methods or very confused about something.

maybe try learning something else.

[Anonymous No.3293413]

>>3293408
Of course I can. I'm a competent enough to do anything.
I'm just venting the voice of my anxieties and worming fear of completing work. That's why I say
>But these feelings won't last forever.
I know I've improved, it's just my mind doesn't want me to think so right now.

I probably could have made that more clear.

[Anonymous No.3293415]

Accept the fact you're shit and embrace it so you stop getting tied down. Drawing a hundred shitty pictures and knowing they're shit and accepting they're shit, and doing it anyway because you don't care that you're shit, is far more productive than drawing two images, followed by curling up in bed and crying about the results for the rest of the year. You're shit. Okay. Now stop expecting yourself to make masterpieces. A lot of people have this mentality where they think they either need to be blissfully ignorant egotistical jerkasses about their work or they need to beat themselves up to some unrealistic degree or they'll never improve. You can still desire improvement while accepting you're trash. It's called treating yourself like a student. Stop battering yourself over mistakes. You'll improve as long as you keep doing shit and keep looking for new things of substance to study everyday of your life (keyword: substance). Don't turn your brain off, but don't torture yourself either.

[Anonymous No.3293428]

>>3293415
Oh, I guess what I should of said was:

Getting better at art is a lifelong journey. As in, it never ends. No matter how good you get, no matter what you're doing with your art, no matter what you become, you'll always find that your art will never be good enough for you. This is normal. You're not supposed to think about art like you reach some objective and you're done. That will never happen. Even if you were painting like Ruan Jia tomorrow you'd still be dissatisfied. This is normal. Your goal should be not becoming amazing, but to teach yourself something every single day. To treat yourself like a student every single day. To enjoy being a student who is trying to learn, every single day. Because being a student in art, is not something you graduate from. You will be one until the day you die. There is limitless things for you to learn and improve at. You will never run out of things you need to learn. Get comfortable with that thought.

[Anonymous No.3293437]

>>3293428
it isn't even about teaching yourself and improving your technical skills. studying art should be making your life better. otherwise what's the point? how is it even enjoyable?

[Anonymous No.3293445]

>>3292695
Honestly this is the reason why, even though I always enjoyed drawing, I never did it for more than 3-8 weeks at a time, before stopping for years.

Now I've been doing it for about 6 months, the only thing that changed is that I made an Instagram and Tumblr to keep myself accountable.

More specifically, I made those accounts to track my progress, and instead of being ashamed of not being great I used that as a strength.

I explain in my bios that I'm a self taught artist trying to improve, which makes it easier to share even imperfect work and not feel like I need to only share masterpieces

[Anonymous No.3293450]

>>3293437
Treating yourself as an eternal student means studying various aspects, not just focusing on one thing. The point is to develop a lifestyle where you are excited about learning. From this, everyday will feel fresh and new to you, by extension improving how you feel about life and thus, life will feel more worth living. This enables you to be inspired and thus affects your work ethic. On the opposite end, what people shouldn't be doing, is comparing yourself to some random standard of what you think you should be, does the opposite. It makes you give up and feel like your life is stagnating because you are not good enough. So your productivity drops and you start to feel like your life has less overall value. The point of view changes everything.

[Anonymous No.3295773]

>>3293398
Lol, sad.

[Anonymous No.3295774]

>>3293413
Stfu. No one gives a fuck about your whining anxiety issues. Go call your mom and cry hard.

[Anonymous No.3296200]

>>3295774
Anon. Why are you even in this thread?

[Anonymous No.3296220]

Yeah, I’ve been drawing for 3 years and still at the advanced beginner stage, if that.

[Anonymous No.3296357]

>Do you ever feel art is stressfu

Nope, because I'm not a bitch.

[Anonymous No.3296367]

>>3296357
All children are bitches.

[Anonymous No.3296381]

I feel like this reply will get me some shit, but I think you should take what you've learned from here and take a break from the internet, in the "sharing art on the internet" sense at least if you have this issue, if you feel this way.
Dedicate yourself to studying and come back when you see a difference, rather than coming for feedback with every piece or every few pieces.
Especially when you're at a low level where you're not likely to have a freak amazing drawing, you'll just feel put down every time.

[Anonymous No.3296556]

>>3293018
new here? Try DA.

[Anonymous No.3298749]

>>3296381
this

[Anonymous No.3298776]

>>3292695

If that is your art then you need to go back to fundies because it blows ass.

[Anonymous No.3299042]

>>3298776
You need to leave fucking 4chan if you don’t recognize the artist of that pic.

[Anonymous No.3299593]

>>3292695
This has been me for the past 2 years.

I blame the jealousy I feel when looking at my favorite artists work and hearing about their recent achievements in the industry. It makes me feel sick and more depressed at the fact that I can't draw nearly as good as them, and don't have a tenth of the skill, experience or followers they have.

And after hearing about them finishing their comic projects, working in animated shows and working on dozens of commissions, I just feel like there's no point trying in me aiming for something like that too.

That's why for the past year, every day, I've done nothing but doodle, most of the time things that I stop drawing halfway because they're not how I want them to look. It's become a year-long pattern for me to do, and on top of that, I've started to delete the work I've shown publicly off all my accounts and have been making a smaller presence on social media, Discord and everywhere else. Pretty much convinced myself that I suck and will never make it.

[Anonymous No.3299595]

>>3299593
The top artists are not 'naturally gifted', THEY ARE WORKING HARDER THAN YOU AND THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WORKING HARDER THAN YOU

https://youtu.be/P-SqvtoRgsI

[Anonymous No.3299939]

>>3293398
Could you post an example?