I stopped drawing and I'm better?

[Anonymous No.3995950]

So I grinded art for nearly 3 years everyday and I got to a certain level. And then I lost motivation for an entire year and didn't draw anything. So during june, I was drawing nearly everyday and while at first I was really really shit, after a month now, when I compare my old sketchbook of when i left off drawing, I feel like this current sketchbook is way better. Like after a month, I've surprassed my past skills.

Another thing is, I feel like i'm absorbing art better. I have better visual retention( if I draw something from reference) 80% of the time I don't need to reference it anymore. I'm also improving with every page. I dunno.

[Anonymous No.3995957]

>>3995950
skills don't develop like people seem to think they do. it's not a matter of "draw today and you'll be 0.1% better tomorrow". there's a lot of shit going on in the background. a lot of your growth and development happens in the background, out-of-sight, while the brain processes information and forms new connections and pathways, which is all a physical process that takes time. you may have stopped for a while but your brain didn't.

[Anonymous No.3995958]

also, post your work, i wanna see the comparison for myself

[Anonymous No.3995959]

>>3995950
Post before and after
Maybe its just your critical thinking that went down

[Anonymous No.3995961]

>>3995950
keep in mind that you grow and change your mental habits over time. you could have learned to better discipline yourself and focus, or perhaps you were so stressed previously that your break and return allowed you to begin drawing without strain.
>>3995959 is also very likely. you couldve just gotten worse and as a result think youre better than you are in actuality

[Anonymous No.3995969]

>>3995950
Anon same, I took a break for 2 months.
I went to my old art and like WTF is this mistake ?
Then bam I draw good now.

[Anonymous No.3995987]

>>3995950
>>3995969
post work so we can see for ourselves.

[Anonymous No.3996416]

>>3995987
Depends if it has merits, even if somehow I really draw good there's really no merit eh ?

[Anonymous No.3996426]

>>3995957
This so much. Subconscious is severely underrated

[Anonymous No.3996500]

you get to this point by developing taste, well done. you can grind all day and nail your fundamentals (it’s still a good thing no matter what) but if you don’t have good taste, then your art will always lack something.

[Anonymous No.3998379]

>>3995950
Really feel this way too sometimes. I remember not drawing for about a year one time, and just being a lot better than before. Sometimes when I draw a lot like grind grind grind drawings out, I feel like shit gets worse. It's like art is teasing me constantly wtf... Would like to hear more insight on this to be honest

[Anonymous No.3998388]

>>3995957
and hey anon, I love your post. It's really comforting to think in this way. and that it's not just each pencil stroke you do that gets you better, Do you think you get good when you draw like a lot till you're burned out and everything turns to shit, and come back after a while and draw again. I just want to kinda find the fastest way to develop and improve your skills because from experience, grinding grinding for 12 -13 hrs a day just. It makes you miserable and starts to make you hate art. and the fact that sometimes staying away from it all and coming back to it after a while can make you improve is quite interesting

[Anonymous No.3998412]

Progress happens in leaps. I didn't touch watercolors for a year and after a break they leveled up. It just took time to process the feedback I have constantly received and find a way to apply it. Sometimes you know what to do but don't know how yet. Also your standards and critical thinking change along skills making progress hard to judge. But whatever you start doing first, new technique or theme, allow yourself to suck for a while. I just went for a painting holiday and I'm starting to get interesting outcomes after initial 20 works. This non linearity can sometimes make you think you're retarded because you plateau and don't improve for a while, but it also makes things more interesting imo.

[Anonymous No.3998419]

>>3998412
I can't find it now, but I read a study a year or two ago that confirmed that most people seem to not only plateau, but their skill actually decreased before seeing a noticeable jump in ability. I've noticed this myself, personally.

[Anonymous No.3998441]

>>3998419
It's hard to measure precisely skill such as an art, but maybe unsuccessful experiments had been considered a decrease. I believe you need to allow yourself to experiment to explore, evolve and find new ways of working, also to make things a bit more interesting

[Anonymous No.3998454]

>>3995950
Same thing happened to me.
Did a fuck ton of studies for 2 years straight. Took a 2 week break. Came back, suddenly much, much better and stuff that gave me trouble before, feels easier to tackle now.

[Anonymous No.3998471]

>>3998454
I currently draw several hours every day. Would a day’s rest be enough to cash in on these gains

[Anonymous No.3998527]

Real life levels work on oblivion rules, not skyrim rules.

Your dreams are the byproduct of your brain actually undergoing the process of learning as it etches the important bits saved in that day's RAM into your hard disk.

[Anonymous No.3998529]

>>3998471
Depends on what you're doing.
In my case, I've done only nothing but studies and never done any personal work.

Eventually, I got burned out, came back 2 weeks later, started doing personal work and everything just clicked. In my case, I was learning for the sake of learning, never applying my fundies into my personal work. No goals. The 2 week break helped me realize that, and now when I go back to fundies, there's purpose.
It feels great knowing my work still looks like trash, but I know exactly how to fix it. Maybe a day or 2 break to let your mind "relax" might help you.

[Anonymous No.3998548]

>I stopped drawing and I'm better?
This is not a question. This is ungrammatical. Stop.

[Anonymous No.3999048]

>>3995950
Stop giving newbies false hope
Imagine unironically believing you get good at drawing by not actuqlly drawing

[Anonymous No.3999061]

>>3998388
>>3998379

OP here. I'm beginning to think that Art improvement is very similiar to body improvement. Like when you work out for instance, you grow stronger on your rest days. The times I make the most progress with my strength is when I take a long break( like 2 weeks) after grinding consistently for a couple months. You kinda just give your brain a time to make those artistic neural connections.

[Anonymous No.3999063]

>>3995959
I'm not going to post my work and embarass myself. I don't think my critical thinking skills went down because I still feel my work is shit, and I can spot out errors in my art and other professional level art that I wasn't able to before.

Taking a whole year off has probably halted my progress overall, but I think taking short breaks every now and then, will be benefical to progress.

[Anonymous No.3999175]

>>3995950
Took you guys long enough to start figuring this out, even if you werent drawing you were thinking about it in some way. Observation, deconstruction and reconstruction in your mind and on paper is equally important, you will find things and try to understand them, getting knowledge and experience in the process, the same way youd think about that math problem on the test you couldnt solve in bed, and then youd figure it out. Your gut will lead you most of the way, in my own experience everytime i forced it i stagnated, the moment i let my heart take the lead it becomes clear so dont worry too much, observe things and learn what others have spent their lives figuring out for us, keep growing my friend

[Anonymous No.3999205]

I used to take long breaks from drawing and I would make huge improvements each time I came back, but this no longer happens. After a certain point you just have to study. And you probably would make more gains if you just kept it up consistently with a few short breaks.

[Anonymous No.3999236]

>>3998527
So can I conclude that I got better since I started drawing in my dreams?

[Anonymous No.3999256]

I feel like that happens only to aspects that you already have something solid to build upon. Like, if you were completely shit at hands a break might not do you any good, but if you already were doing good enough in say hair, observation and allowing some time to pass might help gain a new perspective on how to draw it.

[Anonymous No.3999708]

>>3999061
I know I'm beginning to think the same man. Like. I work work work and eventually my drawings become shit, and then I get so damn disappointed because I start realizing how bad, and how hopeless it is to continue drawing because nothing is turning out right. I used to think it was better to just continue and strive forward, face the failure and keep drawing till shit gets good again, but now... I honestly think breaks after drawing are needed, maybe even required to improve faster? Again, I'm no expert, and im talking based on my own experiences but I seriously do feel like constantly working without breaks/burning out/ work turning into shit is not the way to go about it.

[Anonymous No.4001387]

>>3995950

Hey OP it was the same situation with me. I stopped drawing for years at a time (3 years one time, and 2 years the second time) out of depression and self harm, but was still better than when I stopped.

I think it's because even when we're not drawing, we're still studying and observing things around us and even other artwork. Then, when you go back to your drawing, you realize what's wrong with it and get to start with a fresh perspective. It also works another way: I stopped out of self loathing and when I came back to my art later, I realized that they're not as bad as I thought they were and I was being too harsh on myself. The only problem is that once I come back to drawing I notice I lost my fine motor skills, but I quickly recover.

Another thing is that as you get older, your brain is more developed (by the age of around 25) so you'll have better cognitive abilities than when you were younger.

For most of us, our art problems aren't actually about art, but something else going on in life. If anyone here is suffering from self hatred or depression, get help for it, even medication if you have to. You don't need to spend your prime years suffering something you don't have to.

>unrelated Keanu