grumble grumble reaching out to the community for help

so... um... yes. the title is exactly as it says. have you ever felt you are getting worse vs. getting better? uh. i do. all the time. especially now. i was looking through my old art, you know the stuff i actually finished, and sat there thinking... wow i've gotten worse, is that even possible?

like, every time i try to sit down and sketch now, which isn't very often due to frustration, i can't get anything out. when i do, it looks like shit. it doesn't even look like something i'd draw.

not that i was muchos fond of my style ante-repression, but at least then i could recognize it as something i had drawn. now it's like, the more i try the worse i get.

i'm thinking maybe it has something to do with the fact that i AM trying so hard, you know, to improve. maybe somehow that's fucking with my psyche or god knows what. i know for the past four months i've been trying desperately to get a style i like, but at the same time trying to bring variation to my face and body shapes, which seems to confuse my hand or something, because it seems very counter productive to me.

see what i mean?:

[edit] realized this made me an attention whore so art removed

just wondering if anyone else has ever felt this way and, uh, if anyone has any advice... how... to fix it. ): sobs

Personally I'm really like the pre-repression arts; I don't know why but something about those art just jump out to me. They have more 'life' in them than the post-repression ones. Although for your post-repression work, jackyll and hyde really jumped out to me. I would really love to see it finished.

I think what you could use is a little break from drawing. Instead of setting your mind to just improve and improve; let your hand take a break for a few days~couple of weeks and let it guide you when you're out of your break.

Personally I find that if I draw too much within a short amount of time, my drawings'll look not as up to par. That's a reminder for myself to take the time off and let my brain absorb new information/techniques and try them out later instead of forcing my brain/hand to change NOW.

yeah, that's what i meant by getting worse. i just can't seem to replicate what i used to draw before, idk. /: i've tried taking month long breaks but it doesn't seem to help.

thank you for the advice though!

try to think of it as experimenting rather than trying to kick your own ass on improving. just do what you can do and when you can do it i suppose.

it's funny cause that's what i've been trying to do, trying to get a new style or something and then all of a sudden i just can't draw anymore and nothing comes out satisfying and i just think it looks like shit. right now, i'm just taking a loooooong break :D

I think you should just draw how you need to draw. Don't try to improve try to practice what you can do already. Try something new, but take in what you did with your old art. You put pressure on one finger when you did your last drawing you liked then put pressure on another finger while doing it. Distance yourself and keep yourself close to it at the same time. I do that when I have no ideas or don't like how something is coming out. I often try half-n-half as I call it. You split your drawing down the middle. You drawing an angel? Split it down the middle the other side is a devil. I often do that to recharge my ideas and it helps. :)

JEEZ, man, you seriously need to stop being so OCD about getting better, getting better, getting better all the time. :c You are way too hard on yourself, and getting frustrated never helps you out with drawing.

Maybe if you don't like your art now, look at your old pieces and ask yourself what you think the difference between your "pre and post repression" pieces is, and keep that in mind.

Drawing should be fun, and if you keep thinking it's supposed to all be a never-ending quest for improvement, you'll probably never enjoy it the way you should. P: I don't mean to sound harsh, but I mean, you never seem satisfied with anything you do, and it's a little counterproductive to cycle between drawing while you're frustrated and becoming frustrated because of your drawing.

Take it easy, 'cause other people LIKE YOUR ART, SILLY. D8 You should learn to be a little less "grawr this sucks I don't like it" all the time.

no no, harsh is what i want. i don't respond to sugar coating at all so the more people drill it into my head the better. hahaha

i don't know, i guess the way i view art is like... you're supposed to be improving all the time, or else you're not doing it right. idk? that's probably a really skewed view of art but that's kind of how i view everything. ... it's a problem, haha. it's hard for me not to be hard on myself because that's how my mind is wired. maybe that's an underlying problem.

Well, maybe if you're a starving child and you need to become a professional artist to feed your family. c:

But like, if you don't need to rely on it for a living, I think it should be just like a hobby or passion you enjoy? xD And what would be the goal of improving anyway? Improving for improvement's sake, or do you want people to love your art, or do you just want to do it for yourself? I think keeping that kind of attitude is probably hurting your art more than helping.

My friends kind of had to drill it into my head that I should be happier with my art, and I think that's actually helped me improve more than being frustrated at sucking. For one thing, you draw more because you want to, and that helps you improve. But also, if you enjoy drawing, I do think your work will come out better. xD

My art goes from bad to worse every time :P It kinda depends on my mood sometimes i make great poems/stories Other times i draw Or i sing Or take pictures.

I draw 3 times as bad if i am not in a 'drawing mood'

I want to improve so i can make the image in my head look like the drawing.

kind of just... want to improve for myself, i guess. make myself feel better, haha. P:

but you do have a good point. i know i draw better when i'm not trying, which... isn't very often lately, but it does happen sometimes. i think number one is i want to enjoy drawing, which i think will only happen if i improve. but maybe i need to think about it the other way around hahaha

you're going through a style change, i think. a little while ago my art really looked sucky, but that because i was in the process from switching to a sort of simplistic style to my current... i was caught in the middle and thta was weird.

you can really tell in your drawing for sharkii- you're playing around with different face shapes, expressions, and a lot more, yet your lines are really unsure (if that makes sense).

just keep playing with distortion and stuff, experiment- you're changing, and it's gonna be good, i can ell. (you're already such a great artist)

^lol i thought i posted this last night, but i fell asleep and i just got home from school and posted it...

Neverrr force yourself or stress yourself out. Art is something you do and are supposed to enjoy. Don't focus on whether you're good or bad.

Improving should come as a sort of phenomena or epiphany I think. It's a moment where you look at two things and realize that you have improved. You can't FORCE yourself to get better, especially if it involves trying to find you own style. It's taken me yearsss to find some sort of style and..I'm still working on it. I play around, and in some images the style is completely different. Sometimes I like this style and sometimes I don't. This could be involved in my studio art and more stylized art.

Don't try to actually draw in a certain style. Sometimes art is just a "don't think, just do" kinda deal, you know?(although, this has nothing to do with ..perhaps an assigned project where the theme is "Draw in THIS artists style").

The best advice I can give you is just to calm down and doodle. If worse comes to worse, pull up some photos and just try to replicate them. Try figure drawing for awhile to just get your hand working again. That way you won't have to worry about style too much and just draw what you see. Perhaps inspiration will strike you...and if it does, just ROLL with it, don't think too hard about composition or style or anything like that.

but anyway, I think a lot of artists go through this. I wish you luck and I'm sure you'll continue on with art just fine <3. This WILL pass.

EDIT:: hot damn I wrote a lot, but one more thing... As artists age, they tend to become more self criticizing and picky about their own art. REMEMBER the good old days where whether you were good or not didn't actually matter. It was the fact that you were putting images down on paper with your own hands and enjoying the feeling of just that.

haha, I'm going back to study now.

i used to feel that all the time, i still do when i try drawing guys / trying newer things lolol how i see it is that it's the frustration that's making your art come out a bit worse before - or it's just your opinion of it, since i used to get so angry at myself for drawing a couple of years back so i just tore up the papers afterward. 'twas before tablet times though.

what i'd say is go on a temp. hiatus from drawing [like i did for, what, a year and a half? though personal issues did come up, lolol.] then come back and see what your results are later. i don't think artists get anywhere if they can't work with their art, so i think it's better not to compare it to other people's

if not, then just continue drawing, but something you like that could be fun to draw / best suit your interests. in say, a year or so, look back at what you've done. annnd i don't know i'm just an amateur haha. if you ever have a high peak of severely wanting to draw, do it. P:

and lol @ style changes ? i went through them like every time i tried drawing. like i couldn't be able to reproduce the same picture twice, and i have no idea why. buuut however. it took me literally 4 years to stick to a style. .__o

i know exactly how you feel and thats how i think it is for me right now! or at least it's like i've somehow stalled and refuse to get better. it makes me really sad and annoyed :3

That's the road we all walk down, trust me.

I did go through that period a couple months back, when I was too bus trying new things (mostly failures) to complete any images. Then I look back to my completed art and hated my current lack of patience. However when I sat down and completed an image three months later, it was infinitely better than what I drew 6 months back, even if I did not 'complete' any illustrations in the duration.

I think keeping an open mind about it really helps.I don't believe an artist can get worse. A good artist learns what does not work out in the images that 'failed', and learns from that.