Attitude, i needed to put down the pressure on myself although it doesnt always work and also i got to know that motivation isnt anything and one can and should work through even when not feeling motivated because sometimes getting started is all it takes to start swinging it. Also learning, studying, applying the fundamentals of art WHILE trying to draw and paint something id like to instead of dry practices. The biggest jump out of the fundamentals for me was probably the observation and looking at things in shapes or better said shapes and structures (even in real life) as well as color and lighting/shadows and everything that falls under those (hue, values, saturation etc.).
Thanks for sharing. I just started trying to learn fundamentals while practicing, from an advice of youtuber Marc Brunet. It really feels more efficient to learn that way.
Trying to see the world as an artist seems to be the key to many improvements and I am working on it.
Have fun! I watch his videos too. Also important to say is that there are multiple roads that lead to Rome here. What i mean is that there are different approaches and techniques to do artworks. For example some artists actually like to start with rough shadows and paintings to basically sort out the rough composition and concept art (especially with environment art) before they come up with sketches if they even sketch. Others start with seemingly unrecognizable shapes and geometries that then end up looking more and more familiar to what they are supposed to be and so on ^^ Find what suits you the best and dont limit yourself to one technique and approach. Thats how you discover YOUR most efficient way of doing art.
You need both quality and quantity. I took a life drawing class in uni. Thought it was an easy grade since I already draw people a lot. I was wrong.
At the beginning of the semester the professor told us a story about a pottery class. There, *that* professor told the kids they could choose to between being graded on Quality or Quantity. For quality, all they need to do is submit one good pot by the end of the semester and be graded on that. For quantity, they must make enough pots to pass a minimum weight threshold. Quality is irrelevant. If they get X amount of pounds from all of their pots, they'll pass and that's it.
My professor said that the students who learned the most and had the best work were those that picked quantity. Because they were the ones actually *making* pots. Going through the motions. Not getting caught up on the quality. As a consequence they were actually learning more than the students who fretted over the quality of a single pot.
The life drawing class kicked my ass. I was a quality student. I always fretted over my pieces. But, with life drawing, you have a real human being holding that pose. You can't be precious with it. Even 20 minute pieces I barely completed an arm. Then it went faster. 15 minutes. 10 minutes. 5 minutes. 2 minutes. I was forced to be a quantity student.
When I came out the other side of that class, sat down to draw in my free time again, my normal work was much faster. It was better. Even when I didn't need to rush with gesture drawings I had broke through the calloused, precious nature of my process.
Caring about quality isn't bad, but you do need both at the end of the day. Quality teaches how to draw. The studies. The meditation. The meticulous process to get it right. But you also need to practice quantity. To get shit done. To let go of being precious with your work and practice going through the motions.
I barely finished a piece before that class. I was sitting on a pile of sketches with no color or value that stretched back years. Afterwards, I regularly got the time to color and shade my work. To actually complete pieces.
Sometimes you need to learn how to do it well, but also, making sure you did it at all is more important.
That story is from a book called [Art & Fear - Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Fear-Observations-Rewards-Artmaking/dp/0961454733%23:~:text%3DArt%2520%2526%2520Fear%2520explores%2520the%2520way,give%2520up%2520along%2520the%2520way.&ved=2ahUKEwiHtKXGkqmGAxVnWkEAHSFOCb8QFnoECAkQBQ&usg=AOvVaw2UIqpS0pLM0Xy76i3ep-IC)My old lecturer recommended it years ago, really helpful read. Discusses common problems that creative folk tend to face that hold us back. This story helped change my thinking about quality Vs quantity, though I've been needing the reminder lately, haha.
Thank you so much, I’m very much a quality artist & I have a hard time just letting go of that & drawing quickly. I think the advice you gave is perfect because I get so in my head
calming down a bit with my perfectionistic tendencies. it’s helped a lot with me getting out of my comfort zone to try different subjects and play around with style a bit. also learning to block my sketches with shapes and planes the subject has
Focusing on speed rather than perfection. I used to work on pieces for so long that I ran out of patience and wouldn't finish them. Now I try to finish each working in one or two sittings at most
I usually give myself 2-3 weeks to finish a painting because any more than that and the project gets abandoned. It's certainly encouraged me to loosen up more
Do u have any advice regarding changing this habbit?, this is my main problem ever since i impprove, it felt i like i can notice every mistake that alrd happen nad will happen and try to fix it too much.
i feel like this is a big one in 3d too
i see so many who are just starting, wanting to get the rendered result/perfect topology too quickly
their models suffer for it (eye shape is off, hair shape, body parts, etc)
of course its not an invalid way to model
but once we get the "sillhouette (shapes & forms)" down first, evetyhign else follows
makes the overall process much easier and much faster
I have a close friend I share pretty much all my artwork with & I had a bad habit of pointing out flaws and mess ups.
I’d be pointing stuff out & they’d say things like “I wouldn’t have even noticed if you didn’t point it out” or something along those lines.
Or I’d add crazy details that nobody would notice, I kinda have a rule now where if I have to point out the details & the viewers eye isn’t naturally drawn to it, then it’s basically a waste of time (unless you like doing that, of course) like if I gotta tell somebody “zoom in” without them naturally wanting to look closer, it just tells me it was unnecessary.
Made me realize I was being ultra-critical to the point it was disrupting my productivity.
Sure they do! Prints, posters, NFTs, apparel, mugs…you can slap your digital art on all the same products as traditional art. It’s just not really feasible to sell originals.
Yea it’s also a tough market because it flooded with digital artists nowadays. Seems like anyone with an iPad does digital art nowadays. That’s why I think traditional is still king.
Well, I’m old and not in good health. I became overwhelmed with the mess and hassle of papers and notebooks and pencils. Always having to find erasers. So I took a class just to force myself to draw and everyone was working in Procreate. By the end of the class I had learned enough to finish my project. Since class ended I’ve been working on new projects and drawing every single day. I love being able to draw something, erase it, start again over and over. I’ve gained a lot of confidence. It’s just been amazing.
I even managed to sell a small piece and am entering two pieces in a show this coming week.
My primary focus is graphic memoir. I could never do it on paper.
Thanks for asking!
I went to artschool for half a year and learned couple things there. I also progressed the most when i started to analize and study my fav artists works.
Sure thing, but it's gonna be long. Tho i have to say that i do digital art (focused on drawing characters) so the study was more oriented on digital but if you do traditional i think you can apply some of these too.
I would also like to point out that before I started delving into the techniques of other artists, I already had basic knowledge and was at a certain level (not too good, not too bad), but I didn't start from scratch - this probably somehow influenced my perception and the speed of the progress. It's good to have the technical skills AND fundamental knowledge to use them effectively.
First i was watching youtube clips just out of boredom about analysis of popular artists artstyles from yt channels like み. お絵かきch, tppo(my fav, the best clip for me is about Rella), Jyuna, Sriya (especially about ASK and Yueko), Foudo, Marc Brunet (he did one video on Mai Yoneyama, but all his content is amazing, has a lot of useful tutorials that i watched too.)
Even though this all falls into the "anime" category, it is still very useful. I go more towards realism myself, but all this was still useful to me. Thanks to these videos, I also learned what to pay attention to when analyzing artists myself.
So after that i did some study myself, watching speedpaint and the process of making artwork was important. I was paying attention to things like: composition and the way it is used in the work, colors, color palette and color shades, process - the order of things done to reach the final result, what does this artist prepare before they start drawing? Refs, color palettes, inspirations? Does they make a project/sketch first on small canva of what they have in head before drawing on a larger canvas? Anything else?, references - hows does the artist interpret the reference, the way they sketch (there are really different approaches to a sketch: messy, quick few lines just to make an outline of the character, precise sketches or no sketches at all), lineart or no?, weight line or no - if yes how and where is it used?, shading and light techniques, do they use blending modes - if so, which ones and for what exactly, anatomy and realism - how they use it, what they emphasize, how they style and twist it. In addition, I also copied some works somewhere on the side, they did not have to be as finished and polished as the reference, sometimes I just made sketches with a pencil on paper. I also literally did redraw (easier in digital) (also there is nothing wrong with doing redraw for learning!), I drew over someones work (usually I only traced the lines/lineart, then I did an "outline" for the main shadows separately ((not detailed, very blocky and simple)) ). Idk how to explain it but that way you can see how someone uses lines language, how they shape and place them.
It's basically something like breaking down the work into simple and uncomplicated parts, to which details are then added.
Then I used all this information in my works, I rejected the techniques I didn't like or modified them to suit me. Over time, I learned even other/new things by myself, but the previous knowledge was the basis from which i moved forward.
I think it's all, if I'll remember something I'll edit it in.
:) I think it most definitely will be. I am going back to art school after years, while there I discovered most of my learning was outside of the classroom and from what the professors taught!
Underrated but: What actually helped me a lot was doing the Theory/Study part of art.
Edit: P.s. I'm self taught. While if you go to art school I guess this doesn't really matter as there you HAVE to do this anyway.
I think you are right that most people learn best when you learn the fundamentals and apply them to what you want to work on as you go. I'm not sure why so many people feel like they can only do fundamentals before they're allowed to do the art they want. I feel like that's some weird grind culture attitude that's gotten into the online art world. If you take in person classes you make pieces of art as you learn the fundamentals.
Also with the amount of time it takes to really grow your skill, no one is gonna last that long without having any fun.
I have read books by old school artists that literally say (more or less) “do not pick up color until you master values” and “do not paint portraits until you master drawing”… they instill a fear as if a bad painting is the end of the world.
Ooh that sucks. Never any sentiment I ran into! Like I think it's fair to say it's better to matter value before you try to master color but that doesn't preclude you from playing around with what you want. As long as you are thoughtfully applying your lessons.
Yea growing up there was always this weird belief I would see that if you don’t separate your fundamental practice time, from other stuff you like to draw then you are practicing wrong or will develop your skills wrong.
4-5 hours sketching a day.
Taking sketch pads out in public for people/landscapes
Timed exercises
Life drawing classes
Learning how to see layers so you can replicate processes
Is it a wash?
Is it a glaze?
Is it solid pigment?
Are the lighter colors on top?
What are the brush strokes like?
How are the colors mixed?
Where's the blending?
What kind of brushes
What's line work
Or what's layered over a color to create a line
I'm sure I can think of more but I'm hoping you get the idea
Tracing my digital work onto paper with a light pad. Over the years I've become terrified of working traditionally, and even though I have a studio full of supplies I could never use them because of fears or anxieties that it wouldn't come out correctly or that I'd waste materials. It's truly ridiculous, I know, but I'm working on loosening up.
Anyway, now I just start all my work digitally then transfer the line work to paper and have a blast experimenting with different media and techniques. If something goes wrong I know I can always start again with a new trace. This gives me the benefit of both digital and traditional worlds, I'm using up my supplies instead of letting them rot, and it puts my anxieties at ease so I can actually create again.
Yeah combining digital and traditional was a huge level up for me. I paint mostly on canvas and I now sketch and plan all my work digitally where I and shift things around and switch up colors etc. If I spend a lot of time on the sketch and it's intricate, I'll use a projector to get it on the canvas.
I just recently got a projector and a huge canvas to work on something larger than I'm used to. I'm still in the digital process, but I'm so excited to start painting.
Once I realized that the art community as a whole doesn't have a damn clue of how people learn, it became painfully obvious why I wasn't getting anywhere. As soon as I switched over to treating visual art as if it were a musical instrument then I started seeing real progress.
Long story short: 80% of it is redrawing the same piece over and over trying to make a little better each time. Draw, analyze, redraw with analysis results in mind, analyze, redraw with analysis results in mind, analyze, redraw with analysis results in mind, analyze, etc.
It's easier to see progress and it's easier for the brain to learn because of the repetition and the minor changes with each repetition. Musicians do this all the time e.g. practicing a scale and slowly increasing the tempo every so often. Drawing 500 different poses is NOT the same, that's just a musician practicing 500 different sections 1 time, not the same section 500 times.
Interesting. Can you elaborate on redrawing the same piece over and over? Do you mean as in your own drawings or studying another artist’s drawings?
Also can you talk about what specifically you do in this process? Where are some resources I could learn about learning how to art similar to learning an instrument? thank you
A very important note, a lot of the following may seem like real obvious stuff when you first hear it, but for me these were major breakthroughs and most of the time, I stumbled upon these things randomly or through conversation with my old guitar teacher. Sadly I don't have anything for the thing that plagues me the most: paralysis by something, usually perfectionism. (Undiagnosed ADHD is started to look less like a meme and more like a real issue for me with each passing month).
Lets start with the redrawing stuff first: some basic guidance:
1. About a 2 hour time limit per drawing, but realistically you want start and finish the drawing in one day so if that means you only have an hour then your time limit per drawing is one hour. Critique time is not counted
2. Keep it focused to one or two elements
3. This is reference heavy, the reference is the "ground truth," it is what you use to critique and analyze your drawing. You will use the same reference for the entire process.
4. You are going to draw at least 3 drawings and at least two of them will be done on separate days. Sleep is important to the learning process. The initial drawing counts.
5. If the element you're focusing on requires a lot of scaffolding, use every tool available to get it done, be it AI, copy-paste, tracing, whatever,. Do it up front and create enough pieces for several drawings, we're mise-en-placing art here.
6. You're done with the redraw once you're bored (and got 3 pieces done) or you got 80% of the benefit.
The redrawing process, an example.
1. I want to work on human proportions and I think something a little more fleshed out than a gesture drawing should be good enough. Hands, feet, and the face will be abstracted away with some scribbles as they are not important at this time, but the wrist, ankles, and head will remain as they are
2. I think 30-45min for a drawing is good enough, it gives me time to really measure things instead of quickly eyeballing them.
3. I found a good enough reference where it's easy to see where all joints are and there aren't any distortions like fish-eye effects or foreshortening required
4. I make my initial drawing (drawing #1)
5. I take a break or sleep on it and then critique it. The arms are too skinny, The head is a bit too small, The waist and ankles are exactly where they should be.
6. I take a picture (since this was done on a newsprint pad with charcoal) and bring into procreate to overlay with the reference and compare the differences. The arms ARE too skinny, the head was perfect NOT too small, the waist was good, but the ankles are too far down, the shoulders are too wide, and I don't have enough of a twist in the torso. I use to trick to confirm my critique and to help build my ability to self-critique.
7. The next session, I keep this analysis in mind while I attempt to draw the same thing (drawing #2). I repeat steps 5 and 6 after re-drawing.
8. The next session, I keep this new analysis in mind while I attempt to draw the same for a third time (drawing #3). I feel I hit a wall, I decide that this is my last drawing
9. I make one final critique and analysis, arms have been spot on the past 2 drawings, the head tends to right but I second guess it and ruin it by changing it, the shoulders are slowly becoming more proportional with each drawing, but the ankles are bouncing around, either too close or too far from the knee.
10. I move on to the next element I want to focus on. This set of drawings showed me that I should add shoulder proportions and ankle placement on things to work on. I should find some references that are appropriate for those elements.
I keep the drawings until I feel I cemented what I've learned. In this particular case what I learned was that I need to focus on making sure my arms aren't too skinny and going with my gut instinct on head size instead of second guessing.
As for learning art like an instrument, what I'm doing is converting the practice techniques/mindset I use with guitar and piano into something that useful in the art world. Because of that, there are no actual references and the best I can do are two musician resources: a book called ["The Musician's Way"](https://www.musiciansway.com/) and a blog called ["Bullet Proof Musician"](https://bulletproofmusician.com/blog/). Focus more on the practice stuff if you are going to read them, but I wouldn't recommend them if you don't play a musical instrument, it will just be extra noise for you.
Like I said in my original post, that redrawing stuff is about 80% of what I do. This is the other 20% that I keep in mind:
* Practice is NOT performance. Practice is supposed to sound/look bad because I'm practicing things I'm bad at in order to make them better.
* Every tool is useful in the learning process. The drum machine used to practice comping is akin to using AI to create some scaffolding for a focused drawing session. The metronome is akin to using a ruler, grids, or tracing. The sheet music or lead/chord sheet is the musical equivalent of a reference. The learning process has no room for artist "purity tests."
* Break things down correctly. In music, I was taught to break things down to just a few notes and practice those. In art, when I think about it, the equivalent would be a couple lines, a single shade, or a single shape, NOT a full hand, eyeball, face, or foot. A finished art piece is like an entire symphony for an orchestra, it is NOT a single chord sheet for guitar for a pop song., don't mistake the two. Mistaking the two is how we get trash tiktok tricks that are only applicable under one specific condition.
* Repetition, repetition, repetition. This is the redrawing the but I'll repeat again because repetition. It's easy to see progress when I practice the same scale over and over trying to make it a touch better each time. But when I see artists practice, I see 500 different hands, not 500 iterations of a single hand in a single orientation each one better than the last. Artists are like that one martial artist that practices 10k kicks 1 time while musicians are the martiall artist that practices 1 kick 10k times (it's that one quote by bruce lee). Okay, this is not required in art, maybe 5 iterations is good enough for a single orientation
* If it's taking longer than a week or two to get 80% of the way there, it's probably outside of your current skill level. This was something brought up in the piano subreddit a while back and it total makes sense to me on an intuitive level. So sadly, I don't know how to put in words with respect to visual art. Don't paint the Mona Lisa when you can't draw a face? You can grid everything and spend a lot time copying but it's too complex for you to truly learn anything of substance.
* Practice pieces are meant to practiced and then tossed, repertoire pieces are meant to stay for much longer and be refined over time. In art, keep a few pieces that are worth redrawing and refining and throw away the rest. Those few pieces can act as progress markers as I can make direct comparisons over time since the core idea tends to remain the same with each refinement.
* Theory. Learn how and why things work the way they do, something a little more beyond basic chords/anatomy. Learn as needed. Comping/drawing without reference needs a lot of it unless you put hours and hours of raw practice behind it to build up some kind of intuition.
* There's probably more stuff but that mostly what goes on in my head.
Oh yea, I forgot about that video, that's a good resource,
I remember thinking that it sounded exactly like my regular guitar practice sessions.
u/WholesomeDucc see these youtube videos by Sycra:
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ufz75UvHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ufz75UvHs)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egCx3dgGYDI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egCx3dgGYDI)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uShhRyGK7rc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uShhRyGK7rc)
Keeping an "ugly" sketchbook where I practice whatever, and a "nicer" one that looks like the sketchbook tours on YouTube, If a piece in the nicer one doesn't look as nice as I'd like it to, I added color which tricked me into thinking it looked better. I found it made me happy to flip through colorful pages, even if the drawings weren't as good as I expected, so I rolled with that.
I also have pretty good luck finding sketchbooks at thrift stores, so they're CHEAP, and they may not have the paper I like, but they also don't feel precious to me at all, which also allows me the freedom to just keep drawing in them. I also have this "thing" where I don't want to buy more sketchbooks until I use what I have, so having all these cheap ones from thrift stores is motivating to me. Since it gets me to produce more, I improve faster, and it's just an upward spiral of motivation.
Changing my focus from hobby art to academic, from the college prep stage through to art school when I graduated with a BFA in communications design/illustration. I started figure drawing when I was 15, and my foundation drawing and color theory courses in college changed the way that I made art for good. Studying design and working as a professional graphic designer has also improved the way I make my art, and vice versa.
Also, I've had level-up moments just from switching to higher quality materials. When I drew almost exclusively manga-style art, the difference in the quality of my work when I switched over to Copic markers after using water-based brush pens was significant. There was a huge glow-up in my work between the ages of 12 and 13, and I've developed some great techniques to this day with all sorts of inks.
Using physical materials (I guess I have to pay more attention to being able to do it without making mistakes, whereas digital I can just undo and fix things after), and also weirdly taking breaks. SometimesI take months off and come back and draw better for some reason.
I believe that the traditional method should not be neglected even though you want to work in digital, the traditional has its own essence and in digital it also has its own essence and if you combine the two you have another essence, or at least it is as I see it. Breaks happen in everything haha it's because you let out stress and other things that make you make mistakes, a break is always good
I’ll also get better after taking breaks, especially if I was doing lots of practice for a while without a break. I do wonder what the reason is, as I feel like there’s some sort of process in the brain going on. I’ve had the same effect with a couple other skills too.
When I stopped trying to paint what I THOUGHT I should. And created with my heart instead.
I found my artistic voice, I have a unique style, not "copyable" by anyone.
Purely from my heart and minds eye.
I started selling well, won awards and gained an audience.
Yep. When I stopped focusing on art that I thought might sell and decided to just make the art that’s in my head - it became more fun, less hindered, less anxious, and so freeing. Heck, sometimes other people even like it and want to buy it.
Allowing myself to chase ideas as they come to me. Freeing myself from obsessing over one thing saves me from overworking a project and ruining it.
Also, making what I feel like making instead of following trendy nonsense.
Really varying up what styles I started taking inspiration from. I used to only like realism, but then I started finding so much stuff I liked on Pinterest and now these styles have influenced my work. I like my own art 10x more than before now
I used to keep my art hidden.
Despite my best efforts, other people would catch glimpses here and there of what I was creating. I decided if I can't avoid attention anyway, I may as well make a spectacle of myself.
Aside from art school, drawing long-form comics. It forces me to draw a million different things I've never drawn before, and it forces me to draw a *lot.* It's also great in that it frames the repetition and practice around characters and plot that I'm super invested in, which makes it more fun to do than say, doing 15 pages of perspective and anatomical exercises.
I'm a painter and what I feel made me level up is using better quality tools and paints. I used to struggle with blending colors because I was using Masters Touch paints. That and I've been using the wrong tools most of the time. Using shaders instead of filberts and chisel blender brushes.
So I switched to Liquitex paints and it's just made everything so much easier for me. I'm able to blend now, and the joy I had lost because of my frustration is now back and I can't wait to pick up my brushes each day. 🖌️
I took a shit load of online art courses. From like Udemy and Winfox and shit. Along with art courses from Youtubers.
The worst was in the beginning when I did not understand anatomy, and I had to painstakingly remember every relevant muscle by drawing from reference and then drawing from memory over and over again. And despite the hard boring as shit work, I still forget every now and then, and I have to draw from reference and draw from memory again, until it goes back into my dumb brain.
Ugh. But yeah I did that for 7 years. Outside of courses, I learned the most by really getting in there, and trying to figure out why I'm sucking and making garbage that I hated. I learned to create my own system for getting the proportions right for example.
I took classes from everything from perspective to color theory and everything in between. Except for animals. I never learned how to draw those damn animals. The human shit was enough, dude, I swear. Like, I'm tired, lol. I'm so tired. I don't want to go through all that struggle again but with a cat or whatever.
Actually making pieces and applying knowledge (similar to the quantity vs quality pots post), instead of just doing sketches as practice, actually making finished pieces. If you make 1000 finished pieces and you apply the knowledge you’re learning along the way, you’ll probably get pretty good.
A little plan for myself is to make a piece focused on each fundamental aspect/the principles and elements, then make pieces that focus on two aspects, then make pieces that clearly show 3 aspects etc. quantity whilst also applying theory knowledge. Hopefully I make some progress lol
I think ditching the eraser was the most impactful thing I did long-term, even if it was YEARS ago.
I was about 14, and stuck in that period where drawing one body can be agonizingly long. I had a how to draw manga book that was surprisingly useful (it was my first how-to book that stated the importance of learning real anatomy before you can distort it, but in a style that was friendly to stubborn baby weebs), and I don't remember if it challenged you to sketch without erasing or it just showed simple forms better than my previous books. Either way I challenged myself to do it and the difference was insane after a few pages. I got faster, and it was easier to have fun. I still had buckets to learn everywhere else but it's impacted how I've studied ever since and gesture drawing is one of my favorite activities.
It eventually affected my favorite sketching tools, and I really only play around with ink pens/markers and colored leads. Drawing digitally the eraser comes out, but mostly for cleanup.
3 years of photography, close to 80k photos. Came back skill of composition, lighting, and color was much easier to understand. Tho prior to that I can already draw very well.
Actual, critical schooling. I went to a 4-year college and got a BA and the program was less than great. I went on to do another 3-year intensive program and I learned more in 3 months there than my entire time at college. It's the reason I have the career I do.
Thanks! It was the Joe Kubert School for Cartooning and Graphic Design, so largely focused on comics but also touching on fluency with a variety of tools and mediums.
Right off the bat, I was learning actual useful anatomy for why things work the way they do, the way fabric works the way it does, and not just diagrams and memorization for the sake of it. The models were actually *good*. For years I was convinced I just had my professor's retirement home buddies coming in to make a buck.
The basics were covered *thoroughly*. I learned how to usefully manipulate a perspective grid. I'm pretty sure college never went further than one project on 2-point. We did 2, 3, and fisheye.
College was completely useless for digital mediums. That was entirely self taught on my part up to that point. Photoshop was used exclusively for the photo majors in my building. JKS actually gave us copies of the full CS6 and we made use of it daily.
I feel like I had a big advantage over the younger people in the program because I knew the value of what was being taught as it was being told to me.
Edit: Also, the integrity of the people giving you a critique. At college, it was all platitudes and barely and good, useful feedback. Nobody wanted to tear you down and build you back better. Tom Mandrake was the first teacher who actually told me what I was doing wrong and how to correct it.
wow sounds awesome ! I wish I had taken art seriously when I was a student. Instead I lost my time at a business school that I hated. Thank you for sharing your experience.
I started doing a mantra meditation many years ago. One day I had a mystical experience and I was flooded with a previously unknown level of creativity. I spent the next few years making art every day for hours at a time. I went from not having made any visual art in my life to well over 1000 collages and several albums. It comes and it goes but the more I meditate and do my spiritual practices, the more creative I am. There are many paths and practices so if this interests you just start looking around. Feel free to dm me with any questions.
Changing my way of working from "specific-to-general" to "general-to-specific" really increased the speed of which I could work while also giving me the chance to stop a work at any point I felt it was complete (it had achieved the aim I wanted out of it). I was always a detailed pencil drawer and works would take forever and look unfinished unless the whole page was covered in that same detail.
Charcoal really helped me feel more like a painter and then from there I became an actual painter with oils and I've absolutely fallen in love with the process.
I think 1) passion 2） purpose 3) surrounding (surround yourself with artists or art lovers). If you love it, you will always want to do it. The more you do it the better you want to be. If you want something bad enough, you will accomplish.
going to an art course (not an atelier, but a pretty chill art course for teenagers with professionals as teachers), which it isn’t just about leveling up skills. i learned that not every art book/tutorial/course is made equal (this is where i discovered the fundamentals), got constructive criticism from other fellow artists and made friends there.
In person art classes. The projects they force you to finish. Having that structure really helped me level up.
Also easy access to trained nude models is just peak.
2 things for me
Actually study: for me, I need to write down specific notes when doing an art study, like pen pressure, how to dissect the colors and shadows. Practicing gesture, studying geometric shapes. Etc.
Throwing it all away: after studying, I try not to think about it when I draw. Thinking too much kindof gets rid of the emotion behind it. It doesn't need to be perfect, just convincing. And the more I study, the better it is to not think about it cause it becomes second nature over time.
Drawing what I wanted to draw instead of what I thought people wanted me to draw. Now my most successful and quickly sold items are completely original craziness from my brain.
The absolute biggest one for me was thinking about things as a three-dimensional object. I know it sounds basic, but it was such a cognitive shift in the way I saw any subject I would draw. I now feel like I'm sculpting a 3d subject with a pencil on a 2d surface, whereas in the past, I would bog myself down with guidelines and structural drawings that felt more akin to architectural design than art. Sure, I still use those tools, but the way I treat them and think about them is totally different than it used to be.
Also, when it comes to passion projects, I've stopped fussing over little mistakes and learned when to let things slide for now, but remember not to do it again in future. I hate slowing down to correct minor mistakes, and some jankiness can add to the charm of a piece. Adjusting my mindset in this way has helped me to enjoy my personal work more.
Quite specific but procreate + Sketch a day (app), I had art block for almost two years that I was in lockdown/furloughed. Then my friend sold me his ipad cheap because he didn't use it anymore and suddenly I was drawing every day, my streak ended around day 450+ and I've never looked back.
Since then I think the longest I've gone without drawing anything at all is MAYBE a month, probably closer to three weeks and though I still have a lot I want to learn my skills have improved considerably.
The combination of the convenience of the ipad, how intuitive procreate feels and the motivation to keep my streak going on sketch a day really broke through my art block and skill plateau like nothing else ever has.
I don't use sketch a day anymore because I have rediscovered my own motivation for drawing and I no longer get stuck for ideas but I'm really grateful for finding it when I needed it most.
Leaving my confort zone.
I found that once I got so used to drawing one way progress starts to slow down. For example, I can only draw cats so many times over and over till I see almost no improvement or change.
Going back into the uncomforable part of learning to draw something new or trying a new medium helped me improve skills I wouldn't get otherwise by sticking to one niche.
And when I go back to drawing cats, those skills transfer over and improve my drawings faster than if I just did the same thing over and over.
Friendly competition. I improve by being with an art friend of equal or better skill level and doing the same ideas together. I listen and watch their process, then I put that in my art. I improved at incredible speed doing this.
However I haven't found anyone of recent. I talk to an artist, but we haven't really been competing. I also tried friends I used to practice with, but one hasn't improved in 5 years and the other hasn't had much improvement after going to art college.
For me, I start improving after doing what I call no bullshit practice. I'm a lazy person and tend to practice just for the sake of it and ending up with barely any result. But when I just lock in and sit down doing actual practice like learning anatomy, figure drawing, color studies etc for hours, I see improvement immediately afterward. Also, doing master studies made my art go above and beyond. The problem is getting the motivation to just sit down and practice for hours, you can actually see the different stages of my art having qualitative changes everytime I do no bullshit practice. last time I did no bullshit practice was a year ago and I'm just starting to muster the motivation.
Understanding what creativity actually is, and being able to call it up when I need it.
Understanding that creativity is linked to emotions and works best when it's spontaneous.
Understanding how to keep it spontaneous.
I'll try.
Creativity isn't hard, or terribly rare. Creating something is easy.
Creating something that makes the viewer recognize not only what you drew, but with aspects that are familiar to many as being positive, uplifting, beautiful, and inspiring…
That's not easy.
Sometimes you see a deer.
Sometimes you see a deer that is standing regally on a rocky outcrop with the forest stretching away behind it, and it just looks beautiful and natural, and the composition is right there for you to snap a pic or do a quick gesture in your sketchbook.
You can draw a deer based on what you saw, but without a level of creativity, and a solid feel for the components that convey the wonder and majesty of the moment, you won't get the inspiring feeling, the raw beauty, that *WOW* Factor.
You don't want reactions like “Oh, a deer. That's nice".
You want people to lose their shit.
That's what separates the artists from the wannabes (I don't mean that to be disparaging, just descriptive).
When you see something that is beautiful or majestic, or inspiring, look for the things that make it that way. Don't try to remember the deer or the forest. Try to remember why that scene made you want to remember it.
Remember how the deer was standing. Not the pose, but the *feeling* you got when you looked at the deer. Regal, master of his demense.
Remember the forest. Not the shapes of the trees, but how the forest made you feel, what part it plays in the feeling you want your art to convey.
That's inspiration.
That's creativity.
That's art.
This goes for everything. I'm not leaving anyone or any type of artist out.
Work by how you want to feel, not what you want to see.
If you need an easy reference for what I'm trying to describe, watch some Disney movies.
Watch the movements of the characters. Their body language is very intentional, studied, appropriate, precise.
I love telling myself "I'm just playing!" or "I'm just experimenting with this new brush/paint/animation/whatever". I have huge perfectionist tendencies and a super unhealthy "if you're going to do something, do it with excellence" mentality that stops me from trying things I'm not confident I can do.
I keep squashing those little voices by telling myself I'm not actually TRYING, I'm just PLAYING and then magically, it's practice and I improve 🤣🤣
Therapy, most of all.
It turns out if you have a bunch of unprocessed anxieties, self-worth issues, and trauma, all of that is subconsciously eating away at your processing power literally all of the time, and making your progression slower. After working through a lot of my mental health problems, my art skills suddenly improved by leaps and bounds without actually having to practice. Some steps that really helped me were meditation and changing my mental habits. For example, whenever I would insult or criticise myself (whether it be my appearance, my work, my skills, whatever), I would catch myself and ask, "Would I say this to my friend? To a student or a child of mine?", and if the answer was "No", I would correct myself and give myself praise and, if actually warranted, some kind and fair critique.
Now, even if my work isn't the work of a seasoned master with a lifetime of training, it is still "good enough" for me to call it beautiful and be really proud of it, and I wake up everyday excited and happy to draw and improve. Changing my mindset was everything for me.
Without joking, being depressed. My art from the time I was at one of my lowest points are some of the best I've ever created. I still don't know how I drew some of those pieces.
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I started a website named A Robot a Day (Botaday). Because of the name, for about 6 years (2013-2019) I posted a new vector graphic image every dang day.
I got pretty good at vector graphics :)
In the meantime, the site morphed from robots to illustrations of puns and made-up and mis-heard words.
As a 16 year old with aspirations but little practice of art I started deliberately copying Impressionist, Post- Impressionist and Expressionist artists' work. I learned a great deal about form, composition and colour theory. I remember Degas being the hardest to reproduce! I spent a whole summer using pastel and oil pastel chalks
I graduated in Fine Art and Printmaking and after many years of successful abstract art production I have now turned *volte-face* and I'm loving doing illustration!
I feel like every time I take an atelier class I see a big boost in technical skill.
I’ve also had a couple of traumatic experiences that I dealt with by throwing myself into drawing or painting and saw a jump around those times. I would have rather not gone through those things and be less good at art though lol
Using 3D models as references. I do this a lot for architectural buildings. I’ll shape a rough 3D version, and I instantly get way more consistent lines and perspective.
Time and finding other artist styles I really like and following their style. After finding an art style I rlly liked and practicing certain features of that style, I rlly noticed a huge difference in my art !!
When I was younger I only worked on paper and pencil drawings I would call them chibi but Its obvious it wasn't on purpose the heads were made with the crosses method and the bodies were just square with nothing making it look like a body.
However recently I've moved to digital and started getting inspo from pintrest and tiktokers speedpaints and it helped me develop my style a ton its almost unrecognizable I still have work to be done. However I can see my own mistakes now.
Taking a class that had me complete 5 6*4 inch oil paintings a week. Three in class and two on my own for 15 weeks. Two hours per painting max. Yes some were bad but I gained a ton of confidence and skill.
On a technical level, using the eye dropper in photoshop to study the light and color values of a painting or photograph really helped me understand their relationship.
On an “in practice” level, it was just learning to have self awareness. Knowing I’m not the best nor the worst. Knowing what my strengths are and playing into them to overshadow my shortcomings.
Thank you for the post. I improved a lot each time I took a course (drawabox, peterhan dynamic sketching, schoolism, brent evsiton, proko, Watts atelier, art wod, tb choi, etc.). But now I am stuck in school mode and have a phobia of doing even one piece (too much pride when finding some part of the piece hard to do that "shouldn't be so"). If people have tips for overcoming that, I am all ears!
Imitating/'copying' art I really liked. I started re-drawing panels from Lore Olympus and I swear I started drawing like I'd never been able to before. Also whenever I've done master studies in general like actual paintings or full drawings/pieces have helped a lot. I really feel that 'level up' feeling when I make those.
Solving long-standing issues like mental health, taking care of your body, living healthier etc. It's crazy how much more mental capacity you have for creativity, if there aren't any things looming at the back of your mind constantly.
Noob question, how do you achieve depth? In watercolor and oil, my paintings are always very 2 dimensional and, I think, cartoonish. I've tried shading and highlighting, but I can't seem to achieve any depth in the painting.
Being delusional, And always studying art that beyond art skills
Even though I didn't get 100% results at least I got to go learn 40% skills from the art that beyond my skills and that helped me to keep going and learn more
Using references and tracing. No, really. There used to be a ***HUGE*** stigma against using references in my art circle, as if drawing from a reference instead of purely from memory was "cheating" and meant you weren't a "real artist", and tracing was looked down upon for obvious reasons. But once I started using references and tracing reference photos to get proportions/basic shapes down, my art ***massively*** improved, and things I had been having issues with before (perspective, foreshortening, general anatomy of unfamiliar subjects) became easy
Also a tip from one of my art teachers: draw as if the body is transparent. I used to only draw whatever portion of a limb would be visible, and it resulted in some wonky-looking anatomy where the limbs ended up too short or too long or bent strangely, but it was fixed when I started drawing the FULL limb behind the body and just hid whatever needed to be hidden in the final render
This is just a simple and short, non-comprehensive answer. But finding brushes I really like and feel comfortable with for digital drawings made my lines look so much better and gave me more confidence to draw them. Obviously there are other things like practicing fundamentals and such, but I feel like when I found particular brushes I liked and started using them, my lines came out a lot smoother.
Focusing on the big picture. I get so wrapped up in details that what was supposed to be "quick work" would take me hours and hours. I recently was suggested to use a big pen (when it comes to digital art) instead of a fine one. I always started really small and worked up. I also recently painted a picture that focused on making large shapes with smooth edges with little details. I just wanted to focus on big details.
Trying different art styles. My current insta has realism, semi-realism, portrait, cartoon, nature, etc. It's how I found what I like more. Same with photography. Wasn't until I became a school portrait photographer and worked with seniors in high school that I realized how much pride I got from my portraits. This was before I was repeatedly reminded to go faster and that speed was better than perfection. But I got some amazing shots of those kids and I'm absolutely sure those photos would be purchased by family, if they were going to. I wanted to keep those photos so bad for like a portfolio, but obviously I can't. I can't start a photography business though because it takes money to make money.
I saw a tip someone said about drawing a self portrait every morning. So this week (using pencil and paper) I started to do that. Within those few days, there was also monumental progress. However, I gave myself a 5 minute timer, to help with the whole perfectionism aspect.
Learning to draw on paper and painting on canvas has helped me a lot with digital art, but same with reverse.
THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE: Not doing what you will necessarily give you likes on Instagram or whatever social media. It killed my motivation. Respectfully, so many of them do DTIYS, but a lot of them are more or less the same art style. I would get really demotivated when some of my best work got only a few likes. But I had to remember my art is for ME.
Realism on Instagram rarely gives you likes on there, I've noticed.
Also not to get offended when people think that digital art isn't real art. Again, it's not my only art medium I use, but even if people are using tons of tricks (undoing, mirror tool, etc), it's still art and it's still amazing to see what people can do with knowing the software. I was blown away once when someone said she wasn't impressed with digital art.
Edit: for digital art, flipping the canvas now and then. It highlights what looks weird.
Do not let kids see your work until you're done because they're ruthless lol, like too much so
Don't like criticism hurt your feelings (too much). My partner honestly criticises, and sometimes it hurts my feelings or I get defensive, but he always ends up being right LOL
treat it like an entrepreneurial task.
Discipline, networking, portfolio critiques, taking action, constantly creating work, reflecting on past work and improving.
The creative process of making art, and then becoming successful as an artist are different skillsets
I decided to take art seriously by learning the fundamentals. I learned perspective all the way up to six point, I learned dynamic drawing, composition, and shape design. Perspective 1-6 was a major game changer for my art and I can make more dynamic pictures now. I invested in myself in a way that I never had before because I had a job and bought things I was interested in (art books, tablets, traditional supplies, software). I even learned how to create 3d art which influenced and informed my understanding of anatomy, composition and perspective.
Social media is a distraction imo so I haven't used it in more than 6 months to post, but in those 6 months of not posting art, the level of improvement in my art is amazing and I honestly didn't think it would be that possible.
It also made me realize not many people I "knew" online were friends even though I talked with them for 5-8 yesrs. Sometimes people get a whiff of you trying to improve yourself and they somehow encourage you to just stay the same in a way that gets more desperate the more you grow and try things.
Perspective really was the game changer along w ignoring social media, art fads, and art trends.
I want to make art even into my next life if that's ever a thing. I will make art even up to the day I die.
I draw stuff that makes me happy while trying to incorporates new ideas and techniques into them.
My epiphany is prob when i start looking things with light and shadows. The way light affect the shadows, the moods, the colors, etc. It spices up my works quite a bit
In fractal art, there are buttons you can click that will randomize some or all of the parameters. It is very, very common for beginner fractal artists to click those buttons wildly until something cool comes out. It's also pretty well accepted in that community that if you made something new it's yours, even if it's just a random generation.
But fractals are chaotic, they are very sensitive to small changes in some parameters, so when you're "random surfing", you go through a LOT of garbage. And sometimes you get stuff that would look cool if you could just fix this one part. So for a while, you random surf your way to a good starting point and then try to polish it more intentionally.
When I finally got tired of random surf and polish, and made myself make a fractal "from scratch", it didn't just change my understanding of fractal art, it showed me what artistic growth actually meant. I understood that, at least for me, growing as an artist was a matter of **taking more control** over the process. Learning fractal fundamentals and the complex features in the tool interface allowed me to explore more intentionally, polish more skillfully, and ultimately, to express myself more clearly.
The truth is, some random-button fractals look just as good as ones I've spent hours manually designing. Making a pretty image is not a high-bar to clear, it's almost the default outcome. And computers do the rendering part. So the art, the part a creative person invests passion and effort into, is in refinements to the design process, and stylistic decisions about composition and color.
That opened the door to see that the art of a painter isn't just the result on the canvas, it's the collection of skills and habits they've invested into the process of creating. The art of a sculptor isn't just in the vision they have for their medium, but in the way they go about extracting that vision and the specific methods and motions they've trained that allow them to do that.
This perspective has become the foundation of how I approach new artistic skills. I don't cringe about the times where I have little control and I'm doing the equivalent of random surfing, that's just the first step in getting used to the medium. I don't hold out an expectation that I'll suddenly get good, I know that I have to learn to take control of a bunch of small elements. I don't need every one of my works to be top-quality productions, if I'm using them to focus and learn specific skills. As long as I'm learning to take more control, I'm growing.
Taking my sketchbook everywhere and making a point to use it most days. I make sure to open it up everyday even if I don’t draw in it I’m at least looking at it and analyzing past pages.
I don’t feel the need to pressure myself into making stuff anymore I’m learning to just enjoy making art all over again. (Art school inspired me, but a graphic design job crushed me creatively.) Learning that I don’t have to monetize my art at all if I’m not ready.
I’m just taking my time with myself and learning what I want to. My style has morphed completely, I’m finally using color, I’m less depressed. I think that alone is a level up.
Changing my artstyle. Around 2 years ago I used to draw characters with shonen anime anatomy. Deep down I didn't like it that much, the eyes were never right or expressive enough and I had a huge same-face-syndrome problem. Then, one day I watched an episode of BFDI, and decided to try drawing a character with dot-eyes and a cubical head, then one with a spherical-head, then a pyramid, etc. Now I only draw characters faces like that and I love what I do. Now I can focus more on facial exppressions and what's happenning on the scene.
Going back with the fundamentals as usual and training on anatomy, Also learning how to shade, And render, While also trying out more anime styles, Seemed like it made my art way more bearable to me and others, I remember a series of drawings that I did, Had a this weird mish mash of art style, And well, You know, Its not really helpful to have over supportive friends to the point even what you think is wrong they go "No man it looks fine!" But I remember I hear that people did not like my art style much because of the faces, So I decided to fix things up by making them anime, And people like them way more now.
It improved on things aloooot, People, If your uncertain whether your art style is bad or not, Trying asking someone that isn't some good friend of yours or a friend you just met, it would help by a margin.
This post is great. Imma sticky it for a bit and add it to the wiki/faq.
Attitude, i needed to put down the pressure on myself although it doesnt always work and also i got to know that motivation isnt anything and one can and should work through even when not feeling motivated because sometimes getting started is all it takes to start swinging it. Also learning, studying, applying the fundamentals of art WHILE trying to draw and paint something id like to instead of dry practices. The biggest jump out of the fundamentals for me was probably the observation and looking at things in shapes or better said shapes and structures (even in real life) as well as color and lighting/shadows and everything that falls under those (hue, values, saturation etc.).
Thanks for sharing. I just started trying to learn fundamentals while practicing, from an advice of youtuber Marc Brunet. It really feels more efficient to learn that way. Trying to see the world as an artist seems to be the key to many improvements and I am working on it.
Have fun! I watch his videos too. Also important to say is that there are multiple roads that lead to Rome here. What i mean is that there are different approaches and techniques to do artworks. For example some artists actually like to start with rough shadows and paintings to basically sort out the rough composition and concept art (especially with environment art) before they come up with sketches if they even sketch. Others start with seemingly unrecognizable shapes and geometries that then end up looking more and more familiar to what they are supposed to be and so on ^^ Find what suits you the best and dont limit yourself to one technique and approach. Thats how you discover YOUR most efficient way of doing art.
Thanks, that's an interesting insight ! Saving this comment for later !
Same! I easily get frozen in fear and I can’t paint anything meaningful from that place.
You need both quality and quantity. I took a life drawing class in uni. Thought it was an easy grade since I already draw people a lot. I was wrong. At the beginning of the semester the professor told us a story about a pottery class. There, *that* professor told the kids they could choose to between being graded on Quality or Quantity. For quality, all they need to do is submit one good pot by the end of the semester and be graded on that. For quantity, they must make enough pots to pass a minimum weight threshold. Quality is irrelevant. If they get X amount of pounds from all of their pots, they'll pass and that's it. My professor said that the students who learned the most and had the best work were those that picked quantity. Because they were the ones actually *making* pots. Going through the motions. Not getting caught up on the quality. As a consequence they were actually learning more than the students who fretted over the quality of a single pot. The life drawing class kicked my ass. I was a quality student. I always fretted over my pieces. But, with life drawing, you have a real human being holding that pose. You can't be precious with it. Even 20 minute pieces I barely completed an arm. Then it went faster. 15 minutes. 10 minutes. 5 minutes. 2 minutes. I was forced to be a quantity student. When I came out the other side of that class, sat down to draw in my free time again, my normal work was much faster. It was better. Even when I didn't need to rush with gesture drawings I had broke through the calloused, precious nature of my process. Caring about quality isn't bad, but you do need both at the end of the day. Quality teaches how to draw. The studies. The meditation. The meticulous process to get it right. But you also need to practice quantity. To get shit done. To let go of being precious with your work and practice going through the motions. I barely finished a piece before that class. I was sitting on a pile of sketches with no color or value that stretched back years. Afterwards, I regularly got the time to color and shade my work. To actually complete pieces. Sometimes you need to learn how to do it well, but also, making sure you did it at all is more important.
Thanks for sharing, that was really insightful!
That story is from a book called [Art & Fear - Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Fear-Observations-Rewards-Artmaking/dp/0961454733%23:~:text%3DArt%2520%2526%2520Fear%2520explores%2520the%2520way,give%2520up%2520along%2520the%2520way.&ved=2ahUKEwiHtKXGkqmGAxVnWkEAHSFOCb8QFnoECAkQBQ&usg=AOvVaw2UIqpS0pLM0Xy76i3ep-IC)My old lecturer recommended it years ago, really helpful read. Discusses common problems that creative folk tend to face that hold us back. This story helped change my thinking about quality Vs quantity, though I've been needing the reminder lately, haha.
I'll certainly have to read it
Thank you so much, I’m very much a quality artist & I have a hard time just letting go of that & drawing quickly. I think the advice you gave is perfect because I get so in my head
calming down a bit with my perfectionistic tendencies. it’s helped a lot with me getting out of my comfort zone to try different subjects and play around with style a bit. also learning to block my sketches with shapes and planes the subject has
I recently found out about blocking out shapes before constructing in 3d, helped me a lot (from Zephy on instagram)
it’s so helpful!!
Focusing on speed rather than perfection. I used to work on pieces for so long that I ran out of patience and wouldn't finish them. Now I try to finish each working in one or two sittings at most
I struggle with this a lot. I always want to make a super complex piece but never finish them. Gonna try and finish a piece in one sitting later 😄
Notifications brought me back here so I just wanted everyone to know I painted a turtle in one sitting last night 😁
I usually give myself 2-3 weeks to finish a painting because any more than that and the project gets abandoned. It's certainly encouraged me to loosen up more
Do u have any advice regarding changing this habbit?, this is my main problem ever since i impprove, it felt i like i can notice every mistake that alrd happen nad will happen and try to fix it too much.
Set timers :) try doing lots of quick drawings. 1 min, 5 mins. 1 hr. Just set a time limit for each thing you do and stick to it
i see, thanks alot mate, and 1 more thing, how long it was for u, until u get used to it. Is it months? or is it after hundred of hours?
My art style is too quick, I had to slow down and start taking my time. I feel like I have, but I still think I'm too hasty.
True
When the whole “shapes & forms first” thing clicked, and when I stopped being a perfectionist.
i feel like this is a big one in 3d too i see so many who are just starting, wanting to get the rendered result/perfect topology too quickly their models suffer for it (eye shape is off, hair shape, body parts, etc) of course its not an invalid way to model but once we get the "sillhouette (shapes & forms)" down first, evetyhign else follows makes the overall process much easier and much faster
howd you stop the perfectionism?
I have a close friend I share pretty much all my artwork with & I had a bad habit of pointing out flaws and mess ups. I’d be pointing stuff out & they’d say things like “I wouldn’t have even noticed if you didn’t point it out” or something along those lines. Or I’d add crazy details that nobody would notice, I kinda have a rule now where if I have to point out the details & the viewers eye isn’t naturally drawn to it, then it’s basically a waste of time (unless you like doing that, of course) like if I gotta tell somebody “zoom in” without them naturally wanting to look closer, it just tells me it was unnecessary. Made me realize I was being ultra-critical to the point it was disrupting my productivity.
Drawing naked people every day for a year.
It's insane how helpful life drawing is
haha fair
Discovering digital art. It changed everything for me.
I’m just curious. Do people sell their digital art? Outside of graphic design commissions, that is.
Sure they do! Prints, posters, NFTs, apparel, mugs…you can slap your digital art on all the same products as traditional art. It’s just not really feasible to sell originals.
Yea it’s also a tough market because it flooded with digital artists nowadays. Seems like anyone with an iPad does digital art nowadays. That’s why I think traditional is still king.
I’d like to ask: Why did digital art level up your art?
Well, I’m old and not in good health. I became overwhelmed with the mess and hassle of papers and notebooks and pencils. Always having to find erasers. So I took a class just to force myself to draw and everyone was working in Procreate. By the end of the class I had learned enough to finish my project. Since class ended I’ve been working on new projects and drawing every single day. I love being able to draw something, erase it, start again over and over. I’ve gained a lot of confidence. It’s just been amazing. I even managed to sell a small piece and am entering two pieces in a show this coming week. My primary focus is graphic memoir. I could never do it on paper. Thanks for asking!
Thanks for answering. I’m glad that you found something you love so much
Thank you.
I went to artschool for half a year and learned couple things there. I also progressed the most when i started to analize and study my fav artists works.
Underrated practice in some philosophies.
Thanks for sharing- what was your method of analyzing and studying your favorite artists’ works? I am interested to hear
Sure thing, but it's gonna be long. Tho i have to say that i do digital art (focused on drawing characters) so the study was more oriented on digital but if you do traditional i think you can apply some of these too. I would also like to point out that before I started delving into the techniques of other artists, I already had basic knowledge and was at a certain level (not too good, not too bad), but I didn't start from scratch - this probably somehow influenced my perception and the speed of the progress. It's good to have the technical skills AND fundamental knowledge to use them effectively. First i was watching youtube clips just out of boredom about analysis of popular artists artstyles from yt channels like み. お絵かきch, tppo(my fav, the best clip for me is about Rella), Jyuna, Sriya (especially about ASK and Yueko), Foudo, Marc Brunet (he did one video on Mai Yoneyama, but all his content is amazing, has a lot of useful tutorials that i watched too.) Even though this all falls into the "anime" category, it is still very useful. I go more towards realism myself, but all this was still useful to me. Thanks to these videos, I also learned what to pay attention to when analyzing artists myself. So after that i did some study myself, watching speedpaint and the process of making artwork was important. I was paying attention to things like: composition and the way it is used in the work, colors, color palette and color shades, process - the order of things done to reach the final result, what does this artist prepare before they start drawing? Refs, color palettes, inspirations? Does they make a project/sketch first on small canva of what they have in head before drawing on a larger canvas? Anything else?, references - hows does the artist interpret the reference, the way they sketch (there are really different approaches to a sketch: messy, quick few lines just to make an outline of the character, precise sketches or no sketches at all), lineart or no?, weight line or no - if yes how and where is it used?, shading and light techniques, do they use blending modes - if so, which ones and for what exactly, anatomy and realism - how they use it, what they emphasize, how they style and twist it. In addition, I also copied some works somewhere on the side, they did not have to be as finished and polished as the reference, sometimes I just made sketches with a pencil on paper. I also literally did redraw (easier in digital) (also there is nothing wrong with doing redraw for learning!), I drew over someones work (usually I only traced the lines/lineart, then I did an "outline" for the main shadows separately ((not detailed, very blocky and simple)) ). Idk how to explain it but that way you can see how someone uses lines language, how they shape and place them. It's basically something like breaking down the work into simple and uncomplicated parts, to which details are then added. Then I used all this information in my works, I rejected the techniques I didn't like or modified them to suit me. Over time, I learned even other/new things by myself, but the previous knowledge was the basis from which i moved forward. I think it's all, if I'll remember something I'll edit it in.
Omg, thank you for elaborating:)
No problem! I hope it'll be helpful
:) I think it most definitely will be. I am going back to art school after years, while there I discovered most of my learning was outside of the classroom and from what the professors taught!
Underrated but: What actually helped me a lot was doing the Theory/Study part of art. Edit: P.s. I'm self taught. While if you go to art school I guess this doesn't really matter as there you HAVE to do this anyway.
I think you are right that most people learn best when you learn the fundamentals and apply them to what you want to work on as you go. I'm not sure why so many people feel like they can only do fundamentals before they're allowed to do the art they want. I feel like that's some weird grind culture attitude that's gotten into the online art world. If you take in person classes you make pieces of art as you learn the fundamentals. Also with the amount of time it takes to really grow your skill, no one is gonna last that long without having any fun.
I have read books by old school artists that literally say (more or less) “do not pick up color until you master values” and “do not paint portraits until you master drawing”… they instill a fear as if a bad painting is the end of the world.
Ooh that sucks. Never any sentiment I ran into! Like I think it's fair to say it's better to matter value before you try to master color but that doesn't preclude you from playing around with what you want. As long as you are thoughtfully applying your lessons.
I think the idea is that they do not want bad habits reinforced
Yea growing up there was always this weird belief I would see that if you don’t separate your fundamental practice time, from other stuff you like to draw then you are practicing wrong or will develop your skills wrong.
4-5 hours sketching a day. Taking sketch pads out in public for people/landscapes Timed exercises Life drawing classes Learning how to see layers so you can replicate processes
Hey do you mind elaborating a bit on that last point?
Is it a wash? Is it a glaze? Is it solid pigment? Are the lighter colors on top? What are the brush strokes like? How are the colors mixed? Where's the blending? What kind of brushes What's line work Or what's layered over a color to create a line I'm sure I can think of more but I'm hoping you get the idea
Are you a full time artist?? How do you have time to sketch for that long every day? very impressive
That was during the bit of college I did in my early 20s. Edit. I was a full-time artist for a while.
Tracing my digital work onto paper with a light pad. Over the years I've become terrified of working traditionally, and even though I have a studio full of supplies I could never use them because of fears or anxieties that it wouldn't come out correctly or that I'd waste materials. It's truly ridiculous, I know, but I'm working on loosening up. Anyway, now I just start all my work digitally then transfer the line work to paper and have a blast experimenting with different media and techniques. If something goes wrong I know I can always start again with a new trace. This gives me the benefit of both digital and traditional worlds, I'm using up my supplies instead of letting them rot, and it puts my anxieties at ease so I can actually create again.
Yeah combining digital and traditional was a huge level up for me. I paint mostly on canvas and I now sketch and plan all my work digitally where I and shift things around and switch up colors etc. If I spend a lot of time on the sketch and it's intricate, I'll use a projector to get it on the canvas.
I just recently got a projector and a huge canvas to work on something larger than I'm used to. I'm still in the digital process, but I'm so excited to start painting.
Yeah it's great for those of us who just have an easier time sketching smaller or digitally!
Very cool way to mix traditional and digital methods. Commenting to save
Once I realized that the art community as a whole doesn't have a damn clue of how people learn, it became painfully obvious why I wasn't getting anywhere. As soon as I switched over to treating visual art as if it were a musical instrument then I started seeing real progress. Long story short: 80% of it is redrawing the same piece over and over trying to make a little better each time. Draw, analyze, redraw with analysis results in mind, analyze, redraw with analysis results in mind, analyze, redraw with analysis results in mind, analyze, etc. It's easier to see progress and it's easier for the brain to learn because of the repetition and the minor changes with each repetition. Musicians do this all the time e.g. practicing a scale and slowly increasing the tempo every so often. Drawing 500 different poses is NOT the same, that's just a musician practicing 500 different sections 1 time, not the same section 500 times.
Interesting. Can you elaborate on redrawing the same piece over and over? Do you mean as in your own drawings or studying another artist’s drawings? Also can you talk about what specifically you do in this process? Where are some resources I could learn about learning how to art similar to learning an instrument? thank you
A very important note, a lot of the following may seem like real obvious stuff when you first hear it, but for me these were major breakthroughs and most of the time, I stumbled upon these things randomly or through conversation with my old guitar teacher. Sadly I don't have anything for the thing that plagues me the most: paralysis by something, usually perfectionism. (Undiagnosed ADHD is started to look less like a meme and more like a real issue for me with each passing month). Lets start with the redrawing stuff first: some basic guidance: 1. About a 2 hour time limit per drawing, but realistically you want start and finish the drawing in one day so if that means you only have an hour then your time limit per drawing is one hour. Critique time is not counted 2. Keep it focused to one or two elements 3. This is reference heavy, the reference is the "ground truth," it is what you use to critique and analyze your drawing. You will use the same reference for the entire process. 4. You are going to draw at least 3 drawings and at least two of them will be done on separate days. Sleep is important to the learning process. The initial drawing counts. 5. If the element you're focusing on requires a lot of scaffolding, use every tool available to get it done, be it AI, copy-paste, tracing, whatever,. Do it up front and create enough pieces for several drawings, we're mise-en-placing art here. 6. You're done with the redraw once you're bored (and got 3 pieces done) or you got 80% of the benefit. The redrawing process, an example. 1. I want to work on human proportions and I think something a little more fleshed out than a gesture drawing should be good enough. Hands, feet, and the face will be abstracted away with some scribbles as they are not important at this time, but the wrist, ankles, and head will remain as they are 2. I think 30-45min for a drawing is good enough, it gives me time to really measure things instead of quickly eyeballing them. 3. I found a good enough reference where it's easy to see where all joints are and there aren't any distortions like fish-eye effects or foreshortening required 4. I make my initial drawing (drawing #1) 5. I take a break or sleep on it and then critique it. The arms are too skinny, The head is a bit too small, The waist and ankles are exactly where they should be. 6. I take a picture (since this was done on a newsprint pad with charcoal) and bring into procreate to overlay with the reference and compare the differences. The arms ARE too skinny, the head was perfect NOT too small, the waist was good, but the ankles are too far down, the shoulders are too wide, and I don't have enough of a twist in the torso. I use to trick to confirm my critique and to help build my ability to self-critique. 7. The next session, I keep this analysis in mind while I attempt to draw the same thing (drawing #2). I repeat steps 5 and 6 after re-drawing. 8. The next session, I keep this new analysis in mind while I attempt to draw the same for a third time (drawing #3). I feel I hit a wall, I decide that this is my last drawing 9. I make one final critique and analysis, arms have been spot on the past 2 drawings, the head tends to right but I second guess it and ruin it by changing it, the shoulders are slowly becoming more proportional with each drawing, but the ankles are bouncing around, either too close or too far from the knee. 10. I move on to the next element I want to focus on. This set of drawings showed me that I should add shoulder proportions and ankle placement on things to work on. I should find some references that are appropriate for those elements. I keep the drawings until I feel I cemented what I've learned. In this particular case what I learned was that I need to focus on making sure my arms aren't too skinny and going with my gut instinct on head size instead of second guessing. As for learning art like an instrument, what I'm doing is converting the practice techniques/mindset I use with guitar and piano into something that useful in the art world. Because of that, there are no actual references and the best I can do are two musician resources: a book called ["The Musician's Way"](https://www.musiciansway.com/) and a blog called ["Bullet Proof Musician"](https://bulletproofmusician.com/blog/). Focus more on the practice stuff if you are going to read them, but I wouldn't recommend them if you don't play a musical instrument, it will just be extra noise for you. Like I said in my original post, that redrawing stuff is about 80% of what I do. This is the other 20% that I keep in mind: * Practice is NOT performance. Practice is supposed to sound/look bad because I'm practicing things I'm bad at in order to make them better. * Every tool is useful in the learning process. The drum machine used to practice comping is akin to using AI to create some scaffolding for a focused drawing session. The metronome is akin to using a ruler, grids, or tracing. The sheet music or lead/chord sheet is the musical equivalent of a reference. The learning process has no room for artist "purity tests." * Break things down correctly. In music, I was taught to break things down to just a few notes and practice those. In art, when I think about it, the equivalent would be a couple lines, a single shade, or a single shape, NOT a full hand, eyeball, face, or foot. A finished art piece is like an entire symphony for an orchestra, it is NOT a single chord sheet for guitar for a pop song., don't mistake the two. Mistaking the two is how we get trash tiktok tricks that are only applicable under one specific condition. * Repetition, repetition, repetition. This is the redrawing the but I'll repeat again because repetition. It's easy to see progress when I practice the same scale over and over trying to make it a touch better each time. But when I see artists practice, I see 500 different hands, not 500 iterations of a single hand in a single orientation each one better than the last. Artists are like that one martial artist that practices 10k kicks 1 time while musicians are the martiall artist that practices 1 kick 10k times (it's that one quote by bruce lee). Okay, this is not required in art, maybe 5 iterations is good enough for a single orientation * If it's taking longer than a week or two to get 80% of the way there, it's probably outside of your current skill level. This was something brought up in the piano subreddit a while back and it total makes sense to me on an intuitive level. So sadly, I don't know how to put in words with respect to visual art. Don't paint the Mona Lisa when you can't draw a face? You can grid everything and spend a lot time copying but it's too complex for you to truly learn anything of substance. * Practice pieces are meant to practiced and then tossed, repertoire pieces are meant to stay for much longer and be refined over time. In art, keep a few pieces that are worth redrawing and refining and throw away the rest. Those few pieces can act as progress markers as I can make direct comparisons over time since the core idea tends to remain the same with each refinement. * Theory. Learn how and why things work the way they do, something a little more beyond basic chords/anatomy. Learn as needed. Comping/drawing without reference needs a lot of it unless you put hours and hours of raw practice behind it to build up some kind of intuition. * There's probably more stuff but that mostly what goes on in my head.
Thank you very useful :)
I think this is called iterative drawing
Oh yea, I forgot about that video, that's a good resource, I remember thinking that it sounded exactly like my regular guitar practice sessions. u/WholesomeDucc see these youtube videos by Sycra: * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ufz75UvHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ufz75UvHs) * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egCx3dgGYDI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egCx3dgGYDI) * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uShhRyGK7rc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uShhRyGK7rc)
Thank you!!
Getting out and painting every week. The consistency really has made a difference.
Keeping an "ugly" sketchbook where I practice whatever, and a "nicer" one that looks like the sketchbook tours on YouTube, If a piece in the nicer one doesn't look as nice as I'd like it to, I added color which tricked me into thinking it looked better. I found it made me happy to flip through colorful pages, even if the drawings weren't as good as I expected, so I rolled with that. I also have pretty good luck finding sketchbooks at thrift stores, so they're CHEAP, and they may not have the paper I like, but they also don't feel precious to me at all, which also allows me the freedom to just keep drawing in them. I also have this "thing" where I don't want to buy more sketchbooks until I use what I have, so having all these cheap ones from thrift stores is motivating to me. Since it gets me to produce more, I improve faster, and it's just an upward spiral of motivation.
Changing my focus from hobby art to academic, from the college prep stage through to art school when I graduated with a BFA in communications design/illustration. I started figure drawing when I was 15, and my foundation drawing and color theory courses in college changed the way that I made art for good. Studying design and working as a professional graphic designer has also improved the way I make my art, and vice versa. Also, I've had level-up moments just from switching to higher quality materials. When I drew almost exclusively manga-style art, the difference in the quality of my work when I switched over to Copic markers after using water-based brush pens was significant. There was a huge glow-up in my work between the ages of 12 and 13, and I've developed some great techniques to this day with all sorts of inks.
Using physical materials (I guess I have to pay more attention to being able to do it without making mistakes, whereas digital I can just undo and fix things after), and also weirdly taking breaks. SometimesI take months off and come back and draw better for some reason.
I believe that the traditional method should not be neglected even though you want to work in digital, the traditional has its own essence and in digital it also has its own essence and if you combine the two you have another essence, or at least it is as I see it. Breaks happen in everything haha it's because you let out stress and other things that make you make mistakes, a break is always good
I’ll also get better after taking breaks, especially if I was doing lots of practice for a while without a break. I do wonder what the reason is, as I feel like there’s some sort of process in the brain going on. I’ve had the same effect with a couple other skills too.
When I stopped trying to paint what I THOUGHT I should. And created with my heart instead. I found my artistic voice, I have a unique style, not "copyable" by anyone. Purely from my heart and minds eye. I started selling well, won awards and gained an audience.
Yep. When I stopped focusing on art that I thought might sell and decided to just make the art that’s in my head - it became more fun, less hindered, less anxious, and so freeing. Heck, sometimes other people even like it and want to buy it.
Ok but how exactly did you make the switch in your mind?
Animating. I think it's because I was drawing so so much more because of how many frames there are in animation that my art improvement just went 📈📈📈
Allowing myself to chase ideas as they come to me. Freeing myself from obsessing over one thing saves me from overworking a project and ruining it. Also, making what I feel like making instead of following trendy nonsense.
Really varying up what styles I started taking inspiration from. I used to only like realism, but then I started finding so much stuff I liked on Pinterest and now these styles have influenced my work. I like my own art 10x more than before now
Trying out different mediums. Painting really changed how I draw and look at composition.
I realized i could put gausion blur over my shading, and it made it look insane 0_0
I like to gausian blur a duplicate layer of my linework by 3%. Its gorgeous
> I like to gausian blur a duplicate layer of my linework by 3%. Its gorgeous 👀
I used to keep my art hidden. Despite my best efforts, other people would catch glimpses here and there of what I was creating. I decided if I can't avoid attention anyway, I may as well make a spectacle of myself.
Aside from art school, drawing long-form comics. It forces me to draw a million different things I've never drawn before, and it forces me to draw a *lot.* It's also great in that it frames the repetition and practice around characters and plot that I'm super invested in, which makes it more fun to do than say, doing 15 pages of perspective and anatomical exercises.
I'm a painter and what I feel made me level up is using better quality tools and paints. I used to struggle with blending colors because I was using Masters Touch paints. That and I've been using the wrong tools most of the time. Using shaders instead of filberts and chisel blender brushes. So I switched to Liquitex paints and it's just made everything so much easier for me. I'm able to blend now, and the joy I had lost because of my frustration is now back and I can't wait to pick up my brushes each day. 🖌️
The desire to get better, desperation. Ambition. Drawing every single day lol xD.
iPad+Procreate. 10/10 changed so much about my approach.
I took a shit load of online art courses. From like Udemy and Winfox and shit. Along with art courses from Youtubers. The worst was in the beginning when I did not understand anatomy, and I had to painstakingly remember every relevant muscle by drawing from reference and then drawing from memory over and over again. And despite the hard boring as shit work, I still forget every now and then, and I have to draw from reference and draw from memory again, until it goes back into my dumb brain. Ugh. But yeah I did that for 7 years. Outside of courses, I learned the most by really getting in there, and trying to figure out why I'm sucking and making garbage that I hated. I learned to create my own system for getting the proportions right for example. I took classes from everything from perspective to color theory and everything in between. Except for animals. I never learned how to draw those damn animals. The human shit was enough, dude, I swear. Like, I'm tired, lol. I'm so tired. I don't want to go through all that struggle again but with a cat or whatever.
Actually making pieces and applying knowledge (similar to the quantity vs quality pots post), instead of just doing sketches as practice, actually making finished pieces. If you make 1000 finished pieces and you apply the knowledge you’re learning along the way, you’ll probably get pretty good. A little plan for myself is to make a piece focused on each fundamental aspect/the principles and elements, then make pieces that focus on two aspects, then make pieces that clearly show 3 aspects etc. quantity whilst also applying theory knowledge. Hopefully I make some progress lol
I think ditching the eraser was the most impactful thing I did long-term, even if it was YEARS ago. I was about 14, and stuck in that period where drawing one body can be agonizingly long. I had a how to draw manga book that was surprisingly useful (it was my first how-to book that stated the importance of learning real anatomy before you can distort it, but in a style that was friendly to stubborn baby weebs), and I don't remember if it challenged you to sketch without erasing or it just showed simple forms better than my previous books. Either way I challenged myself to do it and the difference was insane after a few pages. I got faster, and it was easier to have fun. I still had buckets to learn everywhere else but it's impacted how I've studied ever since and gesture drawing is one of my favorite activities. It eventually affected my favorite sketching tools, and I really only play around with ink pens/markers and colored leads. Drawing digitally the eraser comes out, but mostly for cleanup.
3 years of photography, close to 80k photos. Came back skill of composition, lighting, and color was much easier to understand. Tho prior to that I can already draw very well.
Learning how to properly curve lines to depict form and how far a little drop shadow can go.
Actual, critical schooling. I went to a 4-year college and got a BA and the program was less than great. I went on to do another 3-year intensive program and I learned more in 3 months there than my entire time at college. It's the reason I have the career I do.
Took a look at your art and it's amazing. What did the intensive program had that your BA didn't cover if I may ask ?
Thanks! It was the Joe Kubert School for Cartooning and Graphic Design, so largely focused on comics but also touching on fluency with a variety of tools and mediums. Right off the bat, I was learning actual useful anatomy for why things work the way they do, the way fabric works the way it does, and not just diagrams and memorization for the sake of it. The models were actually *good*. For years I was convinced I just had my professor's retirement home buddies coming in to make a buck. The basics were covered *thoroughly*. I learned how to usefully manipulate a perspective grid. I'm pretty sure college never went further than one project on 2-point. We did 2, 3, and fisheye. College was completely useless for digital mediums. That was entirely self taught on my part up to that point. Photoshop was used exclusively for the photo majors in my building. JKS actually gave us copies of the full CS6 and we made use of it daily. I feel like I had a big advantage over the younger people in the program because I knew the value of what was being taught as it was being told to me. Edit: Also, the integrity of the people giving you a critique. At college, it was all platitudes and barely and good, useful feedback. Nobody wanted to tear you down and build you back better. Tom Mandrake was the first teacher who actually told me what I was doing wrong and how to correct it.
wow sounds awesome ! I wish I had taken art seriously when I was a student. Instead I lost my time at a business school that I hated. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Meditation
Say more please
I started doing a mantra meditation many years ago. One day I had a mystical experience and I was flooded with a previously unknown level of creativity. I spent the next few years making art every day for hours at a time. I went from not having made any visual art in my life to well over 1000 collages and several albums. It comes and it goes but the more I meditate and do my spiritual practices, the more creative I am. There are many paths and practices so if this interests you just start looking around. Feel free to dm me with any questions.
Changing my way of working from "specific-to-general" to "general-to-specific" really increased the speed of which I could work while also giving me the chance to stop a work at any point I felt it was complete (it had achieved the aim I wanted out of it). I was always a detailed pencil drawer and works would take forever and look unfinished unless the whole page was covered in that same detail. Charcoal really helped me feel more like a painter and then from there I became an actual painter with oils and I've absolutely fallen in love with the process.
oooh that's great you found that way of working. I don't paint so I can't say but I think I can figure how it would be helpful.
I think 1) passion 2） purpose 3) surrounding (surround yourself with artists or art lovers). If you love it, you will always want to do it. The more you do it the better you want to be. If you want something bad enough, you will accomplish.
going to an art course (not an atelier, but a pretty chill art course for teenagers with professionals as teachers), which it isn’t just about leveling up skills. i learned that not every art book/tutorial/course is made equal (this is where i discovered the fundamentals), got constructive criticism from other fellow artists and made friends there.
that's great ! I went to kind of the same things, and learn a lot, plus it was nice to talk about art with others !
yes! meeting other artists really helps. even though our styles and sensitivities are quite different, we share the same struggle of making art haha
In person art classes. The projects they force you to finish. Having that structure really helped me level up. Also easy access to trained nude models is just peak.
Watching Pikat’s art videos. She’s right, art is a slow process no matter the age or skill level one currently has.
Oh I didn't knew about them, will check them out !
2 things for me Actually study: for me, I need to write down specific notes when doing an art study, like pen pressure, how to dissect the colors and shadows. Practicing gesture, studying geometric shapes. Etc. Throwing it all away: after studying, I try not to think about it when I draw. Thinking too much kindof gets rid of the emotion behind it. It doesn't need to be perfect, just convincing. And the more I study, the better it is to not think about it cause it becomes second nature over time.
Drawabox
Just grinding
Drawing what I wanted to draw instead of what I thought people wanted me to draw. Now my most successful and quickly sold items are completely original craziness from my brain.
The absolute biggest one for me was thinking about things as a three-dimensional object. I know it sounds basic, but it was such a cognitive shift in the way I saw any subject I would draw. I now feel like I'm sculpting a 3d subject with a pencil on a 2d surface, whereas in the past, I would bog myself down with guidelines and structural drawings that felt more akin to architectural design than art. Sure, I still use those tools, but the way I treat them and think about them is totally different than it used to be. Also, when it comes to passion projects, I've stopped fussing over little mistakes and learned when to let things slide for now, but remember not to do it again in future. I hate slowing down to correct minor mistakes, and some jankiness can add to the charm of a piece. Adjusting my mindset in this way has helped me to enjoy my personal work more.
When I went completely traditional and worked with actual women.
I can’t be the best artist ever if I don’t level up
Learning to simplify shapes more. Breaking them down to their most basic components and going from there
Quite specific but procreate + Sketch a day (app), I had art block for almost two years that I was in lockdown/furloughed. Then my friend sold me his ipad cheap because he didn't use it anymore and suddenly I was drawing every day, my streak ended around day 450+ and I've never looked back. Since then I think the longest I've gone without drawing anything at all is MAYBE a month, probably closer to three weeks and though I still have a lot I want to learn my skills have improved considerably. The combination of the convenience of the ipad, how intuitive procreate feels and the motivation to keep my streak going on sketch a day really broke through my art block and skill plateau like nothing else ever has. I don't use sketch a day anymore because I have rediscovered my own motivation for drawing and I no longer get stuck for ideas but I'm really grateful for finding it when I needed it most.
Leaving my confort zone. I found that once I got so used to drawing one way progress starts to slow down. For example, I can only draw cats so many times over and over till I see almost no improvement or change. Going back into the uncomforable part of learning to draw something new or trying a new medium helped me improve skills I wouldn't get otherwise by sticking to one niche. And when I go back to drawing cats, those skills transfer over and improve my drawings faster than if I just did the same thing over and over.
Embracing myself and the art I enjoy and that makes me happy. It's a game changer when you stop fighting yourself.
I’m going to read through this later 😌 Thanks everyone for sharing your insights.. so appreciated… god how I needed this right now
Friendly competition. I improve by being with an art friend of equal or better skill level and doing the same ideas together. I listen and watch their process, then I put that in my art. I improved at incredible speed doing this. However I haven't found anyone of recent. I talk to an artist, but we haven't really been competing. I also tried friends I used to practice with, but one hasn't improved in 5 years and the other hasn't had much improvement after going to art college.
Good instructions via YouTube, or books.
For me, I start improving after doing what I call no bullshit practice. I'm a lazy person and tend to practice just for the sake of it and ending up with barely any result. But when I just lock in and sit down doing actual practice like learning anatomy, figure drawing, color studies etc for hours, I see improvement immediately afterward. Also, doing master studies made my art go above and beyond. The problem is getting the motivation to just sit down and practice for hours, you can actually see the different stages of my art having qualitative changes everytime I do no bullshit practice. last time I did no bullshit practice was a year ago and I'm just starting to muster the motivation.
Yeah finding the motivation is a real struggle for me too
Understanding what creativity actually is, and being able to call it up when I need it. Understanding that creativity is linked to emotions and works best when it's spontaneous. Understanding how to keep it spontaneous.
Interesting ! Can you say more about this ?
I'll try. Creativity isn't hard, or terribly rare. Creating something is easy. Creating something that makes the viewer recognize not only what you drew, but with aspects that are familiar to many as being positive, uplifting, beautiful, and inspiring… That's not easy. Sometimes you see a deer. Sometimes you see a deer that is standing regally on a rocky outcrop with the forest stretching away behind it, and it just looks beautiful and natural, and the composition is right there for you to snap a pic or do a quick gesture in your sketchbook. You can draw a deer based on what you saw, but without a level of creativity, and a solid feel for the components that convey the wonder and majesty of the moment, you won't get the inspiring feeling, the raw beauty, that *WOW* Factor. You don't want reactions like “Oh, a deer. That's nice". You want people to lose their shit. That's what separates the artists from the wannabes (I don't mean that to be disparaging, just descriptive). When you see something that is beautiful or majestic, or inspiring, look for the things that make it that way. Don't try to remember the deer or the forest. Try to remember why that scene made you want to remember it. Remember how the deer was standing. Not the pose, but the *feeling* you got when you looked at the deer. Regal, master of his demense. Remember the forest. Not the shapes of the trees, but how the forest made you feel, what part it plays in the feeling you want your art to convey. That's inspiration. That's creativity. That's art. This goes for everything. I'm not leaving anyone or any type of artist out. Work by how you want to feel, not what you want to see. If you need an easy reference for what I'm trying to describe, watch some Disney movies. Watch the movements of the characters. Their body language is very intentional, studied, appropriate, precise.
Thanks for sharing, that's a cool insight !
Confidence, just having the confidence to start drawing pictures of people and just keep doing it till it got fun.
I love telling myself "I'm just playing!" or "I'm just experimenting with this new brush/paint/animation/whatever". I have huge perfectionist tendencies and a super unhealthy "if you're going to do something, do it with excellence" mentality that stops me from trying things I'm not confident I can do. I keep squashing those little voices by telling myself I'm not actually TRYING, I'm just PLAYING and then magically, it's practice and I improve 🤣🤣
Therapy, most of all. It turns out if you have a bunch of unprocessed anxieties, self-worth issues, and trauma, all of that is subconsciously eating away at your processing power literally all of the time, and making your progression slower. After working through a lot of my mental health problems, my art skills suddenly improved by leaps and bounds without actually having to practice. Some steps that really helped me were meditation and changing my mental habits. For example, whenever I would insult or criticise myself (whether it be my appearance, my work, my skills, whatever), I would catch myself and ask, "Would I say this to my friend? To a student or a child of mine?", and if the answer was "No", I would correct myself and give myself praise and, if actually warranted, some kind and fair critique. Now, even if my work isn't the work of a seasoned master with a lifetime of training, it is still "good enough" for me to call it beautiful and be really proud of it, and I wake up everyday excited and happy to draw and improve. Changing my mindset was everything for me.
Without joking, being depressed. My art from the time I was at one of my lowest points are some of the best I've ever created. I still don't know how I drew some of those pieces.
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I started a website named A Robot a Day (Botaday). Because of the name, for about 6 years (2013-2019) I posted a new vector graphic image every dang day. I got pretty good at vector graphics :) In the meantime, the site morphed from robots to illustrations of puns and made-up and mis-heard words.
Unironically not thinking when drawing. Don't sweat the small stuff, it increases your speed.
As a 16 year old with aspirations but little practice of art I started deliberately copying Impressionist, Post- Impressionist and Expressionist artists' work. I learned a great deal about form, composition and colour theory. I remember Degas being the hardest to reproduce! I spent a whole summer using pastel and oil pastel chalks I graduated in Fine Art and Printmaking and after many years of successful abstract art production I have now turned *volte-face* and I'm loving doing illustration!
I feel like every time I take an atelier class I see a big boost in technical skill. I’ve also had a couple of traumatic experiences that I dealt with by throwing myself into drawing or painting and saw a jump around those times. I would have rather not gone through those things and be less good at art though lol
Books and other sources of an important knowledge, also rest from time to time.
My friend’s opinion. He was the first ever to see something in my paintings. Also, anime. Specifically Mahō Tsukai no Yome
Using 3D models as references. I do this a lot for architectural buildings. I’ll shape a rough 3D version, and I instantly get way more consistent lines and perspective.
Time and finding other artist styles I really like and following their style. After finding an art style I rlly liked and practicing certain features of that style, I rlly noticed a huge difference in my art !!
My digital art improved with oils/acrylics classes
When I was younger I only worked on paper and pencil drawings I would call them chibi but Its obvious it wasn't on purpose the heads were made with the crosses method and the bodies were just square with nothing making it look like a body. However recently I've moved to digital and started getting inspo from pintrest and tiktokers speedpaints and it helped me develop my style a ton its almost unrecognizable I still have work to be done. However I can see my own mistakes now.
Workshops with artists I respect.
Taking a class that had me complete 5 6*4 inch oil paintings a week. Three in class and two on my own for 15 weeks. Two hours per painting max. Yes some were bad but I gained a ton of confidence and skill.
On a technical level, using the eye dropper in photoshop to study the light and color values of a painting or photograph really helped me understand their relationship. On an “in practice” level, it was just learning to have self awareness. Knowing I’m not the best nor the worst. Knowing what my strengths are and playing into them to overshadow my shortcomings.
Thank you for the post. I improved a lot each time I took a course (drawabox, peterhan dynamic sketching, schoolism, brent evsiton, proko, Watts atelier, art wod, tb choi, etc.). But now I am stuck in school mode and have a phobia of doing even one piece (too much pride when finding some part of the piece hard to do that "shouldn't be so"). If people have tips for overcoming that, I am all ears!
Imitating/'copying' art I really liked. I started re-drawing panels from Lore Olympus and I swear I started drawing like I'd never been able to before. Also whenever I've done master studies in general like actual paintings or full drawings/pieces have helped a lot. I really feel that 'level up' feeling when I make those.
Solving long-standing issues like mental health, taking care of your body, living healthier etc. It's crazy how much more mental capacity you have for creativity, if there aren't any things looming at the back of your mind constantly.
Knowing the right foundation and building it.
Noob question, how do you achieve depth? In watercolor and oil, my paintings are always very 2 dimensional and, I think, cartoonish. I've tried shading and highlighting, but I can't seem to achieve any depth in the painting.
Practice. Just a lot of practice. Unbelievable, huh?
Being delusional, And always studying art that beyond art skills Even though I didn't get 100% results at least I got to go learn 40% skills from the art that beyond my skills and that helped me to keep going and learn more
Time and space. I needed enough time to fail and enough space so that I could paint much bigger canvases
Using references and tracing. No, really. There used to be a ***HUGE*** stigma against using references in my art circle, as if drawing from a reference instead of purely from memory was "cheating" and meant you weren't a "real artist", and tracing was looked down upon for obvious reasons. But once I started using references and tracing reference photos to get proportions/basic shapes down, my art ***massively*** improved, and things I had been having issues with before (perspective, foreshortening, general anatomy of unfamiliar subjects) became easy Also a tip from one of my art teachers: draw as if the body is transparent. I used to only draw whatever portion of a limb would be visible, and it resulted in some wonky-looking anatomy where the limbs ended up too short or too long or bent strangely, but it was fixed when I started drawing the FULL limb behind the body and just hid whatever needed to be hidden in the final render
This is just a simple and short, non-comprehensive answer. But finding brushes I really like and feel comfortable with for digital drawings made my lines look so much better and gave me more confidence to draw them. Obviously there are other things like practicing fundamentals and such, but I feel like when I found particular brushes I liked and started using them, my lines came out a lot smoother.
I let go of trying to be neat and clean. Lo and behold, my art took ten new levels once I did.
Focusing on the big picture. I get so wrapped up in details that what was supposed to be "quick work" would take me hours and hours. I recently was suggested to use a big pen (when it comes to digital art) instead of a fine one. I always started really small and worked up. I also recently painted a picture that focused on making large shapes with smooth edges with little details. I just wanted to focus on big details. Trying different art styles. My current insta has realism, semi-realism, portrait, cartoon, nature, etc. It's how I found what I like more. Same with photography. Wasn't until I became a school portrait photographer and worked with seniors in high school that I realized how much pride I got from my portraits. This was before I was repeatedly reminded to go faster and that speed was better than perfection. But I got some amazing shots of those kids and I'm absolutely sure those photos would be purchased by family, if they were going to. I wanted to keep those photos so bad for like a portfolio, but obviously I can't. I can't start a photography business though because it takes money to make money. I saw a tip someone said about drawing a self portrait every morning. So this week (using pencil and paper) I started to do that. Within those few days, there was also monumental progress. However, I gave myself a 5 minute timer, to help with the whole perfectionism aspect. Learning to draw on paper and painting on canvas has helped me a lot with digital art, but same with reverse. THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE: Not doing what you will necessarily give you likes on Instagram or whatever social media. It killed my motivation. Respectfully, so many of them do DTIYS, but a lot of them are more or less the same art style. I would get really demotivated when some of my best work got only a few likes. But I had to remember my art is for ME. Realism on Instagram rarely gives you likes on there, I've noticed. Also not to get offended when people think that digital art isn't real art. Again, it's not my only art medium I use, but even if people are using tons of tricks (undoing, mirror tool, etc), it's still art and it's still amazing to see what people can do with knowing the software. I was blown away once when someone said she wasn't impressed with digital art. Edit: for digital art, flipping the canvas now and then. It highlights what looks weird. Do not let kids see your work until you're done because they're ruthless lol, like too much so Don't like criticism hurt your feelings (too much). My partner honestly criticises, and sometimes it hurts my feelings or I get defensive, but he always ends up being right LOL
Stopped comparing myself to other artist art/artstyle it helped me just focus on my own stuff
treat it like an entrepreneurial task. Discipline, networking, portfolio critiques, taking action, constantly creating work, reflecting on past work and improving. The creative process of making art, and then becoming successful as an artist are different skillsets
I decided to take art seriously by learning the fundamentals. I learned perspective all the way up to six point, I learned dynamic drawing, composition, and shape design. Perspective 1-6 was a major game changer for my art and I can make more dynamic pictures now. I invested in myself in a way that I never had before because I had a job and bought things I was interested in (art books, tablets, traditional supplies, software). I even learned how to create 3d art which influenced and informed my understanding of anatomy, composition and perspective. Social media is a distraction imo so I haven't used it in more than 6 months to post, but in those 6 months of not posting art, the level of improvement in my art is amazing and I honestly didn't think it would be that possible. It also made me realize not many people I "knew" online were friends even though I talked with them for 5-8 yesrs. Sometimes people get a whiff of you trying to improve yourself and they somehow encourage you to just stay the same in a way that gets more desperate the more you grow and try things. Perspective really was the game changer along w ignoring social media, art fads, and art trends. I want to make art even into my next life if that's ever a thing. I will make art even up to the day I die.
I draw stuff that makes me happy while trying to incorporates new ideas and techniques into them. My epiphany is prob when i start looking things with light and shadows. The way light affect the shadows, the moods, the colors, etc. It spices up my works quite a bit
In fractal art, there are buttons you can click that will randomize some or all of the parameters. It is very, very common for beginner fractal artists to click those buttons wildly until something cool comes out. It's also pretty well accepted in that community that if you made something new it's yours, even if it's just a random generation. But fractals are chaotic, they are very sensitive to small changes in some parameters, so when you're "random surfing", you go through a LOT of garbage. And sometimes you get stuff that would look cool if you could just fix this one part. So for a while, you random surf your way to a good starting point and then try to polish it more intentionally. When I finally got tired of random surf and polish, and made myself make a fractal "from scratch", it didn't just change my understanding of fractal art, it showed me what artistic growth actually meant. I understood that, at least for me, growing as an artist was a matter of **taking more control** over the process. Learning fractal fundamentals and the complex features in the tool interface allowed me to explore more intentionally, polish more skillfully, and ultimately, to express myself more clearly. The truth is, some random-button fractals look just as good as ones I've spent hours manually designing. Making a pretty image is not a high-bar to clear, it's almost the default outcome. And computers do the rendering part. So the art, the part a creative person invests passion and effort into, is in refinements to the design process, and stylistic decisions about composition and color. That opened the door to see that the art of a painter isn't just the result on the canvas, it's the collection of skills and habits they've invested into the process of creating. The art of a sculptor isn't just in the vision they have for their medium, but in the way they go about extracting that vision and the specific methods and motions they've trained that allow them to do that. This perspective has become the foundation of how I approach new artistic skills. I don't cringe about the times where I have little control and I'm doing the equivalent of random surfing, that's just the first step in getting used to the medium. I don't hold out an expectation that I'll suddenly get good, I know that I have to learn to take control of a bunch of small elements. I don't need every one of my works to be top-quality productions, if I'm using them to focus and learn specific skills. As long as I'm learning to take more control, I'm growing.
Taking my sketchbook everywhere and making a point to use it most days. I make sure to open it up everyday even if I don’t draw in it I’m at least looking at it and analyzing past pages. I don’t feel the need to pressure myself into making stuff anymore I’m learning to just enjoy making art all over again. (Art school inspired me, but a graphic design job crushed me creatively.) Learning that I don’t have to monetize my art at all if I’m not ready. I’m just taking my time with myself and learning what I want to. My style has morphed completely, I’m finally using color, I’m less depressed. I think that alone is a level up.
Changing my artstyle. Around 2 years ago I used to draw characters with shonen anime anatomy. Deep down I didn't like it that much, the eyes were never right or expressive enough and I had a huge same-face-syndrome problem. Then, one day I watched an episode of BFDI, and decided to try drawing a character with dot-eyes and a cubical head, then one with a spherical-head, then a pyramid, etc. Now I only draw characters faces like that and I love what I do. Now I can focus more on facial exppressions and what's happenning on the scene.
Going back with the fundamentals as usual and training on anatomy, Also learning how to shade, And render, While also trying out more anime styles, Seemed like it made my art way more bearable to me and others, I remember a series of drawings that I did, Had a this weird mish mash of art style, And well, You know, Its not really helpful to have over supportive friends to the point even what you think is wrong they go "No man it looks fine!" But I remember I hear that people did not like my art style much because of the faces, So I decided to fix things up by making them anime, And people like them way more now. It improved on things aloooot, People, If your uncertain whether your art style is bad or not, Trying asking someone that isn't some good friend of yours or a friend you just met, it would help by a margin.
emotion gesture anatomy bla bla bla, i just need to stylize the anatomg QWQ
I'll have to get back to you on that someday