02-19-2018, 11:48 AM
Truth talk now. Forget the 'grind' for a moment.
I suspect you are impatient to improve, stressed about doing so and think you must rush in order to beat some clock and meet some imaginary success in the future. The only problem with this is, everything. The act of creativity happens now, not in some future.. If you cannot even enjoy the simple process of sketching for fun, without obsessing over how it turns out, you're heading fast towards burnout and quitting the whole thing, or years of inefficient grinding.
Stop rushing everything. Rushing only makes you inefficient and less able to hold onto learning.
Stop grinding studies , purely for the sake of it alone. Even one careful, slow, considered patient study is better than 50 stressed rushed ones. I have seen people do thousands of studies of the same thing year in and out with little improvement. it's quite common. volume is no substitute if quality of study isn't there.
Practice drawing and sketching for FUN every day for a short time with NO judgements. Watch your thoughts. If they start trying to be harshly critical, acknowledge them but then just ignore them. When a drawing is done, let it alone. It's done, it's not perfect, it's finished. Repeat this daily until you loosen up and start enjoying the ACTUAL process. If you give importance and focus on the frustration everytime, you are actually training yourself to feel frustrated with art! It's natural to be frustrated with not producing what you envisioned, and this will diminish as you get better, but if you don't address this attitude and mental grinder loop you are in now, it will become abigger issue in the future guaranteed. I have seen too many people esp on this forum locked for many many years in this cycle of desperation driven practice and it doesn't always end well as the habit gets harder and harder to break the more you let it be in control.
I suspect you are impatient to improve, stressed about doing so and think you must rush in order to beat some clock and meet some imaginary success in the future. The only problem with this is, everything. The act of creativity happens now, not in some future.. If you cannot even enjoy the simple process of sketching for fun, without obsessing over how it turns out, you're heading fast towards burnout and quitting the whole thing, or years of inefficient grinding.
Stop rushing everything. Rushing only makes you inefficient and less able to hold onto learning.
Stop grinding studies , purely for the sake of it alone. Even one careful, slow, considered patient study is better than 50 stressed rushed ones. I have seen people do thousands of studies of the same thing year in and out with little improvement. it's quite common. volume is no substitute if quality of study isn't there.
Practice drawing and sketching for FUN every day for a short time with NO judgements. Watch your thoughts. If they start trying to be harshly critical, acknowledge them but then just ignore them. When a drawing is done, let it alone. It's done, it's not perfect, it's finished. Repeat this daily until you loosen up and start enjoying the ACTUAL process. If you give importance and focus on the frustration everytime, you are actually training yourself to feel frustrated with art! It's natural to be frustrated with not producing what you envisioned, and this will diminish as you get better, but if you don't address this attitude and mental grinder loop you are in now, it will become abigger issue in the future guaranteed. I have seen too many people esp on this forum locked for many many years in this cycle of desperation driven practice and it doesn't always end well as the habit gets harder and harder to break the more you let it be in control.