03-22-2015, 02:28 AM
To be honest, "just keep drawing, do it again and again until you get it right" is terrible advice. If it was really as easy that, everyone could be amazing at basically anything they try to. In my experience the people who stagnate the most and don't improve at the rate they want to all have the same thing in common: they do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. The kinds of people who: will always use the same brush/medium; will always use the same workflow; who find something that gave good results one time and then think that is the only/best way to work; will hear an artist they look up to say their way is the best/most efficient/etc and then stick to that forever even if they fucking hate it; will always do exactly the same exercises over and over again and never try anything new because they're scared; will always use the same style and use that as an excuse; and so on and so on.
Not to say there's no value in doing some of those things, but if you've been doing any of those and you're not improving? Try new things. Don't keep doing the same stuff over and over again if it's not working. A mistake is a failed experiment that's been going on for too long. A failed experiment that you stopped when you realized it wasn't working is good data and good experience for future projects. You need to push boundaries and always try different approaches. Your problem seems to be you've been told to think about problems very linearly, and that solutions will arise if you keep following the same path the whole time. You need to think about problems in 3d with multiple ways to solve them, multiple solutions to the same problem. Maybe the first direction you've taken leads nowhere, maybe there's an obstacle significantly slowing down your path, maybe there's a way to circumvent all those problems. Think laterally!
My favorite quote these days is from Nietzche, goes something like this: "Many are obstinate about the journey, but not about the destination." if you want to be an artist for real, don't give up on that. Be obstinate about THAT, not about the way you get there.
I looked through your sketchbook and you seem to be doing good. From what I understand you've been drawing for a little over a year, and you're doing fine man. You're doing a LOT better than I did in the first TWO years of my drawing journey. If you're looking at the people that made it in 2~ years and using that as a baseline, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Not everyone can get there in the same time, not everyone can learn at the same rate, not everyone has access to the same resources and the same amount of work ethic and energy. Learn about your own physical and social boundaries and work within those as best you can instead of looking at how someone else got there and trying to be them (hint, you are YOU, you are not them).
I think you really need to push boundaries and expand your horizons a lot though. I'm seeing a lot of figures/characters drawn on white backgrounds, and not much else. Experiment, experiment, experiment. All the time, even if you're amazing at one thing, just keep trying new things. When you feel like you can look back at your sketchbook and say, man what the hell was I thinking, that was garbage, then you can focus on mastering one thing. But even then, you will still stagnate if you don't try new things. What about 3d, clay, starting with paint instead of line, starting with a photograph that you reassamble and paint over, starting with big chunky brush strokes instead of thin and delicate lines? There's so many ways to work man, don't limit yourself to just one
I think everyone can achieve a certain degree of skill in any task, not saying you're going to be the next craig mullins or anything but you can certainly become a professional if you keep working and more importantly keep pushing boundaries.
Hope something in there helps, if it wasn't clear or you have more questions feel free to ask
Not to say there's no value in doing some of those things, but if you've been doing any of those and you're not improving? Try new things. Don't keep doing the same stuff over and over again if it's not working. A mistake is a failed experiment that's been going on for too long. A failed experiment that you stopped when you realized it wasn't working is good data and good experience for future projects. You need to push boundaries and always try different approaches. Your problem seems to be you've been told to think about problems very linearly, and that solutions will arise if you keep following the same path the whole time. You need to think about problems in 3d with multiple ways to solve them, multiple solutions to the same problem. Maybe the first direction you've taken leads nowhere, maybe there's an obstacle significantly slowing down your path, maybe there's a way to circumvent all those problems. Think laterally!
My favorite quote these days is from Nietzche, goes something like this: "Many are obstinate about the journey, but not about the destination." if you want to be an artist for real, don't give up on that. Be obstinate about THAT, not about the way you get there.
I looked through your sketchbook and you seem to be doing good. From what I understand you've been drawing for a little over a year, and you're doing fine man. You're doing a LOT better than I did in the first TWO years of my drawing journey. If you're looking at the people that made it in 2~ years and using that as a baseline, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Not everyone can get there in the same time, not everyone can learn at the same rate, not everyone has access to the same resources and the same amount of work ethic and energy. Learn about your own physical and social boundaries and work within those as best you can instead of looking at how someone else got there and trying to be them (hint, you are YOU, you are not them).
I think you really need to push boundaries and expand your horizons a lot though. I'm seeing a lot of figures/characters drawn on white backgrounds, and not much else. Experiment, experiment, experiment. All the time, even if you're amazing at one thing, just keep trying new things. When you feel like you can look back at your sketchbook and say, man what the hell was I thinking, that was garbage, then you can focus on mastering one thing. But even then, you will still stagnate if you don't try new things. What about 3d, clay, starting with paint instead of line, starting with a photograph that you reassamble and paint over, starting with big chunky brush strokes instead of thin and delicate lines? There's so many ways to work man, don't limit yourself to just one
I think everyone can achieve a certain degree of skill in any task, not saying you're going to be the next craig mullins or anything but you can certainly become a professional if you keep working and more importantly keep pushing boundaries.
Hope something in there helps, if it wasn't clear or you have more questions feel free to ask