I hate drawing (not entirely)

[Frankie]

I feel like I don't have as much fun as everyone else when it comes to art. In fact, I don't think I have any fun at all when digital painting/drawing.

It's 4 in the morning. I can't get this out of my head. My air bed keeps deflating.


Does anyone feel the same about drawing? I mean, I still love art. I love contemporary paintings, I love old master works, I adore package design, cover illustrations, concept art, sculpture, etc.I just don't have fun making art. It's weird because I feel like I have more fun making music on garage band. I want to be a part of the things I enjoy most....although I do enjoy music almost as much. I still can get into the mode where I'm drawing for hours and I'm forgetting to eat and I'm too into it to get up to piss..but drawing does not seem fun. It seems like a job. A chore. I also feel confused or am fed up with art related things but I won't go into great detail as I just need to write this to get it off my chest.

I WANT to enjoy drawing. I just don't know what to change to make it better.

[atrenr]

You're not alone, I think anyone that says they are always having fun drawing is lying.
There is plenty of frustration that comes with it and it is just simply isn't always fun, it's (like you said) a chore at times and very demanding if you want to make it more then a hobby. It's important to remember why you enjoy it, and in what way you enjoy it. If you enjoy drawing certain things or in a certain way(digital? traditional? doodling and playing around?) then don't forget to do just that every so often or you'll just lose enjoyment all together.
Also, you don't necessarily have to draw to appreciate and enjoy art. From what you said, it sounds like you enjoy looking at and appreciating existing pieces made by other people much more then actually drawing yourself (which is just fine.)

[Piotr Jasielski]

I might have a similar problem. I don't really like drawing, so I really didn't consider a carieer in illustration/concept art till like a year ago when I discovered painting. Till that moment I haven't enen touched a brush since elementary school. I fell in love with painting, playing with colors light and stuff.

The thing is I absolutely don't enjoy sketching, I really struggle to establish something that would satisfy me. The beggining of each painting is a torture, because I immediately want to move on to the tasty part of rendering. I love to see great designs, characters, costumes, environments, or illustrations but I really struggle to make my own. I wish I had someone to make good sketches for me, so I could just render them.

The problem lays probably in skill. I have a terrible shape recognition, and am overly perfectionist so every sketch I make looks like crap to me. On the other hand rendering seems very natural to me, it's like I have it in genes, it's easy and relaxing so in result I really like to do it.

They say you like things more if you're good at them. Maybe if we become better at something we don't like now, we will start to like it eventually?

[Liberty]

Simplify.
What keeps you working late and gets you up early?


Take care.

[EduardoGaray]

most people dont enjoy drawing or enjoy it less than painting (myself included) because it is harder.
When you draw, you cant just avoid your weaknesses, the moment you do something wrong, your mistake will be evident. Drawing is much more technical than painting IMO, and because of that can be less fun than painting.
But to do a great painting you need a great drawing behind so, you have to draw it is inevitable. :)

[DK]

I personally love painting/drawing, especially when I have a vision of what I want done. It's an amazing feeling, when you see something from your imagination come into reality. That rush of excitement when the piece is turning out just the way you wanted. Nothing beats it, at least for me. We all study to get to that point.

I think the pressure of finding work and getting into the industry is what makes drawing "not fun". When you're drawing what you want and not trying to please the crowd or living up to industry standards, that's when you can truly enjoy drawing.

I grew up watching old animes like DBZ and playing RPGs, so you could say I have a thing for character art. I remember as a kid copying characters from game booklets and I remember just how fun that really was. Things only started to get complicated when I had to start studying to get better and looking to find work. Eventually though I grew to love studies and they made me a ton better. I still haven't grown to love the "getting into the industry" part though. I don't think anyone really can.

Every person has to ask themselves the same questions though, "Why am I here?" "What brought me to this point?" and "Why am I still here?" If you can answer those truthfully then you'll have your answers, haha.

[Laura_H]

If you're not frustrated then you're not doing it right in regards to learning. If it's something you want to do then you need to keep at it and push yourself every step of the way. No-one said it was going to be easy, no one said that you'd be able to click your fingers and everything would fall into place.

Stick at it and together we'll all get through this uphill battle, we just have to help ourselves and help each other on the way ^_^

[Anmaril]

As Laura_H allready said, keep paintind and drawing, we all don't like it at any time. I have moments when I'd like to smash it all away and doing anything different. It is hard and not a thing you can improve fast. I for myself like drawing composition sketches of images on real paper and do the image itself digital afterwards. Keep practicing it.

[Frankie]

Thanks for the tips guys, but before anyone else replies here let me add that it's not the process of trying to improve that is making me not enjoy art. Although trying to learn can be frustrating, I know that this is not the problem for me. I guess it's more of the subject matter. I haven't found something that truly interests me. I'm getting tired of knights, soldiers, battle scenes, monsters, ships, guns, tits, and ass. I no longer have an interest in contributing to the massive pile of new takes on each of these subjects. Maybe it's because I don't play video games anymore or watch sci-fi or fantasy movies. Who knows. The only thing that has kept me going was trying to get better. But studies and reading can only go so far.



I've been exploring different areas of illustration and painting, listening to classical music (it really helps me free my mind), and just exploring all kinds of different subjects and themes. I want to get out of the house more, but I'm kind of stuck in the middle of no where with nothing to do until I can movie back to Boston. No car, just a bike. I never want to own a car...but that's not important.


So I'll just keep exploring until I find something that pulls me. I'm still open for advice.





p.s not tryin to talk crap about sci-fi and fantasy themes, I just don't have anything to contribute. I enjoy other interpretations more. this may change later on, but right now, i dont care

[EduardoGaray]

if you want some fun doing art, i still remember the words of Craig Mullins, not his exact words, but something like this: "try drawing and painting from life, you will never be bored again."

[AaronJordan]

@Frankie- We all feel uninspired/burnt out from time to time. Just take a step back, do other things, live life, spend time with friends/family etc. One thing that always keeps me coming back to the drawing board is all the amazing artwork that's out there. If you wanna do imaginative work gotta feed the imagination. I'm constantly digging up stuff from my childhood, toys, comics, movies, music etc. Gets the juices flowing ya know. Anyhow good luck- Don't Give Up.

[dracken]

I feel like I've seen this kind of post many times on many different creative forums, and have talked about it at length so maybe this will be helpful, probably not; but here are my thoughts on the topic of enjoying creativity. (Please note that these are my thoughts and I am probably wrong …and fat)

For years I was convinced I loved writing, mostly because I really enjoyed being creative and making up worlds and characters. In my mind this enjoyment of creating equaled enjoying being an author. I was so wrapped up in it that I saw no other way to be creative except writing. I never considered doing art or animation or sculpture or maybe recording a podcast. In my mind I loved coming up with fucked-up monsters so I had to write a story about monsters. There was simply no other way.

So I worked at it for years, improving my English, studying books, grinding through writing exercises until eventually I became a published author, making an okay second income writing non-fiction and short stories. I had gotten my foot in the door, had contacts in the publishing world and only had to keep pushing for a little while to eventually become a full-time author/ editor.

And then I realized I hated writing.

I would dread the deadlines, rush through my assignments, drop into cliche story tropes and just generally feel miserable. Even worse I realized I felt like this from the get go, I always hated sitting down in front of Word and typing away. I always hated the endless revisions and fuck grammar, just fuck it.

I had assumed that my feelings were there because I wasn't a professional or good enough to convey exactly what I saw in my mind. Once I was a full-time writer I would be so fucking happy to be writing, right? Once I would hit the level of "professional" writer crafting great stories would be a cake-walk, I just had to power through and get there. But here's the catch, it didn't get better. I guess in my mind I was going to grind away, level up and bam! all of a sudden I would become Stephen King.

This is something I see all the time on art forums. People go through the motions of studying, they hate it, hate every second of it, but keep doing it because they expect that at some point Bam! Level up and you become Frank Frazetta.

It doesn't work that way. You have to actually enjoy what you are doing as you are doing it. Sure at the end you might be angry that the story or the picture you made is bad, you might be frustrated that your brush strokes don’t look how you imagined them, but there is a difference between being frustrated and actually hating the whole process.

If you’re frustrated with your skills you’ll willingly push to get better, you’ll be learning and growing. If you hate the process, you’ll just make yourself miserable. You can still love being creative and still love coming up with worlds and creatures, but maybe you’re just not into expressing it through painting.

It’s hard to accept this when you’ve worked at something for years, it’s hard to consider walking away, but the truth is that if you don’t enjoy drawing on a consistent basis. You hate it today and you hate it a month from now, maybe trying to go into a field where you would be drawing for at least 8-9 hours every day is not a good idea. People confuse a love for creating with a love for art, but the two are not the same. (Just as my love of fucked up penis monsters wasn’t the same as being a writer for the entertainment section of AOL…man were they not the same.)

Do you enjoy trying to push yourself when studying or do you regularly go ”meh, that’s good enough” ?

Do you get excited when you find out something new about a layer effect or color combination and can’t wait to try it out?

Do you read or see stuff and think: “man this would be awesome in a painting, wow, if I could catch this texture it would be so bad-ass”?

Do you enjoy anything about art or do you grind through it because you hope to be able to use it as a tool to convey your creative ideas? Maybe there are better tools out there.

If you didn’t have the option of showing your work and getting instant praise from a community and views and comments and thumbs up would you still do it?

Finally, if you didn’t think of yourself as an artist, but just a dude, what would you be doing in your spare time? People label themselves as this or that and feel bad when they don’t fit the label. Don’t do that. Try to do what you enjoy.


Man… this is a fucking long post filled with crap. I guess I didn’t get the writer completely out of me. But here is a final thought. You will die. No matter what, you will die. So will you spend your life trying to be something you don’t enjoy or will you actually do stuff that you find fun?

[Frankie]

haha hey dracken I appreciate the post


It's got me thinking about how I gave up art for like 2 years during middle school because I didn't enjoy the process. I'll be honest, I was never insecure about my skill as a kid. I was cocky, I thought I was the shit so I didn't feel incompetent. I really just hated the process. I could only think about the finished product. Then the reason I got back into art was because I kept thinking about what someone said to me about wasted talent. So I kept on drawing because I didn't want to be a waste. Time went on, then I found out about concept art, and that kind of helped drawing stick. Then I went to art school for one year, dropped out because it wasn't helping me and I didn't have the money for the next three years.

The reason I was interested in concept art at the beginning was because I wanted to contribute to my love for video games. My senior year of high school I started to get bored of videogames. The only stuff that interested me in gaming was any open-world game where I didn't have to pay attention to characters, story, or anything. I just wanted a place to let my mind relax and be free. So now I don't play games anymore, or enjoy sci-fi or fantasy movies. I still love Lotr and District 9 though...also Game of thrones. But I think those are just good movies in general.

[dracken]

Frankie, I think you just got your answer. It sounds like you enjoy concept art, probably because of the creative aspect, but don't like the actual process of drawing/ doing art and you're only doing it because you think you should.

Maybe you could do music for video games or become a DJ or do some other creative stuff in that direction if you enjoy it more.

Whatever you decide to do don't look at it as "I failed at being an artist" people grow and change and move on.

If that makes any sense.

[Frankie]

THIS: http://mattrhodesart.blogspot.com/2012/0...brain.html

pretty much sums up my feelings toward concept art at the moment right now


@dracken I still feel like I want to do art, just maybe not concept art at the moment. There ARE times where I have really enjoyed the process, I need to find out what makes me enjoy it. But you mentioned doing music or something else for videogames and yes, I'm actually interested in voice acting. I know NOTHING about it. I just know that I love Simon Templeman and I've been doing voices and impressions all my life and I find it very fun, and I enjoy entertaining people with this skill.


As for art, I think I'm going set the intuos aside and wip out the oils (I just found them today after looking for weeks). I'm not diggin staring at a 13 inch screen along with the very small drawing surface of my tablet. I'll try some en plein air and self-portraits. I've been extremely inspired as of late to get back into oil painting by the work of Jeremy Geddes. I'm going to see his new paintings in November..so exciting! I've also been looking at many more realist painters the past couple of days and I can feel my motivation level increase!