When I was a wee nipper I did nothing but draw. I carried on drawing every now and then until I was about 12 (I think), kept quite a good standard for my age too. Then a prick of an art teacher <!bitch!> put me off drawing and I stopped in a teen fuelled rage!!! Then I didn't draw a thing for something like 8 years :/. Desperate to get my old flaire back I've attempted it again quite a few times - each time getting stressed to fuckery with how bad my control, attention to detail and general ability has become. Anyone got any ideas to help me make steps back to my old ability or something similar without having to deal so much with my obvious pride issue?
when you were younger, you didnt care what people thought of you or your art, no matter how amazing or terrible they are, and through that confidence you can find some pretty good stuff. My prescription is for you is to go back to that child hood and literally, if you have to draw like a child, doodle, finger paint :H what ever, it doesnt matter - as long as you arent thinking about what people think of it. you might see a pattern or style in the child-like drawnings that you like, and then you can work on it and make it abit more 'grown up'
I agree. I also recommend the book "drawing on the right side of the brain" by betty edwards. I had to use it for a basic outline drawing class... but it talks about how people when they were younger they had all the confidence in the world and then stopped.... Overall, just keep drawing. And dont worry if your work isn't all that you want it to be. If you dont like something, DO NOT THROW IT AWAY. I can't stress enough how important it is to keep your sketches. Looking back at stuff i did even a year ago makes me gain more confidence in my work.
Thank you for this thread. I've had the exact problem, and was wondering how to get out of it. Thank you for the advice, too! VERY HELPFUL.
agreed. Every little pencil squiggle is a work of art :H regretably i threw away alot of my older doodles, simply through lack of care for them and thinking they were rubbish, i kept some though, and sicne i've gained my confidence in art i keep everything pretty much. I remember one night i was just doodling on one of those little pieces of paper which u can stick on stuff, it was just a bunch of lines and squiggles, but that has affected nearly every piece of art i've made for the last year :sunglasse
I think you have all told me exactly what I needed to hear. Now the new challenge is doodling! Any tips for getting the creativity moving? :S My brain has been full of logic for too long and it's effecting my spark
you could either just put the pen on paper and move it around untill some kind of doodle appears:H i.e. just do what ever comes out of your head first, Or, You could doodle whats around you, draw whats directly in front of you, putting is a little or as much as detail as you want or can be bothered you don't nescesarily have to doodle, you can write in your doodles aswell :sunglasse
if you draw in periods then its much harder to improve cause you have to keep repeating yourself. i found that when you first start drawing you leave mistakes and fuck ups in the pictures through lazyness, its when you draw day in day out that you start to become a perfectionist and thats when pencils get snapped pictures ripped up. if i was you dont set the bar too high too early beacuse your setting your self up for failure. youll have to keep being shit for a long time because it doesnt come overnight.
