It’s “Too Hard”
We’ve all been inspired by other artists. It’s part of the definition of being an artist - observing others. And who better to observe than someone who enjoys the same hobby/ career/ profession as you? However, doubt can get in the way of inspiration. While at first you may be extremely happy looking at someone’s work and you can just feel that spark of creative energy flow within yourself, trying to emulate someone else can prove to be frustrating. Perhaps their skill level is above yours and you aspire to be like them, but in the course of trying, you discover how much unlike them that you are. It’s very frustrating. You might even claim, “it’s too hard”. But hard is a relative term. What comes naturally or easily to one person might be an uphill struggle for some one else. But you know what? The person that struggled will find it a lot more satisfying when they get the results they want than the person who didn’t have to try.

A Fear of Failure
Sometimes we’re so scared of failing that we don’t even want to start. This is where you doom yourself. Here’s the thing: you will make mistakes and in the course of making these mistakes, you WILL fail at what you were trying to achieve. Ok, so maybe fail is a bit of a harsh word- but it is true. When first starting out, the grand ideas in your head will not come to fruition on paper, it’s that simple. It will not happen at first. It’s this realisation that you need to come to terms with. You need to tell yourself- It’s OK to not be perfect. You CAN “mess up”. And if you do mess up, you do not need to ball up the paper and toss it in the trash. Try having a sketchbook dedicated to just experimenting. It may not be the greatest work you own, in fact, it shouldn’t be. But by dedicating yourself to a medium that allows you to make mistakes, then you’re telling yourself it is ok to make them.

Don’t Let a Fear of Failure Rule Your Artistic Experimentation
You can’t let a fear of failure rule you. The best way to do this is to benchmark your progress against one person - yourself. When you do this, you have nothing to judge by except your previous mistakes. If you constantly view artist’s works that are highly out of your skill level (and be honest about your skill level), then you ARE doomed to failure. There is a point in your career as an artist, whether the pursuit as a hobby or profession, where you can look at other artworks and not judge them against your own, but rather be inspired by that spark of creativity and go with it. First and foremost, you have to have your own identity as a unique artist. You have to get out there and not be afraid to challenge yourself against your old skill level. And most of all, you have to be brave enough to realise that you have to make mistakes in order to get better.

Use Your Mistakes to Drive Your Technical Expertise
Everything you know know is because you learned it at some point in your life. You were born knowing nothing. Some things you may have picked up more quickly than others, but you did learn everything you now know by making mistakes. You didn’t just stand up one day as a baby and start trudging across the room with perfect balance. How could you? You had no proper leg muscles. A part of learning anything is about training the “muscles”. You can’t be too frustrated at yourself for not knowing how to do something if you’ve never tried it before. And more than that, you can’t be expected to know how to do it perfectly the first time. Drawing is no different. You have to flex your drawing “muscles”, which consist of the way you see and even the technical expertise of laying pen to paper or learning a digital painting program. You have to train your eyes to see “correctly”, not just interpret the objects around you as learned shapes (ie: triangle for nose, almonds for eyes). Once you have trained your drawing muscles well enough, you can use your mistakes to your advantage. What do I mean by this? Well, by experimenting, you open your mind up to doing things you wouldn’t normally do. When you do this, sometimes a perceived mistake from one drawing can be used and honed as a skill in in another. One example is if you are practising hatching and the lines aren’t perfectly spaced. You may feel this is a mistake at first, but later come to realise, it’s a good way to indicate a gradient going from light to dark. Many good things come from experimenting- just don’t be too afraid to try!

What techniques have you tried lately? Have any of your mistakes turned into masterpieces?

Hi readers,

I have come to the conclusion that writing one really good blog post a week would be better for this blog at this point in time than trying to cram three rather shoddily written posts per week. I may throw in a tutorial or interview, but those are things that are largely based on others and not things I can generate on my own (without going crazy). I had originally planned to post once per week, but then I wanted to be more dynamic for an audience that I have yet to build… I realise now that is rather silly and I should, well, try to build up an audience!

I hope anyone who is watching the blog understands. I have about 10 hours during the span of a week at home, the rest is dedicated to the day job for the time being.

Stick around, I may have some surprises in store yet!

Thanks!

You sat down. Have your stylus in hand or your nice crisp sheet of paper and pencil. That nagging little thought enters your head, “I can’t draw perspective very well, I think I’ll give it a shot.” You sketch out a figure. You look at it, then think, “This sucks.” A few pencil strokes into it and your potential masterpiece is ruined. In the points I have outlined here, I hope to show how attitude plays a very important role in the outcome of the final drawing.

Over criticising your work will only hinder your progress.
A negative thought can ruin the whole drawing process. If you are constantly over-critiquing yourself, you will have a hard time getting anything accomplished, both artistically and in life. A constant self-barrage about how much the sketch isn’t turning out as good as planned will not help in the long run. Instead be open to comments and criticism, even your own, but realise mistakes are a part of the learning process and you need to make them, even if that means your first few drawing aren’t as good as you were anticipating.

Dealing with frustration.
There are some feelings during the art process that are ok. One is frustration. Frustration just means you are learning. Once you get over that hump, a real break through will happen. You will be able to progress. This is perhaps the single most important emotion that comes from trying to do anything, including art, and the one most people are the most scared of and shy away from. As soon as people feel frustration, they want to stop or give up. Don’t do it! Keep practising! It’s really tough to overcome, but the rewards will be just as great as the frustration was, if not even more.

Why are you drawing?
You have to know why you are drawing. Is the purpose to practice, for fun, an art final, a commission? If you are overly harsh about just sketching, then you little get little out of it and will be very unproductive. Many people stop drawing as teens due to their drawings “not looking right”. They didn’t have the right mindset about drawing or got frustrated and gave up instead of persevering . Think back to when you were a small child. Drawing was very fun back then because you just had the sheer desire to create. You didn’t care (or perceive at the time) if the drawing of a dog under the tree had correct proportions, anatomy, light and value. You were satisfied it took up a whole sheet of paper and you got to use finger paints.

For fun…
When sketching, your mind must be open to mistakes. Draw with a pen or just don’t use an eraser. Pure sketching involves sculpting on paper. That means that you create the shapes in a way that builds up form and function . At this stage, you can make mistakes, you can experiment. Things don’t always look “right”. In fact, most things look wrong- especially at first. Of course, that’s where the old cliché comes in: Practice makes perfect. In the case of sketching, it may not end up perfect, but you will be able to memorise shapes and forms easier the more you draw them.

For school or a job…
When working on a more professional piece, or a piece that is going to be graded, a different mindset must take place. It’s important to be critical of your work, however, over-criticism will hurt you here as well. It’s probably best in many instances to get a different sheet of paper(or new layer) and enter the pure sketching phase, then move on with your best sketch to the final product. When moving to the final product, be aware of what you are drawing. You must focus on your end goal. Use decisive strokes, not small timid ones. Be accepting of the fact that you may make a mistake and depending on your medium of choice, that mistake may be more or less forgiving. Understand the limitations of each medium and choose the one that best suits your experience level. Digital mediums have the almost magical “undo button”, however drawing on a tablet (or with a mouse!) can be hard for some people to grasp and art programs are generally expensive. Watercolour allows flowing colours and shapes, but if too much paint is applied in one area, it’s very hard to take it back.

Reference! Reference! Reference!
Use reference! I can’t stress this enough. I’ve noticed a trend on the internet that many beginning and intermediate artists do not want to use reference. A negative perception has come about because of fears of copyright infringement, theft or worrying about referencing every single source image. I find many of these worries unfounded. If you use only one photo reference and copy straight from it, admitting your reference is wise. However if a drawing was made that included 5 different references, bits and pieces put together to create a new unique artwork, merely admitting that reference was used can be done, but I don’t find it necessary. In professional realms, it’s understood that almost all completed pieces had, at some point in it’s creation, some reference used.

In closing, setting yourself up for a successful or at least fun drawing experience can be as easy as having the right mindset. Don’t overly frustrate yourself by making the drawing experience harder than it needs to be, use reference! Remember why you are drawing and make sure your attitude matches accordingly.

What attitude do you try to have before working on a piece of artwork and does it make for a successful drawing experience?

June lives in Norway and considers herself to be a beginner artist. In this series of questions, I asked what her motivations, inspirations and thought processes when doing her artwork.

Q. When did you start drawing?

A. Can’t remember when, but as long as I can remember I have always drawn.

Q. Was there any one inspiration that got you into drawing (a particular artist, cartoon, ect) and why do you think that source had such a powerful impact on why you want to draw?

A. Inspiration that got me to draw was of course as [the same as] most people think - Cartoons - Lion King. Later my best friend, who has an awesome talent in drawing, made me feel like I would like to do more with my drawing.

Q. How important is it for you to improve your artistic skills? Is it something you constantly strive to do or are you content with your current abilities?

A. Well, I mostly just draw to get out [from being] bored, [to] get out fantasy, so it’s more for myself that I draw than anybody else (even thought I like to get comments on them =o)

Q. Would you consider making art more of a career or would you prefer to keep it as just a way to have fun or relax?

A. Just fun. I don’t have talent, time or a mind to do things on “command” (like commissions). I like to be free to choose what I want to draw [at] different times.

Q. If you strive to improve in your art, what is the best way you’ve found to do this? Do you think it’s simply just practising or a bit of something else like being constantly inspired by other artists or pushed by instructors?

A. Practice, play copycat for a while and slowly get my own style of [art].

Q. What do you think of your favourite artists and how do you think they got to where they are?

A. Well, mostly I think the artist I [like] now have, more or less, the skill in their blood, even though you always can be better with training, critics and such things.

Q. Do you ever compare your skill level to that of other artists? How does this make you feel?

A. Yeah, and it’s both the negative and the positive sometimes But I only tell myself what I think about it, and nothing more.

Q. When you start a drawing and it is not turning out as you’d hoped, what is your thought process and how does it make you feel?

A. It normally does, since my [imagination] is on a higher level than my drawing skill, but I seem to feel okay to [try] it. Even though I sometimes just lay the pen down and start doing something else.

Q. We all get frustrated or have “artist blocks” at times, what do you do to combat this? Do you take a break from art for a while or just try harder to get better? What technique do you feel is the best for defeating “artist’s block”?

A. I think [the previous question] is the answer for this one too!

Q. What advice would you give to people who are considering learning how to draw, but are afraid or are unsure as to where to start?

A. Just your imagination, trust your instinct and watch and learn ^^

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If you have any suggestions or tips on the format or would like to be interviewed yourself, just email me or leave a comment!

This is a tutorial from Cris Ortega, also know as dark-spider of deviantArt. Here she describes her process to create one of her digital pieces, Deep in the Underworld. This is an advanced tutorial, so a strong base knowledge of anatomy, lighting and colour are crucial. However there is a lot to be learned from anyone who takes the time out to explain how they approach an art piece.

Some of the basic ideas that can be taken away from this tutorial are to start a picture with a neutral base colour. Then move on to filling in values, new layers are always helpful if you would like to place aspects of your drawing to a different location. Work from large to small. Try to not to get too caught up in the details of a piece before you have the main values, light and shading in the piece. If you work on details right away, you will more than likely be disappointed when the piece does not look uniform.

This tutorial has a lot packed in it, so take what you can from it. It’s definitely worth reading again!

Click on the pictures for full size view.

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