This May Not Look Like Much But For Me It Is. I've Struggling With Drawing Cute Thing With Few Stroke

This may not look like much but for me it is. I've struggling with drawing cute thing with few stroke since forever, to the point where I more or less convinced myself I just suck at cute drawing. It's honestly been SUCH A PAIN to strive for a more light hearted style, when people talk about leaving your confort zone I feel like I just jumped from a fucking plane. So this ^ right here for me is victory I managed to draw something cute and simple without trying over and over. For once I like my sketch.

I'm happy :)

This is really true, i've recently finished art school in 3D but we did a lot of 2d still. Every day i sat next to people 20 times better than me, to the point were as you said I no longer drew for myself but to strive to meet objectives always fearing I was too bad next to others. Now that i'm alone again I've gone back to enjoying drawing for myself. But I still think my drawing are shit, and I have the knowledge to know it's true. But meh I'll get better with time (I hope). What helps me a lot is to rotate between works and types of work (3D (texturing, Fx, modeling, shading), drawing, wood sculpting) I don't really excel at any of these but I manage to enjoy it :)

I feel you and I hope you find that spark again and again ! 😊

About a year ago I had this one conversation with my stepdad. He’s super into art and mentioned he’d love to make it into a career. He seemed really excited about the idea too. At the time I was already two years into working towards a degree in art and school made me a tad jaded. I told him, “Having art as a job is different than having it as a hobby”. I will admit I worded that very poorly and it wasn’t my place to say that. He took it as if I were saying he wasn’t good enough to have art as a career, which wasn’t the case at all. What I meant was if you have art as your job there will be this constant pressure to be perfect and please someone else. You may risk losing the joy of crafting. At least that’s how I saw it. Seeing as he still has that joy I was worried he’d fall into the same trap I was falling into.

As an art student there’s this pressure to constantly improve and draw with a purpose. Draw for your portfolio, draw to please a professor, draw to practice technical skills, draw for a job, etc. It feels like if you’re drawing something just for yourself, you’re wasting your time. It’s hard to climb out of that mindset once it’s been drilled into your brain. I miss drawing without the pressure that it needs to have a purpose. I envy kids who can just draw whatever and find so much joy in it even when it’s not perfect. Especially when it’s not perfect.

If you’re an artist, whether it be an aspiring professional or someone who just does it casually, please don’t become your own worst critic. Drawing for the sake of bringing yourself joy is so important. Perfection shouldn’t be the goal, and drawing shouldn’t have to feel like a chore. Creating anything at all is something to be proud of. You just made something out of nothing! That’s wild! Who cares if it isn’t perfect or for anything “significant”. You brought meaning to a blank canvas, and that’s worth so much more than you may think. Draw what makes you happy, not just what everyone else thinks you should create.

I don’t hate art, but it is harder for me to be happy with anything I make. I feel like I have to force myself pick up a pen. I’ll find that joy again eventually though, I’m sure of it. And if I can help it, I don’t want other people to feel the same way I do. Please keep drawing for your own happiness. It’ll always be worth it.

Okay it's not great but far better than the original. I'm reassuring myself thinking I've made some good progress in a month ! Or at least it seems like it from my pov.

in case you want to see the ugly original

I would sit through the whole things, with a mixed feeling of agreement and uneasiness.

I had intended to have a normal productive day. However the autism won today and I ended up going through every single criteria of borderline personality disorder in my DSM-5-TR and wrote a nearly 10 page handwritten deep dive analysis about how they apply to Sasha Waybright with specific examples and things that were heavily implied, and now I am planning out a many many slide powerpoint presentation to present the information all in one place.

enjoy this wip !!! timing is not here graphic knots everywhere BUT I feel like this is getting somewhere !