Newbie needing advice from others!!!

[MoonBunny]

Greetings all. After searching for a decent community to improve my art skills, I found this place.

My intent is, of course, to improve my art. But, the issue is that I have been taking too much time away from drawing (make a "completed picture" maybe three times a year).
I haven't been consistent with my art for several reasons: 1) I feel bad about the way my art looks all the time. 2) growing up I used to love to draw despite the way it looked, because it gave me an escape from reality. However, I was very discouraged by my mother and she would throw away my drawings even into my teen years. I had also wanted to go to a High school revolved around Art, but she forced me to go to a vocational for "nursing", which I didn't really want to do. 3) I feel pretty behind to even start now, and when I joined DevianArt some years ago. I seemed to be more competitive about it than enjoy it, which I hate(d). I still feel that way and just would like to go back to enjoying it like I used to. But also improve a lot, so I can make my dreams come true.

I don't know if anyone on this forum has experienced this, but how does one overcome these struggles?

My biggest challenge right now, it seems, is my attitude. I want to be better, but when I have tried sketching and made mistakes, I get so frustrated and feel like a failure, that I just stop drawing for long periods. I know I will not improve unless I draw constantly and consistently. I can't expect to be better if I don't get down to the work, but what stops me is the "not good enough" feeling. Or I feel too slow in grasping things.

At the moment, I only have an "anime style" drawing on my computer. I have some realistic works in real life, but I didn't get to scan them.

I've been trying to draw more realistically, because I want more details, but I'm not good at coloring at all, and the whole shading, and finding the light source thing. I know my problem areas, but they're very intimidating for me. The complexity is difficult for me to grasp.

Hell, I don't even know where to start. I've never taken any art classes, except for the one semester in high school with a teacher who didn't teach anything, and due to my current state and circumstances, I can't enroll into any art classes, also my major is totally different from art so I wouldn't be able to take it when I do go back. I'm pretty sure I can keep self-teaching myself, but I don't even know what I should focus on first; I don't have a proper guide or outline for myself.

I'm very lost in some ways. I want to make my dream come true someday; design my story characters and turn it into a game. But at the rate I'm going, that won't happen.

I'm 23 years old, so that's part of the reason why I feel so behind. I may need to see a therapist for the issues I have with myself, but if anyone has any advice from similar experience or any wise words to share, please do. I need any and all help I can get on this.


Here is a picture I drew in 2008. It's all I can find at the moment. It was for an online game I played for awhile. http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1182/catttt3.jpg

Thank you for reading.

Ah, I wanted to add in here that my "inspirational" artist is Tomomi Kobayashi. I love her semi-realistic, mystical artworks. I would like to explore more artists though.

[MoonBunny]

Bump... Anyone? I've read some threads with others giving advice to others, but none of the OP's question/concern are like mine. Though they have a similar theme of not feeling good enough in their art.

[Nezumi Works]

Welcome to CA! Nice to have new folks about, interested in making something of their skills.

So let's get to your issues here. Well, first of all don't worry about your age, or feeling behind. An awful lot of people start a lot older than you, including myself. I'm much older than you are (at least by the calendar), and yet here I am in college striking out for a new career in art. When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter when you start, just that you do start and work towards your goals. Besides, 23 is hardly old age.

In practical terms, you really should start with simple things. Gesture and form, those lie at the heart of all figure work. So I'd start practicing those, and leave off things like detail and colour until you really get them mastered. All the detail and pretty colour in the world won't disguise a weak drawing, so build that strength up. I've got a few examples of stringing the main masses of the body along a strong line of action in this post (http://conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=2793369&postcount=376) in my sketchbook, and there's a little bit of shape and form work as well. There's also some good information (albeit in cartoon form) about what the line of action is all about here (http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/pbanimation07-big.jpg), as well. Don't be put off by the style, this all applies to realistic drawing as much as it does cartoons.

I'd recommend getting a copy of The Vilppu Drawing Manual (http://www.amazon.com/Vilppu-Drawing-Manual-Glenn/dp/1892053039) by Glenn Vilppu. It's got a lot of great exercises for working the basics and developing confidence in your skills as you go along. It's quite a good book, and I use it myself. I'd also recommend looking online for Andrew Loomis' books, especially <i>Fun With a Pencil</I> and <i>Figure Drawing For All It's Worth</i>. His stuff is out of print now, but it's pretty easy to find PDF's of it.

Lastly, I want to address what you say about your difficulty sticking with drawing for long periods. The ability to sit and draw a lot comes naturally to some people, but not everyone. But that's not a problem since this is actually a skill you can learn. And like most skills, it's easiest to learn when you're motivated and not seeing it as a chore. Putting expectations on yourself by stressing over mistakes can really drain the fun out of activity, and one thing you want to start doing is giving yourself permission to be wrong. See, that's the whole point to having a sketchpad, it's somewhere that you can try things out and get them wrong, sometimes profoundly wrong, and that's okay.

So here's what to do. Go get yourself a new sketchpad. The cheapest, most throwaway one you can find. Newsprint is dirt cheap, and you can get pads of it at craft and art stores. You want a pad you really don't care about. Now grab a ballpoint pen. Don't grab something that you see as a drawing tool, like a pencil. Just a cheap Bic or something. Now take that pen in your fist and scribble all over the first couple of pages. Make lines, circles, whatever. Draw from the shoulder and just get moving. That'll set the tone for the rest of your book, and whenever you start to feel frustrated with your work or tense, just grab a new page and do it again!

From there, just start sketching. Anything, really. Best to draw things that are really in front of you. Furniture, rooms, people, cats, whatever. It doesn't matter at all if they're any good, since this is your private space to do however you want. One of the most important ways to improve is through what my old teacher called "pencil mileage". Which is to say, the more stuff you get on paper, the more you learn and the more experience you build. Study at the same time, of course, and practice things like I mentioned earlier, but make sure you at least do this part every day. Even if you only do a little, at least do some of it daily. After a while, you'll feel more confident, more able to draw for longer periods, and you'll start noticing things you like and do those more often.

Give it a shot, what can it hurt? Just a cheap pad of newsprint and a pen, and that's nothing much, right?