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Artist problems: The hand that won't draw
12 years ago
...... What do you do when you have a lot of things you need/want to draw, but everything your hand puts out looks..... Not bad, but just... Very not up to your standards? Like nothing will come out right. It's OK, and you could PROBABLY get away with posting it if you felt like an asshole, but when you look at it next to a good piece from yourself, it just looks... Really lacking... Stagnant... Stiff... Dead?
I don't know what's been up with me. I keep trying to work on things, and I'll get a basic sketch done, but once I sit back and look at it, it just makes me really angry with how it came out when I look at it all at once. The angle's really off, or the character LOOKS posed *trust me, you know what this looks like in some pictures*. I really try to uphold a certain level of standards for my own art, especially commission work. I don't like producing things below what I can draw, and it's not fair to people that paid good money for a piece of art for me to just say 'Fuck it, good enough'.
Hint: This is why I've got the disclaimer of I can take a long time to draw shit.
I don't know. Seriously, for the past week, the last few days especially since I'm more or less over being sick finally, I can't for the life of me sketch anything that I'm satisfied with. Not happy with, just satisfied. Satisfied I can work with into the coloring process to fix a lot of things to bring it up to an 'I'm happy to post this for people to see' level, but I just. I don't know. I've got the dreading suspicion I've gotten myself stuck in a funk and I can't seem to force my way out of it by marathon drawing.
Does anyone have any suggestions to break the spell?
EDIT:
I'll be trying each of these methods over the next day or two, with 'not drawing for a bit' being the last, though, it seems like one of the popular options...Not drawing is just... Odd for me <:3
I don't know what's been up with me. I keep trying to work on things, and I'll get a basic sketch done, but once I sit back and look at it, it just makes me really angry with how it came out when I look at it all at once. The angle's really off, or the character LOOKS posed *trust me, you know what this looks like in some pictures*. I really try to uphold a certain level of standards for my own art, especially commission work. I don't like producing things below what I can draw, and it's not fair to people that paid good money for a piece of art for me to just say 'Fuck it, good enough'.
Hint: This is why I've got the disclaimer of I can take a long time to draw shit.
I don't know. Seriously, for the past week, the last few days especially since I'm more or less over being sick finally, I can't for the life of me sketch anything that I'm satisfied with. Not happy with, just satisfied. Satisfied I can work with into the coloring process to fix a lot of things to bring it up to an 'I'm happy to post this for people to see' level, but I just. I don't know. I've got the dreading suspicion I've gotten myself stuck in a funk and I can't seem to force my way out of it by marathon drawing.
Does anyone have any suggestions to break the spell?
EDIT:
I'll be trying each of these methods over the next day or two, with 'not drawing for a bit' being the last, though, it seems like one of the popular options...Not drawing is just... Odd for me <:3
Not sure how effective it will be, though.
and if not 1 week is enough try a month xD
If you feel like coloring, go ahead and color, but don't do commissions, so you don't get that asshole feeling.
Maybe a personal piece is what you need or something to just get in the motions again.. a chance to feel more than satisfied with a finished product without the guilt someone paid for something YOU were unhappy with.
Or if you just get a few quick sketch poses you're more than happy with, then I think it's safe to move forward with something else.
Do the iron combinator; make ten drawings, select nine n' merge together. Repeat until down to one drawing.
Draw yourself drawing yourself, then draw drawing itself, then draw yourself drawing drawing itself. Afterwards, draw the whole process and attach the subtext "#YOLO". Post to twitter.
One, in times of desperation, may seek the mystical concept of cross-pollination. It should be noted however that this is an experimental methodology, and may not produce desirable results or, indeed, produce any results at all. The first step to enabling this event begins as such: produce before you by various assorted means the internet site commonly referred to as "Dee Aye", hereby denoted as 'DA'. Upon achieving access to the DA commence a methodological, systematic, and thorough expedition of artistic inspiration, being sure to record down and document any sudden considerations or realizations that may occur to you. For the best results I strongly recommend a course of mimicry, as such actions may amplify the cross-pollination process.
Draw cubes wearing funny hats.
Listen to music?
Alternatively, I go back to the basics, working with fotos and anatomy books and draw studies. Learning something new every time. It helps regaining focus. Try something new, too.
If nothing will work, I just stop drawing for a longer period of time, several weeks to a couple of months, and strangely I almost always come back better than I was before. At least it feels that way...
Hope this helps...
Doing something different or just NOT draw won't work xP
Browse, browse other artist's works, go mess with art magazines, for fun, fave and download everything you like, just spend all day viewing other people's art work until you enter this art-heat-period where you start shaking and all that happens.
Hope that helps somehow, good luck.
Still I can say that what you are dealing with is the good old "Artest block" that really when you have it just makes you feel like everything you draw is not up to that certain standard of "This is decent enough to post and I am satisfied with it to be able to share it" and it just feels middle of the road average or decent or even below that and I do see where you are going with this because when doing commissions it is always good to make sure that the thing that you are drawing is up to the standards of what the customer payed for but it is good that you are thinking of the Custer like that because it shows that you care about the final product and that is always a good thing to keep in mind.
So I think my overall advice would be to instead of not drawing for a week I think it would not hurt to take a break and just draw some little doodles or anything like that that is easy or quite to draw and just keep doing that until you feel that you are drawing again up to your standards of posting and then try it on some bigger pieces and work your way up until you feel good about it again!
If drawing as a whole is difficult, I would recommend doing something else that you enjoy for little bit (playing games, reading, writing, going out for walks, visiting animals that resemble what you're trying to draw) to just try to get your mind off of things. It'll still be related to drawing (you're trying to rewind that spring, or decompress), but it'll be something that's not drawing.