For a long time I've thought of myself as not being a very good artist and it's true, there are parts of my rendering skills that leave much to be desired. For years however, I was so paralyzed by this that I never 'finished' a great many work, choosing to instead spend my time on 'practicing'. Since 2007 I have filled dozens of sketchbooks and to my dismay, it isn't all terrible.

A few weeks ago, I started finishing pieces I'd abandoned almost a decade ago. The idea was to accomplish many goals. Get better and faster at doing digital color work. Mine ideas for new works. Create some finished works out of things I have a low emotional investment in. Gain a few watchers so that when I get to making works I care more about, they might have at least a small audience. Tell stories.

As I'm working through this backlog, I'm finding another thing that I hadn't really expected. A greater appreciation for myself as an artist. Even my current works have plenty of shortcomings but in looking at my old works as a journey rather than trying to reach a destination, I'm seeing them with much kinder eyes. There's some good stuff there. Some of the stuff that wasn't so good then or I struggled with, I can now see the little changes I needed to make to bring it to life. I'm not a great artist but I'm a better artist than I thought I was.

Shifting my view of myself in this way is probably a pretty good thing. There have been studies that suggest that being supportive and nurturing of one who is trying to learn a thing will help them advance much quicker than shaming and constant correction. I think it's a lot harder to apply this to oneself. No one wants complacency or to be a self-aggrandizing ego maniac, but there's a balance there. I can say 'Okay, that's a good strong pose and good composition and yes that ankle is off. Let's look at that and figure out what I'm not quite getting about ankles' rather than 'OMG, my work is garbage. Why do I waste my time with this crap?'

In a way it gives me an emotional detachment from my work that I didn't have before and that's helping me learn to break things down and figure out what's really wrong in a piece and then test theories about how to test it. Since I started this project, I've been drawing a lot more and I've been testing some new ideas that seem kinda useful to help me learn more faster.