What kind of message would you give for beginners on drawing? Cause I'm getting frustrated how my work turn out.

Hi, hun!💙 I tried to sum it up but yeah… I’ve got a few things to say. So I drew pics cause who wants to read some long list with only text, right.

(small disclaimer: these are my own opinions and what works for me might not work for others, ALL of these are my tips from my own experience and is NOT a guide in any way. I’ve learned each one the hard way so I hope they help you.)

There are no shortcuts. Trying to take shortcuts will do more harm than good (i know this because I practiced gesture drawing for 2 years in the hope it will teach me how to draw bodies, spoiler alert: it did not. Anatomy does. Not gesture drawing)

What is it you want to draw the most? Faces? Do that. Don’t bother with human body, animals, perspective, landscape etc. When you feel like you’re decent in one, move onto the next topic (I’d suggest you don’t spend TOO much time on one though because you are gonna come back anyway. Learning these things is a circle, you only expand it over the time)

I am guilty of this one big time. I just wanted to jump right to the hard stuff but I can’t tell you enough HOW MUCH it’d make it easier & faster to improve if I already knew basics. I do recommend ProkoTV and their basics playlist on youtube (amazing channel, really and their podcast is MMM YES)

Please don’t be afraid to use references. EVERYONE uses reference pictures. Using reference pictures is NOT cheating, it’s the way you do it. How can you draw something if you don’t know how it looks like? Reference pictures not only make it easier for you but they make your art look better. Sure there are artists who just draw from their imagination on the fly but I guarantee, they are such master skill level already with such a wide visual library, they can afford it.

Reference pictures are your friends. Use reference pictures. Period.

References are great but they are gonna do you more harm than good IF you just copy the picture in front of you. Get multiple pictures of one thing. Observe how that object works, where the shadows are, how it changes depending on the angle. Don’t just draw. Think about what you draw.

Everyone makes mistakes. There are gonna be a lot of “bad” drawings before you do one good, just keep drawing. Don’t look at mistakes as a bad thing. Instead, try to learn from them. Which brings us to the next point:

If you create something and just dismiss it by “this looks like shit” and throw it away, you’ll never learn from your own mistakes. I suggest, you take a long hard look at it and pick ONE thing that bothers you the most, analyze why it happened and try to not repeat that mistake in the next drawing. You created something, be proud of yourself, accept the mistakes you did, work on them and don’t forget to pick something you really liked about the piece too!

Did you draw a portrait but you hate how lifeless it looks despite the fact you know how to draw faces? Good. You’ve spotted a mistake. Maybe give a little look at facial expressions and use that knowledge in your next piece.

Not everything you make has to be posted. Not everything needs to be a masterpiece. You should find time to simply experiment without high expectations. You may watch a lot of tutorials, you may create an entire “art plan” in your head but you’d be surprised how much stuff you’re gonna figure out by trial and error method. Free yourself and experiment. Even if it looks like someone took a big colorful dump on the paper, 90% of the time, you’ve learned something (a lot of times subconsciously too).

This one is hard. Like really hard. But inevitably, it will keep happening. For me, it’s once a month – 2 months. I feel pretty good with where my art is right now, I’m doing the best I can at the moment and then suddenly BAM. I draw like a kid in the kindergarten who has no freaking clue how to hold a pen. It usually takes a few days of trying (and crying) and then everything’s back online. Why the f-?

I saw a video and I don’t remember the name where they talked about this phenomenon. I was surprised how many people have it like this and they said it happens when you “level up” your art skill. When you “level up”, your brain thinks about the drawing differently, is more critical, knows the better way how to draw things but your hand simply isn’t catching up yet.

As much as drawing through these periods works most of the time, sometimes you feel like you just can’t. Like it physically and mentally hurts you to watch yourself fail over and over again. Take a step back, take a deep breath and go get some quality relax-time. Feel free to say “fuck drawing” for a day or two. Listen to some podcasts, watch some tutorials or art movies – that way you’re still improving passively.

It’s 12:45 AM and you refuse to go to bed until you “fix that FKCING hand pose”. Please, go to bed. Chances are your brain is already offline from exhaustion and stress, you ain’t gonna solve any hands and any poses tonight. Go to sleep. Tomorrow, your mind will be clearer.

Learning to draw is already a hard long process. Don’t make it harder on yourself by ignoring your life and your needs in favor of improvement. Stay healthy my dude. It will reward you in the long run.

This is all I can think of for now, if anything comes to me, I’ll add it here. Always feel free to ask and thank you for asking me. 90% of the above was a reminder to myself too 💙 I hope this was helpful  💙 💙 💙