Drawing Stresses, Distractions, Confusions: Art Block 4

A problem at the core of art and creativity is never what people expect going in, and that’s wrangling our motivation to keep doing it. In this episode of Art Block, I’ve saved questions focusing on just that. For those of you new, I have a few of these videos now, and a bunch more on why you should learn to draw. You know what to do.

can of sardines

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can of sardines asks:

Every time I have a feeling to want to do art, I don’t really know what to draw. This happens everyday; I want to draw something but when I open a new canvas I get stuck in a loop of “what the heck am I supposed to draw now?” and then closing the canvas anyway.

It’s just plain hard some days to find the right “thing” to draw to keep you motivated; I feel that a lot still. Especially early on, I was amazed at the people that always talked about how they have so many WIPs and not enough time to draw them, meanwhile I was sitting there with a sketchbook head-empty not sure what I should draw. Sometimes I knew I had plenty of things to draw but nothing just felt right, even though if I just picked one at random I’d start drawing and enjoy it. So it’s good to give yourself lots of options.

I’ve done a video recently on making a study list; check that out if you haven’t seen it. If you have, here’s a reminder to try some of the tricks there. Index cards, sticky notes, a Trello queue, a simple note on your phone: write down some of the things that you’ve drawn before, and over time add ideas to it. You’ll find yourself thinking about this randomly through the day and going “oh yeah, I wanted to try that” – and can add it to that note or list, with no active pressure to draw it right now.

You don’t have to make every drawing session something productive or a learning experience. You can have some “junk food” drawings where you draw what you want, even if it’s been something you’ve drawn many times before. This helps you keep your practice up, and is productive in the sense that you’re being kind to your mental health with some cozy times that also happen to help keep your habits going.

Also for what it’s worth I’m making a calendar with some daily drawing ideas! It’s study focused, but can give you that fall-back option when you’re not sure about what you want yourself. And yes, I know you sent in your question well before I did this, but hey, how convenient!

Poodlebrooks

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Poodlebrooks says,

It stresses me out to no end. I’ve tried a variety of different advice. I take breaks. I stop trying, although admittedly failing, at comparing my art to other artists with more experience. And yet, no matter how hard I try, I just end up stressed out to the extreme. Any advice?

There was a moment, well… quite a while really, where I felt the same way. I really wanted to learn to draw but was super, super stressed out about it, and how I should have started way earlier in life, just looking at everyone else making awesome art and feeling bad about myself. I’ll be honest, it takes a while to build up the confidence to work past it. And you want to not look at all of these good artists because it makes you feel bad, but at the same time you want something to look up to, right? Something to set your goals towards, to inspire you, to give you ideas. It does make you feel pretty stuck. It does pass with practice, but again it… can take a while. There are two ways that I’ve found to help combat these feelings and maybe speed that up:

One is finding a community of other artists online of the same skill level, or at least the same subject interest. When I was starting out art, I found some communities on Reddit, Discord, and eventually some art sites that had their own forums for sharing. You’re still going to see people above your skill level, sure, but you’ll meet plenty of people at yours and below. You might make some good friends and can get some good help with your art, and help others with theirs. Even if you don’t want to actively participate, just being near others like you helps you feel like you belong.

The other is harder to swallow for a lot of people: cut off the problem at its source, and try to avoid social media. I know that totally dropping that is a bit extreme, because you probably have a lot of people you like to talk to. But not letting yourself use them as often can help so much. Even just spending a day without it can give you a nice reset: you can still use chat apps and browse galleries, just don’t use anything that lets you scroll and scroll and scroll. Later on you’ll be amazed at how much better you feel day to day by reducing that. An easy trick to force yourself into trying this: uninstall Twitter, Bluesky, whatever from your phone and only use the websites. Makes it harder to open by accident and can give you a sense of control because the notifications can’t pull you in.

So much of anxiety around art comes from social media and the popularity contests it brings. I could launch into a rant here about how a lot of art-meme type stuff in social media, even things as innocent as art-share posts or “draw this in your style” stuff… can be anxiety epicenters and absolute motivation killers. (Not judging anyone, I know they can be fun too.) But I feel like I need to start a Patreon or something because that would be like an hour long Premium Rant.

Anyway: Communities, and at least being conscious of social media. There’s probably some other helpful methods too, this is what worked for me until I was able to stop being bothered by this so much. Hopefully there’s something here for you too.

Taichi

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Taichi writes,

What are some strategies for creating consistent time to draw, especially when life feels too busy? My daily drawing schedule is inconsistent, and some days I miss drawing entirely due to distractions or other responsibilities. When I try setting small time limits, I often feel rushed and end up dissatisfied with my work.

Mood. Next question. Joking! If it makes you feel more at home, I struggle with this too. Work eats up most of my day and by the time the evening rolls around, I might be tired or have a million things I want to do. I miss days here and there too, but I make sure that I don’t beat myself up over it. It’s easy to procrastinate drawing or just completely forget it, so you kind of have to think about how your motivation works and “trick” yourself into drawing. Eventually that just builds up into a habit.

Some key times to sneak some drawing in: If you’ve got a morning routine, try to get your sketchbook involved there. If you’re having breakfast, or if you’re a coffee drinker, see if you can keep your sketchbook close by and do some light doodles then while you’re waking up. Drawing in the morning works surprisingly well, even if you don’t feel like you’re a morning person.

Same for lunchtime, particularly if you’ve got a day job. You’ll have your moment where you want to break free from work for lunch, and drawing for a little bit of that can be pretty relaxing and a nice change of pace between your time working. And then in the evening, I keep a little doodle pad near my bed. I don’t usually end up making anything super great with that, because it’s hard to have a good drawing posture in bed, but I can scribble some ideas out: and often those ideas are ones I want to continue the next day.

Most of these scenarios do mean you’re not drawing that long, and so it’s harder to make more involved pieces of artwork. But, they tend to help you build up your motivation to make more outside of these times. Even so, some of these might work for a while and then stop working, and then other tricks start working. Eventually you find one that sticks more than the others, and you’ve found a habit. Don’t stress it too much if it takes a while though, our minds are funky.

MrWolfKid

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MrWolfKid shares:

I’m 15 and have loved drawing my whole life, but lately I haven’t been drawing as much. I get too worried that if I do draw something it will look bad and end up playing Warzone instead. And when I do draw I usually just stop working on it and start something else because I’m worried that it would look bad if I do anything else with it.

Hey if you’re 15, you’ve got plenty of time to improve. I started at twice that and I guarantee you that I had plenty of bad art too. If you’re getting that bad art out of the way now, you’ll be an expert in no time. No need to rush. Bad art is part of how you train yourself to make good art. It’s not something that you do by accident and have to try to avoid, you have to create bad art. Unfortunately social media makes us think that everyone only makes good art, and it only takes a moment to realize that it’s because everyone only shares their good art. It’s rare to see the bad sketches. Heck, I’m not sure I’ll share my really bad ones publicly because, well, they’re bad! Everyone’s got them though.

Bad art trains your eye into recognizing perspective. It helps you see how proportions can go very wrong compared to reality. It can help you figure out what’s going on with how you’re sketching. Bad art helps you spot why shading doesn’t work how you think it does. Bad art becomes your own personalized skill book, and each piece has helped you get just that much better when you recognize it as bad. And each time you see it for what it is, a learning experience, you’ve turned something you thought was bad into something useful. Every bad sketch is an experience point gained, and after a bit you level up.

You’ll have some good art, too, but don’t think that’s all you’re supposed to be making. This isn’t just me saying this, either, you’d hear this from industry professionals and dynamic sketching instructors in an art school: you won’t start out with perfection, otherwise you wouldn’t be learning. Use every piece of bad art to learn, because it was made just for you.

That’s it once more! Thank you all for sending in your questions, and I appreciate your patience as I get these videos out. I’m thinking of other ways to do this segment that might mean less time waiting. Possibly involving live-streams, but… no promises. Open to options. See you soon, enjoy your drawing.