Avoid Motivational Gotchas? How? Art Block Q&A 7

Hello, Kanjon here! Ever had trouble handling motivation, anxiety, or distractions when trying to learn a creative skill like drawing? You’re not alone – we’ll share some stories in this Q&A series called Art Block. This is the second half of this round of questions about art and creativity: here’s the first part if you missed it. Loads of this sort of stuff all over my channel too. Back into it, let’s look at the next questions!

KrazyKrita

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KrazyKrita asks:

I want to make art but whenever I start something I get discouraged because it doesn’t go how I want. Instead of persevering I either give up completely or spend my time searching YouTube for inspiration/solutions. How do I persuade myself to just plough on and work it out for myself, or is there something else I should do to solve the problem?

I’m sure you’ve heard this a bit already through some of my other Q&As, but you’re absolutely not alone in these feelings among artists. Everyone, even experienced artists, has this kind of situation come and go, most people just don’t like to talk about it. It happens a little less over time as you build your skill, but it’s still there, you’ll still have off days. The trick is in handling it when it happens, and not trying to avoid it. You’ve said you’ll look up videos to try to find solutions or inspiration, and while that’s a good thought, I’m sure you’ve seen that it ends up being a distraction and maaaaybe one out of ten times you find that advice you’re looking for. Now, I don’t think you should stop doing this, it’s good to research solutions to build your skills. But when you’re wanting to draw, doing this can be the quickest way to silence that creative spark.

So! On the inside cover of your sketchbook, or any blank page you can bookmark, start making a list of things to practice. You can write in some things you know you want to work on already, like “study facial expressions”, or “find videos on drawing arm muscles”. But any time you’re starting some artwork, try this process: First, if you’re not doing them already, some warm-ups of basic shapes, forms, or quick sketch studies for 5-10 minutes, not spending more than a minute or two on any sketch. This gets you into the drawing mindset and usually a little bit of a dopamine hit just from getting some drawing in. Then, go ahead with your art. I usually recommend thumbnailing so that you can approach the drawing a few times quickly, without feeling like you’ve sunk in too much time, but any way you’re comfortable is fine. Any time you start to notice yourself struggling, write down what that is on that list on that other page. Then come back to your art and… pause. Turn to a new page, try something new: you can do other art studies, other ideas you’ve had, just not that same piece yet. The more you repeatedly try to solve the same piece in one go, the more frustrated you will feel. Taking a break to try other pieces of art lets you flex your creativity even more and not have to feel stuck.

In the moment it might be easy to forget about this. You can also make a point to write this at the top of your sketch pages: “warmups, thumbnails, drawing, struggles”. Cross each one off as you start your art, and when you get to the part where you feel stuck, write down what you want to practice, and cross out “struggles”. If you finish a drawing without frustration, congrats! You can cross that “struggles” one off anyway. And if you want to remember to do this for the next time too, you can skip ahead a page in your sketchbook and label that too. When you’re done with all of this and you feel like you’ve gotten some drawing in, go to that practice list, find some videos or books or tutorials, and spend some lower-stress time looking that up. This might feel like a lot of a process, but it’s not much once you get into it, and it helps you separate out the creativity and learning in a way that you can reduce frustrations.

Anonymous

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Anonymously sent in:

When I don’t have any expectations, I can make things I’m proud of! As soon as I try to make my imagination come to life though, I feel anxious and disappointed in myself for not being better… The only way I can make something nice is when I stumble my way to something. But then I do it by subconsciously avoiding the things I’m not good at, so that doesn’t feel valid.

YES! Having no expectations and stumbling into art you’re proud of is a fantastic feeling, and as you’re learning it’s going to happen a lot. I think a good way to think about this is that when starting your art journey, most of your art is going to feel like it’s by accident, instead of by intent. And there’s nothing wrong with that, I actually think that’s a great way to learn art since you start to realize that you’re good at certain things without feeling like you had to try as hard. In fact, you should try to capture this feeling: whenever this happens, write down a couple words next to the drawing with things that went well, like “background” or “pose” or “hands”.

You say you feel like you’re avoiding what you’re not good at, and that’s certainly possible. Art is a balance of learning and creativity, of study and imagination. Those “by accident” pieces help with the imagination, yet yes, you do want to tackle the learning side too. The anxiety around trying to draw something specific from imagination is a natural frustration when it doesn’t work, and this part is where I want to suggest the same advice as the previous question: make a list of what’s not working when you draw, try other things instead, and then come back to that list and seek out specific things to practice for later. Warm-ups and thumbnailing always help too; seek back to KrazyKrita’s question for more on that. You’re already so close to an optimal way of learning, of having that balance: you’re actually doing it right by trying to have a little of both! A little bit of a change in your daily process can help you get there.

morgunkorn

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morgunkorn muses:

Getting back into drawing and started by drawing hands because they’re there and I can “just copy” what I see. How do I evolve from this to drawing something without a direct reference? It’s overwhelming because my mind doesn’t have any precise details.

They also sent in these pictures of some of the hands they drew– Woah. Daaang. These are goood. Wait, right. So if you’ve gotten back into drawing, and you went for drawing hands, that’s immediate hard mode, and it looks like you didn’t forget what you’ve learned before. The whole “just copy” drawing is indeed a study, and that’s how you build and maintain those art skills. But you’re wanting to branch out, I get that. So: get into a habit of establishing your own personal study process. I’ve made a video not too long ago on that; your own personal process may look a little different and I suspect you’re doing a little bit of this already. Go ahead and think about the different things you’ve wanted to draw, and write those down. Then look around you, what dull objects might be interesting to try drawing? Then try some photos on your phone, then art you’ve liked recently – build up a list of different things to rotate through.

This “just copy” study is the core aspect of learning art. You draw it, you compare what you drew after, you notice what went wrong. Some things that you’re familiar with will look great, some things you’ve never tried will look very off. You’ll notice pretty quickly what you can practice more, and what you want to practice more. Do a little bit of both; the boring things help you build up some general variety, and the more exciting things help keep it fun too. These studies are doing nothing wrong and everything right, they’re just part of the learning side of the art spectrum. Old video on that here. When you want to get to the more imaginative side, you’ll want to try mixing together different kinds of references: poses, expressions, characters, and sprinkling in some imagination to take some risks. When you practice studying, you’ll notice that you can start to draw some of these precise details without needing to reference as much, since you’re building up your mental library of things. Studying fills that library up with more and more detail.

Loex

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Loex questions:

I often feel like when I try to draw something specific, for example a character doing a specific pose, the drawing doesn’t work. On the other hand when I have nothing in-mind while I’m drawing, or at least a very abstract concept, the drawing comes out a lot better. Any advice in how to better strike a balance between the two?

Brains are weird! When you want to draw something specific, it feels like you have this perfect image in your mind. When you try to draw that, if it’s even the slightest bit off from that mental image, it doesn’t feel right. And sometimes, the mental image of how something should look isn’t how it really should look, and that makes things feel even more broken! But when you go in with that abstract thought, you’re almost letting your subconscious take over; you’ve got no specific expectations, and you start to feel out what looks right, right when it happens. This is one of the coolest ways to draw. I feel like I should make a specific video about this; art by accident is such a great thing, but it feels wrong to do.

Of course, there are times when you do want to draw something specific, and it’s hard to detach from that mental picture. Ideally we could all be able to shut off our brains and mix the abstract “nothing” with the idea and somehow reach art, but I’ve sure not found a way to do that. But maybe there’s a way to sprinkle in some tricks here. As you start to draw your piece, try to make yourself draw things in a different way. This can be a part of your warm-ups or thumbnailing; pieces that you’ll intentionally discard and spend little time on. Switch up a character pose. Move the items in the background. Draw with silly proportions. This should have a couple effects: this forced diversion in your drawing lets that “nothing” side of your brain try stuff out. And, you might find that one of these variations you end up liking more anyway. Plus hey, it gets you warmed up and practiced. See what kind of tricks start to work for you here and add them to your drawing routine.

Outro

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That’s it for this Art Block! I hope these have been helpful. I never expect anyone to follow this exactly and go “woah, it’s perfect”! But maybe you try some things out and find your own way of working during the process. If you missed this round and want to submit your own question, don’t worry, this will be back soon enough and then I’ll post the form. I’ve got a few motivational videos in my queue that I’ve been wanting to work on, so stay tuned for those. Chase that passion artist, find your motivation and practice those art skills. See you for the next!