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feeling like I'm not improving

2:00 PM, Thursday December 15th 2022

So I'm kind of frustrated with my drawings. Just a couple of days ago I looked at some of the peoples posts. I only looked at those who were through with the course because I wanted to see how they did the exercises. I noticed that although I started with quite the similar skill as others when they started in lesson 1 and 2 that there were some big differences when it came to lesson 3 and above.

I don't know if I'm somehow not translating what I've learned from lesson 1 and 2 to lessons 3 and above. I feel quite stuck since lesson 3. Am I just to self critical or am I on to something?

Have a nice day and keep drawing!

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4 users agree
11:21 PM, Thursday December 15th 2022

Hey!

I took a look through your profile and it seems that you are engaging with the feedback you've been given and applying what you've learned.

In my experience, looking at classmates' work and comparing myself has been a bit of a slippery slope depending on the intent of my comparison. When I've activated my curiosity with the interest in learning without attachment to outcomes, then I'd consider that a good investment of time because I want to learn how they do what they do. However, whenever I've gone to compare myself out of fear and doubt, I almost always find endless ways to feel bad about myself and progress.

I'm new to this so take my anecdote with a grain of salt but I really do think you're improving based off of the feedback from the TAs. Take care!

7:34 AM, Friday December 16th 2022

Thank you Sashi_Bear. Your advice made me think. Even though I look at the work of others to learn from them I still compare my skill to theres without noticing.

I also noticed that I know the stuff I learn but I still don't know it. Like it didn't click in my brain. It just seems that I need quite a lot time to really understand stuff. Just last night I understood how to really use the ghosting technique for personal projects.

Thanks for the response and taking your time to answer my question. It help so much.

Have a nice day and keep drawing!

2 users agree
5:54 PM, Sunday December 18th 2022

I'm brand new to the course, so I might not be the most knowledgeable. . I also feel like everyone is doing somehow better at a faster rate than I am, which is really frustrating. The most common thing I heard is to just keep going. Everyone is at their own pace and everyone has their ups and downs. You could ask people about what they do and what they recommend doing, or go back to lesson 1 and 2, just in case you missed anything.

Again, I just started and I'm absolutely new at all of this, but I hope this helped somehow.

Good luck on your art journey and have a good day!

7:57 AM, Tuesday December 20th 2022

First off welcome to draw a box!

I also get the feeling that everyone is learning the stuff here faster but I think that everyone has that feeling.

You're completely right everyone is at they're own pace.

What I think is quite important is that I revisit lesson 1 and 2. I do do some exercises for warm ups but it seems that thats not enough.

Thanks for answering!

Have a good day and keep drawing.

4:09 PM, Tuesday January 3rd 2023

Dude your post is exatcly how I feel sometimes. I think whats piont of drawing if I'm shit. This qustion of purpose is drving me mad this past month. Nad don't know the answer to this dumb irritable question. Guess I'm just gonna look for it.

7:37 AM, Monday January 9th 2023

Sadly I'm still not that much closer to figuring out how to fix that.

There are some things that help. Like reading old lessons, going over the previous critiques, watching other people on youtube doing the exercises and the most important one that helped me alot doing the winter promptathon.

It may seem like nothing gets better when you draw but doing all the things I listed up there helped me to realize that I miss understood some things in lessons or I forgot some. I now understand what needs to be better and I know how to fix it.

I know it won't help for the moment but for all the people that read this I urge you to try the things above and try and try again.

And for all that need additional help just write me/ comment on this and I would try to help you understand what the next step might be or on what you could need some improvement.

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These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.

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