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11:50 PM, Monday February 3rd 2020

I think that the struggle you experience may stem in part from the idea that your time is precious. That if you do not produce a pleasing result in the time used you have somehow "wasted" that time. Something to keep in mind is that your time is only wasted if it's spent doing something you don't actually care about. I'm speaking in very broad terms here. But I hope you catch my meaning. You are learning to draw because I want to draw "better" you can already draw so try to worry less about your result and think more about how good it is to spend your time doing something you enjoy. If you enjoy it, it's not a waste. Results don't matter in this case. How you spend your time does.

Which sounds like a better use of your time? Agonizing over what to draw for fun or just drawing because it was fun. One is a waste of your time. The other is a valuable step towards good mental health and perspective.

Chagning your mindset takes time though. So let me offer something practical while you grapple with the demons of perfectionism.

Draw things you are good at. By that I mean draw things that you are confident in and have enjoyed drawing in the past. Doodles of roses, that weird S thing everyone does in school, any sort of doodle that you recall having once given you joy. Because it doesn't have to be good, it doesn't have to be shared, it just has to exist and be enjoyable.

Lower your expectations too. I personally took to drawing and painting rocks for fun. I would argue I'm pretty good at drawing rocks now. But I wasn't before. However, to me, in my own mind, rocks didn't have a "right or wrong" way to look. Any way I tried to draw it I could claim was successful because rocks are kind of a disaster. So I drew a lot of rocks and some to me are truly awful. I don't share those awful rocks. I share the good rocks. But I drew a lot of rocks.

Fun is never a waste of time. Fun doesn't not require and pleasing result. Fun is an act not a product. Try to remember that.

2:28 AM, Tuesday February 4th 2020

wow that's beautiful

1:29 PM, Tuesday February 4th 2020

-grins- You know, I've heard people say that about rocks before! That you can get absolutely everything wrong and it'll still look like a rock, but if you're drawing a human face, getting the proportions just a LITTLE bit off is going to make it look like an alien...

Also thanks for the advice, and I fear you may be right about the time thing! I'm in my 30s and took up drawing quite late, so I do often feel like I have to "catch up" because there are so many people out there who are half my age and so much better... and it's way too easy to forget that the reason they're better is because they ENJOY drawing, so they practice a lot without it feeling like a chore.

3:29 AM, Wednesday February 5th 2020

I'm in a similar boat. I got back into art seriously around 22, I think. I felt the gap in a big way when looking at the work of younger people, people my own age, basically anyone who was privileged to have the extra time to invest in their skill.

It isn't a fun feeling. The reality is that this isn't a competition. It's a community.

Everyone starts in a different place and under different circumstances. You can never fairly compare your progress to someone else's. It takes effort to stop the comparison but it is a necessary skill to learn for our own mental health.

2:10 PM, Wednesday February 5th 2020

I personally have come to realize one thing: Other people don't matter.

My art is for myself. It is purely a selfish whim to satisfy my own curiosity, my own deepest desires, to not depend on someone else vision to realize my own ideas.

It is my path to take, my effort/time to spend. It is a hobby, you don't feel bad when playing a sport for fun because you're not ask good as the professional players.

There's zero consequence to what comes from my art. I can fail in the most spectacular way possible and no one will even realize it. My life will go on exactly the same whether I succeed or fail. But I will NOT allow myself to stop. I will NOT allow 10~20 years to go by again without doing any art. My future self will not forgive me for making that same mistake again.

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Ellipse Master Template

Ellipse Master Template

This recommendation is really just for those of you who've reached lesson 6 and onwards.

I haven't found the actual brand you buy to matter much, so you may want to shop around. This one is a "master" template, which will give you a broad range of ellipse degrees and sizes (this one ranges between 0.25 inches and 1.5 inches), and is a good place to start. You may end up finding that this range limits the kinds of ellipses you draw, forcing you to work within those bounds, but it may still be worth it as full sets of ellipse guides can run you quite a bit more, simply due to the sizes and degrees that need to be covered.

No matter which brand of ellipse guide you decide to pick up, make sure they have little markings for the minor axes.

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