Drawabox.com | This course is awesome, but I am not sure how it will help me in a long run by Zargonevius

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Zargonevius

10:48 AM, Wednesday January 29th 2025

What I've understood that outcome of this course will blend into my workflow overtime. Its nice to see that someone noticed that I am full of doubts, thinking and feelings. Yes, I question a lot and building my own theories to try out. That only means they are applicable to me, so if someone find here criticism or any negatives - its not, I am genuinely unsure.

Captured coincidence - do you ever tried to spend 1-2 hours non-stop drawing without any ideas? That's what I was doing most of 2023 art sessions. And the output far overcomes if I draw from ideas or references. As I don't have skills, the drawings are "stiff", but more "creative" and coincidence is unexpected object interactions. That's why I am confused how planning (construction) will help me as process involves a lot of play.

My solution is to move forward and see how it may help. Based on what Uncomfortable and you said, I made a conclusion that this course may enrich my spatial reasoning. Let's give it a shot!

I am comparing myself to reasonable (or I think so at least) people. For example, who started approx. when I and achieved better results than me in the same period of time. That's maybe unfair but I heavily question myself and searching how I can move more effectively. Still there is no answer besides increasing hours per day practicing drawing. Yeah, I am not trying to achive top of the world, and my goal is to draw what I want exclusively for myself at OK quality.

That's why I don't want feedback on my work from anyone, even if its course or high professionals. The main problem I faced when I was asking for a feedback is that people are different and does not matter if they are master at art or not - feedback will be from their perspective, not mine. And if I believed them, I will adapt their approach to work, what I am trying to avoid as much as I can.

The reason is - someone's detailed criticism actually feeling like not following myself. It is making me less want to progress in drawing. More I see someone in my work, less it gives me satisfaction of inner world reflection. Result - I will be less happy about my work and myself. It may sound like built wall or false belief. Some may say that art is a skill and don't heavily internalize it. And agree to them. But I want to keep my drawings (not only them, any creative work like writing) as close to me as possible in terms of reflection.

"I found drawing from imagination harder" - not for me. I found drawing without ideas or guidance much harder than it was before starting it. So, maybe I should finish my milestone and give a total break from it for half or even a year to reconnect new with old. I have no joy drawing from ideas. Initial ideas are always "meh", similar feeling to AI art. Doesn't matter how skilled artist, if he draws a cat face - it is a cat face and I don't consider it a creative work. It is an art, but it is just a good-looking cat face, nothing else to it at all. At the same time low-skilled comics are more appealing to me than detailed art of an object.

And yeah, I've deleted and thrown away my sketches (digital and paper) a little before starting Drawabox, So, I have very little of them now

Do you you have any questions for me to clarify something? Or maybe you have another perspective to my drawing approach? Or I just wrote some noob garbage and I should stop wasting people's time reading it, what do you think?

drusk

Geometric Guerilla
The Indomitable (Autumn 2024)

1:04 AM, Thursday January 30th 2025

I think what your goal is should be a guiding idea. You said you are really doing this for your own enjoyment and that you didn't really plan on sharing this with anyone. In that case, feedback may not be something you want. It may get in the way of your enjoyment. Drawabox is very specifically aimed at building one of the skills you may need to do representational art. You may be having a lot of fun just finding out things for yourself. I will ask a question about the people who you said were progressing faster than you. Are they getting feedback and criticism? It may be their secret sauce.

It does sound like you have a process when you create art that you enjoy. You may not be a person who likes to plan out the image. Maybe you like to having things sort of appear. That seems totally fine to me. I tend to have images fairly completely form in my head and all I am trying to do is get them on to the paper. I think there are as many different approaches to art as there are artists.

I personally came at this from a very different angle. I looked at some great illustrators of the past and said "That. That is what I want to do." Except I was starting at 0 and as I mentioned I am an older beginner. So my whole focus is improving my technique as fast as possible and the fastest way to do that is production and feed back. I don't want to spend time discovering techniques when there is someone out there that can show me how to do it. I will give you a concrete example. One of the drawing prompts here at Drawabox during one of the promptathons was draw a parade. For whatever reason I decided to draw it in 5 point perspective (not covered in Drawabox btw). This is it: https://imgur.com/a/Ig6aUPV I could maybe have figured out how to do this by myself...or...spend 10 minutes on youtube and watch someone show me how. I got to the picture I envisioned in my head a lot faster by having someone show me.

Good luck. I hope you get something out of Drawabox, it has been useful to me.

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