Check Out NMA    Learn More About our Partnership
Close and Enjoy Drawabox Ad-free

Does anyone have any tips on starting/maintaining the 50% rule?

4:40 PM, Sunday February 11th 2024

Does anyone have any tips on starting/maintaining the 50% rule? I procrastinate from it a lot and I think a lot of its coming from the paralysis of not knowing what to draw (and of course the usual beginner issues like dealing with being uncomfortable with drawing things that don’t meet your expectations), I think I also fall in the aphantasia camp as well.

I do struggle to balance the time spent skill building vs drawing for myself. I figured instead of trying to match the time (I tend not to time track anyways) maybe I could do a page or two as a minimum requirement before starting skill building practice.

Any tips would be awesome, I’ve struggled to avoid burn out in the past I think this the main reason for this and I want to do my best to beat it. I come from an academic background which I think is the main source of the issues at hard, its hard to lose the mindset of being as efficient as possible with learning a skill but It really sucks the fun out of anything creative. Perfectionism served it purpose in school but not so much with my creative hobbies.

Report
4 users agree
8:19 PM, Wednesday February 14th 2024

There are prompts you can find here - I also struggled with this but lately I have not really been paying any mind to whether or not I make something great or even decent. I know that with enough practice I'll be where I wanna be and you will too. We just gotta keep grinding. And I used to think that everytime I put my pen to the paper, I had to make something awesome, or cool or beautiful. That is not how it works. Our creative juices are not always flowing. Art is a journey and we are constantly getting better. Love the process, keep grinding, and dont give up.

6:56 PM, Thursday February 15th 2024

Thank you Melos, I appreciate your reply, the prompts seem a good solution to get me going and what I was looking for. I think It'll help with the paralysis aspect that's for sure. I like your attitude, I hope that you get past your recent struggles with this also.

2 users agree
1:43 AM, Thursday February 15th 2024
edited at 4:06 AM, Feb 15th 2024

I'm still an art amateur, so don't take anything I say too seriously (yet!), but I think I'm just starting to get over this hurdle myself. I have a habit of looking at my mediocre imaginative drawings and thinking that they're so crummy that they must be definitive proof that I can't get as good as I want. But according to other artists, that's backwards -- only by churning out the crummy stuff can I eventually get as good as I want to! And the same goes for you. Don't look at the things you draw for fun now and divine your future out of them. Just draw and trust in the process. You'll find you can get a very different feeling of satisfaction than just grinding out endless lessons.

edited at 4:06 AM, Feb 15th 2024
7:03 PM, Thursday February 15th 2024

Hey Culhwch, thanks for your reply and to be honest I don't think it matters whether you're an amateur or not. We're all in the same boat/journey after all, it's good and comforting to hear you're starting to get over this hurdle yourself. It's certainly a big one. I think that's definitely a big issue for me (trusting in the process), but I'll try my best to take your advice on board.

0 users agree
8:27 PM, Monday April 1st 2024

I used to be the same, if what I made wasn't what I pictured in my head, I struggled to get past that and lost interest. In all honesty, what got me out of it was teaching. I went into primary school and had to teach art and decided I would not mimic my own art teachers. I showed the kids art by artists that weren't photorealistic or the classic big names, art that looked achieveable, and we focused more on exploration and testing things out. And I discovered that I actually enjoyed art. In bigging up the kids and deliberating finding things I liked about their art, I began to be able to do the same for my own things. I also started to separate between, I'm trying to make this thing in particular, and I'm just making for the heck of it.

Check out different artists, not just the well known ones, start picking out things you like about them (even if its something small) the more you do it for others, the easier it is to do for yourself :)

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.
Color and Light by James Gurney

Color and Light by James Gurney

Some of you may remember James Gurney's breathtaking work in the Dinotopia series. This is easily my favourite book on the topic of colour and light, and comes highly recommended by any artist worth their salt. While it speaks from the perspective of a traditional painter, the information in this book is invaluable for work in any medium.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.