fuckNietzsche in the post "How do I know when I should move on to the next exercise?"
2022-11-09 05:14
Note that Drawabox and the Art Fundamentals Reddit is not only composed of absolute beginners and those completely unfamiliar with Drawabox. Some of the people doing the course are themselves fairly good artists who're doing the course because they wanted to review their fundamentals. Others might be beginner artists, but also people who started Drawabox and then stopped halfway through, only to restart it again (I myself am in the latter category. If I had some of my original Drawabox stuff to show you next to my current attempts, you'd probably be pretty surprised at the difference. I'm not great at it, but I'm still miles ahead of when I started). And then there's that small subset of veterans who've been drawing for a while and doing Drawabox on and off for a while now.
As a result, a complete beginner who tries to come in here and compares their work to that of the others around here would likely be absolutely demoralized at the seeming difference in the quality of their work vs the quality of some of the better stuff here.
My advice, then, is that you should remember what stage of your learning process you're in. You're not a veteran artist, and you're not a veteran of Drawabox. You're essentially the artist version of a little toddler that's trying to write their ABC's but keep stumbling over the fact that they don't comply perfectly with the dotted lines. You're trying to compare yourself with the likes of professional and amateur authors in their 20s who've been writing thousands, or even tens of thousands of words every day for over a decade. But they were like you onceand if you ask most of them, they'll tell you that they're still at that stage! Many of them will straight up admit that they have artists that they themselves admire greatly and feel like they'll never compare to, but the difference is that they've managed to build up their confidence. They can say "Yeah, I'm not as good as XYZ in drawing Thing A yet, but my art is still worth something", because they have the confidence built up from having had doubts that they manged to prove wrong. They can decide that it's fine that they're not as good at making thing A as the other artist, because they've managed to come to realize that if Thing A matters that much to them, then they can just learn to draw it better.
Have some confidence in yourself. Or better yet, have a bit less confidence in yourself. You're learning how to draw lines, circles, and boxes just now. How can you know if another artist's any better than you based off the little bit you barely know yourself? That's like someone just learning English thinking another person is an English prodigy because they can say "She Sells Seashells By The Sea Shore" ten times really fast. It's silly!
Be confident in the art you drew and the judgement you received. Be cautious about your own judgement, because it's a pitfall trap made by a sadistic fellow. And above all else, remember that you will always get exactly what you work forso don't work for "perfection", work for "being an artist".
fuckNietzsche in the post "How long does getting community critique on the website usually take?"
2022-11-08 17:27
I see. That's really helpful, and I really hope that I can finish the course this time, because I genuinely love the structure of the course, and the way that the more complicated concepts are broken down into easily digested chunks.
Also, as an aside, thanks a lot for making this art resource, and thank you for also making it free as well. I've learnt so much from the course already, in spite of not having managed to move past Lesson 1, and not just in the surface level of "this is how to draw a line, a box, a person, etc", but also in how to learn how to draw. Having some frame of reference for how long to grind away at a topic and them moving on alone is worth its weight in gold, and has made following along to things like Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing: Design and Invention so much easier and more straightforward than when I first got the book. Again, thank you so much for making this fantastic resource publicly available!
fuckNietzsche in the post "How long does getting community critique on the website usually take?"
2022-11-10 01:34
https://drawabox.com/community/submission/NVWCM4Z7
Thanks a lot!