Journey (or Journies) of an Absolute Rookie

[chocojax]

Quite a number of my friends picked up drawing recently, so it's much more difficult for them to draw (I'd think, after what they talk about sometimes) since all of their mistakes are so clear, especially since they're mature enough to see through their ego. I'm sure a few other artists on here feel the same way.

I started when I was really young, so I can't say much, but there is this guy over here who started when he was around 22 years old and started studying whenever he possibly could (it seems). Even if you go and skip every ten pages, the improvement is quite evident. It's pretty crazy too, especially since the very first post was made in Sep. 2002 and the awesome painting on page fifty was posted in Dec. 2005.



(And here's another really awesome thing he drew. I have no idea of the date, though.)

Uh, I'm not really good at writing things, but I really hope this inspires all of you to keep up your art studies and keep on improving. Maybe you'll inspire someone else to do the same in the future. :O

Feel free to add more links/progress images of artists who were shameless enough to post/keep up their really old and bad art. :P

Anyway, I didn't really know where to post it, so I just made a thread about it, haha.

[merdeamour]

Ah, thank you so much! Now I'm even more inspired to continue my self-study of art >//<

[Didules]

Thanks a lot! This made me look at my old drawings ^^; Ow, I sucked at drawing, I wonder why and how I kept drawing, but now I see how much I've improved, maybe I do have the reason (as for the "how" part, I still don't know!). I think it would be interesting for many artists to do the this old meme I found on a while ago on deviant just to see how much they have improved ^^
So thank you for the motivation

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Thanks a lot! This made me look at my old drawings ^^; Ow, I sucked at drawing, I wonder why and how I kept drawing, but now I see how much I've improved, maybe I do have the reason

I actually keep a bundle of drawings I did when I was 15 in my desk drawer where I do all my art. Every once and a while I'll pull them out to get inspired by how much I used to suck.

That ConceptArt.org thread is very inspiring - it demonstrates what I've personally seen. Art isn't a talent, it is a skill anyone can learn with practice. The only thing separating you and a great artist is practice. Two of my co-workers when I was at my studio job were a husband and wife who had been substitute teachers before deciding they REALLY wanted to be artists. They started drawing and practicing everyday together, and less than 4 years later there they were, working as artists on a major motion picture.

Stuff like that always impresses me/intimidates me/gives me a kick in the pants.

[Didules]

Stuff like that always impresses me/intimidates me/gives me a kick in the pants.

Same here, though I do not want to become a pro or anything (I'm just a self-taught young girl after all >.<) but it's so impressive and shows that practice is the good way to improve your art! Thank you for sharing this story ^o^ But I still think that art has something to do with talent (a friend of mine is the daughter of an artist and she's excellent at drawing because she has always seen someone drawing for years, though she actually started to draw recently) but still, training and practice is a good way to make up for this possible 'talent' thing that may or may not be true ^^ (for instance I don't have that 'talent' thing XD every thing I learned was through constant practice)
(But yerk, I really sucked, no proportions, aweful eyes (almost half of the head O.o), yerk yerk yerk! XD )

[LateWhiteRabbit]

But I still think that art has something to do with talent (a friend of mine is the daughter of an artist and she's excellent at drawing because she has always seen someone drawing for years, though she actually started to draw recently)

Haha. Didules, your story REINFORCES the fact it has nothing to do with talent. Your friend is great at art because she was being taught art from a young age, not because her parent's genes somehow included prenatal art magic. You are correlating the wrong cause and effect.

Children of artists often ARE very good at art, but it is because they are getting micro lessons every day in the subject. Even if the parent isn't directly teaching them, they will notice things like, "Hey, every painting starts with a color wash. If you make a painting, you should start with a color wash." They hear dinner table art discussions. They are on the side lines of art critiques from the time they understand language. They start drawing later on and start getting good results right out of the gate, but it isn't because they are "talented", it is because their childhood has basically been an art school education!

[Didules]

Haha. Didules, your story REINFORCES the fact it has nothing to do with talent. Your friend is great at art because she was being taught art from a young age, not because her parent's genes somehow included prenatal art magic. You are correlating the wrong cause and effect.
[and everything else]

Wow, I never thought of it that way! Indeed maybe you are right, I've never seen someone gifted in drawing, it always had something to do with "I've watched a lot of..." "I've been to lessons..." etc ^^ But people are learning at a different pace, maybe this has something to do with a special talent that makes people more or less receptive to practice and lessons? ^^;

[LateWhiteRabbit]

But people are learning at a different pace, maybe this has something to do with a special talent that makes people more or less receptive to practice and lessons? ^^;

Not really. It all depends on how much practicing they've been doing. You can say - "they've only been practicing for 6 months, and they've progressed farther than I have in 1 year" but the simple fact of the matter is that they've probably been still been doing more practice than you. You may draw an hour a day, or for a few hours every few days, while they might be drawing 6 hours every single day!

"Talent" is a dangerous concept that I wish people would abandon. It is basically an excuse not to work hard, or to make yourself feel better when comparing your art to someone else's. It may even make you practice less, because you think another artist has a "magical ability" that no amount of practice will let you catch up to and emulate.

Another example - one of the forums I frequent for 3D art had a new member who really wanted a job making 3D models for games, but he was a complete amateur. He was literally still learning where buttons were in his 3D program when he started. But he practiced every day, sometimes finishing 2-3 models a day (which is quite a lot of work) and then he would post them and get critiques from all the other members. Then he would apply those suggestions and tips to the next day's models. Eventually, this attracted the attention of a lot of the professionals on the board, and they started giving him advice, because they loved to see that he always applied it on the very next thing he did. He went from simple blocky chairs and tables in 3D, to professionally quality work in 18 months. He got a job in the games industry less than six months after that, in part thanks to the quality of his work, and in part because he had shown professionals from a lot of different companies just how dedicated he was.

I bet he was doing 8 hours of practice a day. Now, his 18 months of study would equal 6 YEARS of study from someone "only" practicing 2 hours a day. That "special talent" for learning quickly is dedication and hard work.

This hasn't been meant as a lecture, just something to keep in mind. It's been said it takes 10,000 hours to truly master a skill. How quickly you go through those hours is up to you.

[Sharm]

Man, LWR, every post you make I agree with wholeheartedly. I'd also add that the type of practice you do makes a huge difference. I know two people who started webcomics without the slightest idea how to draw, both who approached doing the comic as if it were a 9-5 job. One decided to improve with trial error and repetition, the other decided to study art techniques. The one who studied is vastly improved and could be considered a good artist now. The one who didn't is better than before but still an amateur at art.

[Didules]

@ LateWhiteRabbit: (yeah, posts are gettong a bit too long to quote) Another great story that is indeed really interesting! I have to agree that I hate the concept of "talent" as much as I hate people counting on "destiny" or "fate" because it gives an. Idea that everything has already been decided "you won't be able to be better than hil, he has a talent", "you will never achieve this, it's a destiny", etc etc, but I still think that people don't have the same capacities. I agree that it may not be talent, but even outside from the art area, people don't have the same capacities of understanding and learning, so everybody has their own way of learning.that's why I meant in my previous post, of course, I don't know if it's talent or whatsoever, but I tend to think that people are not equal (though we are always told that), we have our own limits that we can overcome, of course, by practice, training, taking seriously tips and advices (that part in your story was really interesting BTW), but we still have some "ease" (I don't know if it's the good word though because I had to check a translator and another translation for a similar meaning was "talent" ) and difficulties in some areas. These can be linked to what we used to practised on (I only drew girls for 2 years and I had to learn everything about drawing boys, it was really hard but it makes sense) but even to understand concepts. You know, proportions, etc etc, for some people it may take hours to get the thing right in their art, for others they understand immediatly how it works and everything is okay just a few minutes later (I'm amplifying it of course), that's what I meant.
But I have to agree that talent can be used as an excuse to say "well, he's gifted so of course I won't be able to overcome his art" or things like that, it can also be used as an excuse when you feel like your art isn't as good as you want it to be (I'm ashamed to say that just a few years ago I'd easily say "It's not good but hey, I don't have a talent or anything!", shame on me...)
Also, I have to agree that it takes time to improve and often we don't even see the results of our training, that's why the only way to get better is to practice as much as we can.

And don't worry, your post didn't seem like a lecture at all ^^ more than that, I have to thank you for sharing all this because it's motivating

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I'd also add that the type of practice you do makes a huge difference.

Well, yes. I just didn't want to get into that in an already long post.

One of my instructors at art school always said, "Practice does NOT make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect." And by that he meant directed studying. Setting out to practice a certain thing like arm anatomy, color, composition, mark making, perspective, etc. and then focusing on that one thing above all else in your next drawing. Then, most importantly, evaluate yourself to see how successful you were. Then making sure to fix what went wrong on the next drawing. Rinse and repeat.

Just drawing with no goals, no study, and no evaluation will not magically make your anatomy or drawing improve. One of the artists I follow talked about how he noticed he was creating his compositions to make drawing arms easier. He realized this was because he wasn't fully comfortable drawing arms in unfamiliar angles. So he set out on a directed study project where he collected over 100 pictures of arms in all different poses, a lot of them extreme. Then he proceeded over the next two weeks to analyze and draw every single arm, sometimes twice. It vastly improved his drawing of arms.

I did a similar thing when I was practicing hands (some of those sketches I've shown here) - I didn't just draw dozens of hands from pictures or observation. It was a directed study where I was analyzing each hand to develop an efficient short-hand (no pun intended) technique to sketch out and build the anatomy with proper proportions. I was developing an internal system to draw a hand from memory at any angle.

That's what you have to do - recognize a weakness in yourself and tackle it with a plan.

I don't know if it's talent or whatsoever, but I tend to think that people are not equal (though we are always told that), we have our own limits that we can overcome,

True, people are definitely not born equal. We all have advantages or disadvantages that can make certain skills easier or harder. But the fact I can see and a blind man cannot is an advantage, not "talent". People we call "talented" as just born with advantages that make acquiring a certain skill easier, it does not mean they were born with that skill.

With something like art that is a craft, practice can be used to overcome disadvantages to get good. For example, there are many blind artists. They just have to work harder. But the fact some people have to work harder to pick up a skill does not mean the other people that don't are talented.

It may be largely semantics, but I think it is an important distinction for the way you need to think.

[Obscura]

Thank you so much for these posts, guys.

I've been going through tutorials and drawing repeatedly in order to clean up and fix my current art work and speed up the time I'm taking to make sprites. After a lot of practice and countless drawings I can finally draw a frigging arm without a reference. My notebooks and files right now are filled with arm drawings I've been doing during my work breaks. Every night I've been drawing arms.

I know it doesn't sound like much to most of you, but after a year of feeling "in the dark" about what the hell a man's arm is supposed to look like, I consider it a massive accomplishment. ;_;

Yes, it's only at a certain angle and one kind of arm. It's a very mediocre arm, but to me it means everything. The jump from drawing something from a reference to drawing something from one's head because one can understand its basic form is HUGE.

I am very grateful to LWR, Chocojax, Sharm and others for the insights and tips they've been posting here and elsewhere.

*edit: And just to add to this discussion, drawing is basically one of those thing you just tend to learn in many Asian countries. You can definitely train to be a competent artist. I forgot who said it (either Mike Judge or one of the Southpark guys), but drawing in the U.S. is often considered a talent, while in Asia the joke is that you learn to draw if you can't do anything else.)

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I know it doesn't sound like much to most of you, but after a year of feeling "in the dark" about what the hell a man's arm is supposed to look like, I consider it a massive accomplishment. ;_;

Yes, it's only at a certain angle and one kind of arm. It's a very mediocre arm, but to me it means everything. The jump from drawing something from a reference to drawing something from one's head because one can understand its basic form is HUGE.

That's awesome. You've improved quite a lot in a short amount of time. Keep up the good work.

*edit: And just to add to this discussion, drawing is basically one of those thing you just tend to learn in many Asian countries. You can definitely train to be a competent artist. I forgot who said it (either Mike Judge or one of the Southpark guys), but drawing in the U.S. is often considered a talent, while in Asia the joke is that you learn to draw if you can't do anything else.)

That's why I find it important to deflate the "talent myth". By de-mystifying the art process, it removes a lot of mental barriers to practice and improvement. It's the difference between being told:

"There is a wonderful place where you can be an amazing artist. You have to walk really far, and, if you were born with wings, you can fly up to it."

versus

"There is a wonderful place where you can be an amazing artist. You have to walk really far, but you'll get there someday if you just keep putting one foot in front of another."

[Didules]

"There is a wonderful place where you can be an amazing artist. You have to walk really far, and, if you were born with wings, you can fly up to it."

versus

"There is a wonderful place where you can be an amazing artist. You have to walk really far, but you'll get there someday if you just keep putting one foot in front of another."

This is one of the most beautiful things I've ever hear about drawing. Thank you for putting it here!

I think I have a video that basically says that you can only get better by drawing, even if you are not satisfied with the way you draw, you have to keep on trying. I'l put it here once I get back home, it's quite the right plae to share it I think!

And just to add to this discussion, drawing is basically one of those thing you just tend to learn in many Asian countries. You can definitely train to be a competent artist. I forgot who said it (either Mike Judge or one of the Southpark guys), but drawing in the U.S. is often considered a talent, while in Asia the joke is that you learn to draw if you can't do anything else.)

Wow, I never thought about it! In Europe, I guess drawig isn't just normal but it isn't a talent or anything. Besides, nowadays there are so many people drawing in a manga-like style that it's not even original. BTW, that's what I like about your drawings: they have a western influence that can't be denied! It gives a unique feeling! (And congratulation for the arm training! It's great that you can see how much you've improved! Good luck for "Keeping up the good work", as lateWhiteRabbit said)

EDIT: Err, it's more about "creative work" than anything but I still wish to share it...

[Obscura]

@LWR

Thanks. I'm sure you know a lot of us are better artists because of the time and care you've taken to help us out.

@Didules

Thank you! And haha, I love that little speech from Ira Glass.


Sidenote: If you want to see an example of his own early work, just to illustrate the improvement he's shown as an interviewer and journalist, you can check out Act Two of the "Cringe" episode of This American Life. The entire episode is hilarious.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-a ... 182/cringe