Are you taking this too seriously?

[akitsukino]

Oh God, I'm making another one of these posts.

I guess the better question here would be am I taking this too seriously. If you're anything like me, then someone telling you that you're taking something (that you care about) "too seriously" or "too personally" is the quickest way for you to curse a pox upon their house. But it is something that I've been wondering about recently. Not starting projects for fear that they won't turn out the way you envisioned, trashing pictures and throwing sketchbook across the room because it's not right after the tenth try; yeah that's stuff I've done. Probably the most frustrating thing is that it seem like the harder I push myself the more difficult it can become to produce things, but when I've (usually accidentally) let myself go I produce pretty okay stuff. Ex. Something I've spent a week working on will look like garbage, but something I sketched in a notebook while I was half asleep is the best thing I've drawn in months. Maybe it's just the lack of emotional investment in one that makes it seem better than the other one, but it is situations like this that make me wonder if I'm doing myself a disservice by treating everything so severely. I'd like to think I just have high standards for myself, but if those standards are just making me very, very, miserable, in art and other things, then maybe its timer to reevaluate/change them.

Thoughts?

[Rochrok]

I'm in the same boat. The only reason I'm entering the writing camp contest is to give myself the final push to bite the bullet and put my novel out there. I've started and stopped so many times it's ridiculous and my biggest fear is that it won't turn out the way I picture it in my mind and I fluff it up badly. I didn't use to be this way, I wrote four books by sitting down and having fun without care for perfection and right now I'm trying to get back to that because at least I was more productive and enjoyed what I did.

[dawgofdawgness]

I think you should definitely lower your expectations for yourself. And comparing yourself to others is mostly a bad thing to do, but if you're expecting to paint like picasso in a day, you should do a reality check. Get the big picture! Where are you now, what should your next step be? Nobody else went from doofus to genius in a day. (except for steve rogers)

I was also like this last year (and this year too... though i'm slowly crawling out of the hole) because I would focus so hard on making something look perfect, only for it to turn out looking like utter garbage when I'm done (after 4 hours of hard work). This is a classic case of perfectionism. You said that something you sketched in your notebook will look amazing. There's a reason for that: it's because you're letting yourself get loose and you're experimenting more than if you start off a piece thinking "this HAS to be perfect and polished."

So remember this: making mistakes is GREAT. it's AWESOME. You might draw something and right afterwards think "oh my gawd I'm a genius!!" and a week later toss it in the recycling bin. That's normal. Remember to stay loose and draw a lot a lot a lot. Finished, not perfect. Sometimes it's easier to learn how to do things the right way from doing it incorrectly first.

[storytimebiondi]

I think the most important thing for any work is to have fun. Seriously. If there's no fun, or you aren't enjoying what you're doing, it's a big waste of time. Do what you think brings you fun. If it looks like shit, at least you enjoyed the act.
It really is about letting loose, and as @dawgofdawgness said, just not having any high standards.

I often found myself frustrated with my art, but eventually it passed, and then I started improving. The frustration ended because I was just producing more work. I just drew all the time. It sucked, pretty much all of it, but then it eventually sucked less and I had more fun.

I think with anything that takes some skill to produce there's three stages to becoming an intermediate in it.
1. You have the energy and inspiration to learn something new
2. Frustration sets in because you aren't performing as well as your inspiration from step one expected you to.
3. You break through the frustration, and begin learning again, this time at a higher and more competent capacity.

Sounds like you're at stage 2.

[punkarsenic]

i think you answered your own question.

youre totally taking this too seriously, and i feel you. the most common comment i leave alongside my figure drawings is 'youre a stupid bitch.' its hard not to feel the mounting pressure of your own expectations, when you cant accept anything but the best from yourself.

ultimately, the solution is to expect the worst from yourself. and accept the worst. someone on dirty old ladies once said 'everyone has 200 terrible terrible comic pages inside of them, and the only way out is through.' so you gotta poop em out! do a few short comics that are just a bit of fun, do something predictable, do something experimental, worry a lot more about the process of getting it done than how its received. try very hard to accept that, right now, you are shit, and then revel in it. whatever you produce now is worthless, so you can do whatever the fuck you want with it - total freedom. it feels really harsh me saying it, but once you start adopting this 'fuck it' attitude things get a lot easier. your work does have inherent worth, but whatever you make now is prolly gonna be pretty irrelevant to your career.

chances are, when you stop worrying about whether or not your work is shit - accepting that it is - youll make something great. no matter how great it is, though, youll prolly hate it in two years time. as is the march of progress. youll be so much better in two years of just pooping out comics that you cant afford to worry so much about the quality of what you put out now.

[gpyrus]

I think it's normal to take it seriously, it's even necessary if you're looking into honing your skills in any given field.

You can't forget though, that the process of creating is not always so cerebral and that's one reason why you've found out that your work with less investment seems superior somehow. That's when all your hard work is put to the test. When you don't have to "think" about it 'cause your brain already assimilated all that stuff last week, it doesn't need your conscious mind nagging at it.

The study time is precious don't get me wrong. As an artist, it's your job to make it fun.

[A-weird-girler]

Yeah I am. Except for me it's character development and story. I don't want flat characters or a boring story and sometimes I feel frustrated when they seem that way.

[nekoendy]

It only becomes fun when you're done with all the hard work

[LCT_m_a_d]

I take my project very seriously, but I don't take myself too seriously as an artist. Making art is my work, but there are other simpler things in life I've learned to appreciate.

I think we live in an era where we feel the need to define and label ourselves. We focus on living through those identities. I believe the more we start to embrace those unimportant elements of our lives the more fulfilled we become with our achievements.

The first step for me to becoming more fulfilled with my art was to stop being an artist.

[DiegoPalacios]

I think you may be putting too much pressure to yourself. We as humans work better with certain amounts of "pressure" If it is too much, we will be blocked by panic, if it is too little, we will postpone it. Is important to find the perfect balance between discipline and calmness and search for the mental state you work better. In your case you probably need to be more relaxed.

Hope this helps!.

[375]

Honestly I believe there's a thin line between "taking this seriously" and "working hard to produce something". I never take things seriously because when you do you start to lose your goal of creating what you wanted. I did that once with my writing and it ended up changing the way I write. Sometimes its good to work hard but dont work too hard!

[shazzbaa]

I don't think the problem here is standards or seriousness.

It's okay to have high standards and to take your work seriously and want your work to be good. But that doesn't mean Literally Everything That Exits Your Pencil Should Be High Quality -- quite the opposite, in fact; if you want your work to be good, you have to be able to produce A LOT of bad work -- crappy doodles and off-model studies and bad sketches and "finished" attempts that didn't quite make it. Not everything you make will be something you're proud of, but it's all a stepping stone towards making the work you want to make.

If you sit there not finishing anything until you can make good work, you will never make good work.

High standards and taking your work seriously means that as you produce things, you evaluate them critically and determine whether they're up to your standards, and what you need to do better for your next piece, or on a rework..... not that you fail to produce things out of the fear that they'll be bad, or that you berate yourself when you produce things that are only part of the way there -- a necessary step of the process. You aren't describing high standards.

The problems you describe sound like they'd be more usefully tackled by a therapist than an art instructor. And I don't mean this pejoratively!! I have symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder -- not the hand-washing/door-locking stuff everyone's heard of, but the weird kind that sits in your head and makes you paralysed with fear and guilt over innocuous things that are somehow your fault -- and just, finding out what it even was, and having a better idea of how to approach those thoughts when I'm assaulted with them, helped me so much.

I don't know you personally, so obviously I can't say for sure, but it seems like this is coming from a deeper place than artistic standards. And while believing the lies that your brain tells you is obviously unhelpful and makes your life miserable, makes you unable to move forward and do the things you love with joy....... berating yourself for having those feelings is equally unhelpful, and I think a glib response of "you're just taking this too seriously" isn't the right answer either when you're being guilted and bullied by your brain for every step of the process.

You gotta be able to recognise the lies and the bad feelings that your brain gives you for what they are and realise that they don't reflect reality..... while also accepting that they're there, and not holding it against yourself. You gotta be able to see that producing a bad sketch is not a disaster, while also not considering yourself oversensitive for feeling like it's a disaster. Be kind to yourself!!

[kazukitakamura126]

That's a problem most artists face when they are first starting out. They wonder if their work is good enough but, I think a better way to see if your art is ready is just do it. I learned this when I made my first comic back in 2006. I found out after a few years my skills were not quite ready. So the best way to make sure you get better is actually put yourself into the environment so you can learn new ways to improve your art so you are proud enough to show it.

[sarrowsmith10]

It's okay to have high standards and to take your work seriously and want your work to be good. But that doesn't mean Literally Everything That Exits Your Pencil Should Be High Quality -- quite the opposite, in fact; if you want your work to be good, you have to be able to produce A LOT of bad work

Shazz is basically quoting almost word for word what my art instructor taught us. You have to go through a lot of bad to get to the good. However you got to find some happy medium, find your zen. Recognize that some of your work is just going to be unsatisfying sometimes, throw it out, move on. It's always valuable to learn how not to do something as it is how to do something. Then cherish your good high quality work until you do something better. And you will do something better. Your best piece of work isn't going to be your best forever. You will progress and make progress.

You can also hold your art close to your heart and work really hard on it without beating yourself up over it. Making art is hard enough without your own mind working against you. At least you aren't alone. Lots of us have had these feelings. ((hugs))