Do you ever notice your art getting worse?

[monotone_ink]

And this isn't even in reference to the development of your critical eye--I mean, genuinely, your art getting worse.

I've lately been having a lot of moments where I realise older pages are way more aesthetically pleasing than the ones I'm working on right now. I can't see things getting any better.

[IndigoShirtProd]

While I've never noticed my art getting worse, I have noticed my art stagnating over the past few months . I want to get better, but all the drawing studies I would need to do are very daunting.

[nostalgicroxas]

All the time. My art's a roulette wheel. I either make decent art, good art, or utter garBAGE.

[graveweaver]

I do notice when I am getting worse. Usually thats a sign for me to buckle down and sign up for a course, or if I don't have enough free time to spend a few weeks either 1. figure drawing 2. doing master studies (rembrandt, caravaggio, leyendecker, sargent, and rockwell usually) 3. doing life drawing or 4. drawing muscle charts

Turning back to the fundamentals always gets me back in gear.

[joannekwan]

For certain things yeah, but that's mostly due to illness and not being able to put forth my normal amount of energy.

[mariusthered]

my art work has never been the same since i switched to digital. it was like starting over and you constantly have to keep learning new tecno crap to keep up. i will be glad when i can find a better place to live and go back to oil painting.

[LT1986]

Sometimes I notice my art getting worse when I'm drawing new characters and places. I don't worry about it, though. I eventually draw the new characters and places better. I view it as a great professional athlete having a bad game that he/she will recover from the next game or a professional athlete learning a new skill.

[punkarsenic]

oh yeah you produce shitty pages when youre burnt out, it means you need to take a break and re-orient yourself to get back to the level you were at before

that said, things can also get worse temporarily when youre trying something new, bc youre just less familiar with it. maybe youre focusing on a different element of your art? if youre reallly focused on the composition right now, maybe youre putting less attention to the rendering.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I always think about it, although not as often as I think my art is stagnating.

It has been something I think about since I switched to digital art, especially in earlier stages. I think my digital art is so flat; lacking the texture, flow, and accent my traditional art have. Even the feeling has subsided little by little for now, I keep thinking about my traditional art would be superior and I want to try it more. I started to understand part of the reason my digital art is lacking is because I usually spend more time doing traditional art and it's always prepared for doing a bigger project, meanwhile my digital art is usually for smaller projects (although I'm trying to challenge this by now).

For now, I just think my art style is getting worse and perhaps less visually appealing. It just looks weird and ugly, something like a failed fusion of anime/cartoon/semi-realism. I meant just look at this, left (yours) is my recent meanwhile right is in late 2018. It's either a downgrade or a stagnation.

[silverraven0]

Oh yeah, a lot of time. At those moments I just feeling like trashing my works. ;x;

[MiniSheepPencil]

Art will change but never get "worse". What you typically will see is different styles and shade techniques being implemented and granted, some does look more pleasing to the eye compared to others.

I think of it this way because there are tons of ways to draw stuff, we can just take anime vs realism as an example;
anime = amazing hardcore lineart skills with simplistic color choices and cell shading on characters with stunning backgrounds to accompany the overall mood.
realism = painting techniques in a high res rendered format which is soft shading, blending of colors, little to no lineart. This is also a well known practice for traditional paintings where the well known "lineart" is non-existent.

Looking at just these two it is no wonder that your style and overall perception of a finished product would change.

To me it all depends on what style genre I want to pursue and what I feel more confident in doing continuously. I really wouldn't fret too much over upgrading or degrading when it comes to exploring new drawing styles or shading options. Just try it out and have fun with it and let it develop naturally, cuz, at the end of the day you will only get better and more trained the more you keep drawing.

[jurinova]

Oh definitely! Art isn't a straight line going upwards but sometimes it goes down too. Usually there's a reason for it though, such as burnout or illness etc. I personally notice that sometimes my art gets worse simply because I'm working on autopilot while drawing. Sometimes I've also spent time learning how to draw something specific better and other things end up looking worse in comparison.

It's rarely a permanent change, so it's good to take a break when you notice it happening. Work on something else for awhile, try to get inspired or just not draw for a short time. Usually that will fix it.

[octafg64]

I see people who over 6/10 years can pass from mere doodles to hiper realistic art.
In my experience i passed from poor cartoons to decent-ish cartoons

[ble]

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