How do you make sure that your drawing skills evolve?

[PaulieBlade]

After a very long break I returned to drawing three years ago and heard that a cool thing about being an artist is that if you practice you can actually see progress in your work and it is motivating. But once you're past the stage of drawing like a toddler it gets more difficult to notice a significant increase in skill.

I'm trying to look up to my favorite artists and understand what makes their drawings so special, what their tricks are. I never went to an art school nor do I plan to (full time job, family etc.). Perhaps a common tip could be to just keep drawing. But if your drawings look like crap and you're somewhat comfortable with it, you will just continue to spout more crap. I suppose I am simply afraid of reaching a glass ceiling.

How about you?

[TheFalseVyper]

I know exactly how you feel, and don't worry, many other artists have the same experiences. This is completely normal!

I'm sure you've heard of this, but if you're wanting to see improvement, consider redrawing an old art piece of yours. Once you've finished, you can see the vast differences between the old and the new. The improvement is right in front of you at that point.

[shazzbaa]

I mean, the simple truth is that it's very hard to draw constantly over a significant period of time without getting a little better along the way! But some other stuff you can do:

• Keep trying to draw stuff you're bad at. If you get in a comfort zone and only draw the things you're confident you know how to draw, then it's easier to feel like you've stagnated. If you "can't draw people" or "can't draw backgrounds" or whatever, keep trying to understand them anyway!! Even if it's just doodles in your spare time. Getting better and better at something that previously seemed impossible is a good feeling.

• Keep checking reality. Something that can happen is, if you're drawing a thing, you look at the real thing Once, develop an idea of how to draw it, and then never check a reference again because, in your mind, you've figured out how to draw it now. But as you improve, you'll be able to pull more and more info out of a reference and make your version better and better. A big one for me is expressions -- it's real easy for me to lean on all the expressions I'm already comfortable with drawing, rather than acting in the mirror to see what my face actually does, but if I'm willing to do the latter I'll learn new expressions, or maybe even just new details about what your mouth ACTUALLY does when you smile, or whatever.

If you approach art this way, where you don't just lean on the things you can already draw, and you make sure to check Real References now and again to make sure you know what things really look like and you're not just drawing symbolically, then your art has tons of room to improve all the time.

You'll definitely hit times where your brain is "levelling up" instead of your hand and you feel like you're "getting worse" because you're able to see your own flaws better. That happens to every artist!! And, in my opinion, sometimes it's okay to stop and draw things in your comfort zone for a bit -- if you're scaling a mountain, after all, it's normal to stop and rest now and then and not try to move continuously upward -- you'll tire yourself out! But if you make sure to go back and study real life and not shy away from trying the things you're less confident in every once in a while, I think you'll always be able to grow your art.

[PaulieBlade]

I'm sure you've heard of this, but if you're wanting to see improvement, consider redrawing an old art piece of yours. Once you've finished, you can see the vast differences between the old and the new. The improvement is right in front of you at that point.

Um. As dumb as this makes me look, actually I have not heard this rather simple and, yes, natural advice. Sounds brilliant!

[TheFalseVyper]

Oh I didn't mean to say that to make you feel dumb lol! I'm sorry about that, but I hope the advice helps

[Wumbl]

Studying is important! Even if you're not going to art school it doesn't hurt to do plenty of anatomy and still life studies, as well as landscapes. It's so vital to learn from real life I can't emphasise it enough.
Constant practice, researching colour theory etc. are THE way to improve at any level.

[PaulieBlade]

You'll definitely hit times where your brain is "levelling up" instead of your hand and you feel like you're "getting worse" because you're able to see your own flaws better. That happens to every artist!!

That's a golden sentence, haven't thought of it that way. Thanks.

[PaulieBlade]

Oh I didn't mean to say that to make you feel dumb lol! I'm sorry about that, but I hope the advice helps

No worries Yeah, it does help.

[Nika]

Grind fundamentals, really.

I reccomend you read some books about drawing and try to apply what you learn in your studies. Really, you don't have to go to art school to learn how to draw. In fact I would argue that the only good thing about art school is making networking and being in a community full of artists.

So yeah, become your own strict teacher that gives lots of homework and... study hard.

Also this link maybe somewhat relevant: https://hubpages.com/art/how-to-draw-learn

[Zhengo]

I actually feel like making my comic has kinda prevented me from getting too comfortable with my art skill XD Mainly because it gave me more motivation to get out of my comfort zone in terms of drawing for the sake of having variety between panels XD When I started the comic, it really made me realize how much of an amateur I still was when it came to anatomy and poses and it forced me to look into more resources and references,

I feel like some people get too comfortable with what they have is because at first glance their art does look nice...but then you realize their portfolio lacks any variety in terms of composition. So like one artist could be very good at portraits, but if that's the only thing they draw, they probably don't even know how to properly draw a body.

[vworksart]

I just try to remember the fundamentals. Looking for basic shapes in forms, practicing gesture drawing so my characters aren't stiff, practicing forshortening and perspective. I never really learned those in school but a lot of artists I follow hammer those down hard when they teach.

I also am constantly looking at the art of different artists that I find interesting and if they have some lining technique or shading / coloring technique that resonates with me, I'll experiment and see how it looks on my work.

It's all just practicing and keeping an open mind to keep it simple. There's no getting around it haha.
Just keep at it consistently.

[qwerty]

I've improved my drawing abilities massively over the past year and have also never been to art school. What worked for me:

• reading / watching lots of tutorials and applying their advice. It's more efficient to learn from other people's experience how to do something right than it is to practice doing something wrong over and over until you realize it's not working. And seeing other people's methods exposes you to ways of doing things you might otherwise never think of.
• staying out of my comfort zone and being willing to risk producing things that look crappy.
• being a perfectionist, in a certain way. My philosophy is that I will learn more from drawing something once, thoroughly looking for mistakes and trying to fix them than I will from drawing something badly ten times and letting the mistakes remain.

[droidmonkey1]

Never want to art school either. I found that if try to draw things that you never drew before and apply a certain style on a different style drawing you could level up. drawing like any other things like workout, cooking, programing etc, you will get stagnant if you practice the same thing. I started to draw more female characters inspired from anime but trying to put my spin on it.

[OneHappyChap]

If you do those draw these again memes it's easier to see once a few months have passed!

[beta1042]

I feel like they just evolve over time due to the practice of updating my comic weekly, but I do also like to target practice a lot. LIke I decide for this Arc in my comic I'll work on some really good establishing shot backgrounds, and make sure then when I draw those panels I spend alittle extra time on them explaining some new techniques, asking other artists for feedback, etc.

I like to challenge myself to draw the things I know I suck at. Like feet for example, although I end up cropping them off of nearly all my panels, I do try to draw them to get the practice XD

[lil-sea-salt]

Studies help me a lot. Try to copy everything you can -- artbooks, sketches, paintings.

But this method is also not for everybody depending on what your aim is.

I also do courses on Schoolism, CGMA, and Skillshare. A lot of those online courses are incredibly helpful, although they do cost money. Schoolism is the best quality out of everything. CGMA (would not recommend unless you're looking for a degree). Skillshare is awesome, it has student discount as well.

[LT1986]

One thing that I've noticed that has helped me is being more patient. A lot of the things that I continue to improve on is stuff that I already know how to do. The problem is speed when I'm working on pictures. I'm getting less lazy, when I create pictures by adding more details. I focus on improving one thing when drawing pictures until I get better at it. Then when I create new pictures, I focus on another new thing, until I get better at it.

Sometimes I actually just figure out how to do things that I didn't know how to do before, by comparing my art work to similar art work by better artists. Sometimes they reveal simple details that didn't come to my mind.

[libs]

The first step to improving ANYTHING is repeat. Draw and draw. Look at what needs to be improved and draw again. If you have reached the point where you can't tell if something is wrong, or never had the skill to know whats right and wrong in the first place, ask for feedbacks from others.

There are tons of places that give great criticism. my favorite place is /ic/ as you don't actually know anyone there so you can receive a more objective feedback.

Sadly I havent been too focused on drawing so my skills are quite low at the moment. But yeah, if i was to try and improve I would draw daily and ask for feedback regularly as well.

One really helpful trick to see if your drawing is bad yourself is by flipping it left to right (like with a mirror). You'll notice a lot of mistakes you missed if you do this

[PaulieBlade]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Well, rather than wondering how to improve, I was expressing my anxiety of reaching a glass ceiling regarding drawing skill. At which point do we know that we do not improve anymore (even though we study and practice)? How do we prevent this?

[qwerty]

OH, if it is about a glass ceiling then... if such a thing exists, wouldn't it just be the point at which it is not possible to more accurately and efficiently express what you want to express using your art?

It's like, if you shoot an arrow and it misses the target, then it's easy to shoot better the next time. If you just shot close to the bull's eye, it is harder to improve on that. If you already shot a bull's eye, that's when it's impossible to improve. But in that case there's nothing to worry about since you already achieved the best possible outcome.

To me the bull's eye is when I can express exactly what I want to very quickly and efficiently. If I reach that point, I won't worry about not improving anymore since I'll already have what I want. After all, improving just for improvement's sake doesn't have a point.

I also wouldn't worry about reaching the 'glass ceiling' before reaching the bull's eye. If you haven't hit the bull's eye it means by definition there is more room for improvement, although you might have to refine your methods of practice to get there.