Hallo! If you don't want to read a gigantic wall of rambling text then turn back now XD. Even though I'm posting this here, I don't really expect other people to read it. Just thought typing it out might help me somehow ¯_(ツ)_/¯
* and it did, yay *
So basically I feel a bit stuck, art-wise. Or well, not really - I've actually been improving really rapidly in the past few months. Just not rapidly enough. I'm impatient lol. I feel like I could improve faster and want to find out how.
So what do I need to improve on in particular? What is holding my art back? I think there are three basic things:
- speed / efficiency
- detail rendering
- I want an art styleeeeeee ><;
Let's start with speed. I've definitely gotten significantly faster at drawing, but it still seems painfully slow. Especially if I try to paint. Drawing with lines is pretty okay, but painting takes several times longer. Why?
Before I thought my problem was perfectionism. I was partially right. Practicing non-perfectionism in the past couple of months is the primary reason for my speed improvement. But now I feel like it's not working so well anymore. Although I've largely overcome my perfectionism, I'm still slow.
Therefore, the reason must be something else too. I think the new limiting factor for my drawing efficiency is just the fact that I don't know what I'm doing. I spend a long time hesitating while drawing, not because I'm too attached to getting it perfect, but because I simply don't know how to do what I want to do. This problem is much worse with painting.
In other words, I'm bad at painting. Why?
I think it has to do with shapes.
In December I made this:
At the time I was quite proud of it since I had never managed to make something so "painterly" before. But now I think it is largely a hack painting.
The main elements that make something look painterly are edge variety (hard, soft, lost), texture, and randomness. It has those things, so it looks painterly. But the real fundamental of painting is something different. It's being able to think in terms of shapes (rather than in terms of lines, like in drawing). And in that sense I had very little clue what I was doing. I just used texture and vague edges to mask the lack of real detail and form. Most of the detail that does exist was just "happy accidents". Nothing wrong with happy accidents, but relying on them is no good if you want to produce a result consistently rather than fluke-by-fluke.
So I've focused too much on edges and not enough on shapes while painting. But shapes have to come before edges. Therefore, maybe the most important thing for me to practice now is thinking in terms of shapes. Breaking down forms into planes, like this -
(
https://www.pinterest.com/dianehammar/planes-shading-the-face/)
It's a certain kind of abstraction, of simplifying.
Something that strikes me is that this is also how people make "lineless" drawings, like this -
(
https://www.deviantart.com/griffsnuff/art/Lineless-commissions-481850459)
It's all strong shapes. It occurs to me that this is basically painting, but without worrying about edge quality. All the edges are hard. And because of that, the shapes actually have to be extra-defined and precise, since the edges allow for no ambiguity to mask any lack of precision.
They say that if you are lacking in a certain skill, then you should isolate that skill as much as possible and work on it. I've always thought lineless drawing was very difficult, but maybe practicing it will be currently the most straightforward way to improve my art in general.
Dammit, another art style I now feel compelled to experiment with.
Which I guess segues nicely into the next issue - art style.
I use a new style for just about every piece of art I make. At first I didn't mind. It was actually a very good thing, because it's allowed me to learn many things that I wouldn't learn by sticking to one style all the time. But now it feels like it's getting a little ridiculous. I'd love to keep experimenting, but at the same time I do want to be able to stick with something to some extent. There are a few reasons why -
- it's valuable from a "branding" / recognition perspective to have a consistent, unique style you are known for
- consistency is necessary for long-term projects such as comics
- there is an efficiency benefit to practicing and becoming comfortable with one style rather than re-inventing the wheel every other day
So why can't I bring myself to stick with something? At first I thought the constant experimentation was a natural phase I had to go through before eventually finding and settling into something I liked. I still think that's partially correct. But this has become a long phase ^^;. I think a lot of other artists have settled into nice styles without quite so much back-and-forth. Why does it seem so problematic for me in particular?
One thing might be because I care about overall aesthetics when drawing much more than subject matter, and different art styles create different aesthetics. I almost never start a drawing by thinking, "I want to draw an X", but rather by thinking, "I want to draw something with X aesthetic". And then I try to pick an art style and subject matter to match it.
Ahhh, but honestly though, maybe that's beside the point. Whenever I draw in a familiar style, I feel like I'm missing out on something. Like there is more to art than this, and I'm neglecting to learn something new by sticking with what I already know. And that's right. Not only is there still more to learn, but it just occurred to me that I've never managed to fully express what I want to express with my art.
At any given time, I'm either going for something approaching realism, in which case I always think it's not lifelike enough (due to my lack of skill in realism), or I'm going for a more abstract style, in which case I can never seem to get the specific aesthetic across that I want. There is a pretty clear divide though - I am either going for something heavily based in realism or heavily based in abstraction.
All art styles are based on abstraction, so different styles of pure realism don't exist. Abstract art is an infinite variety of things, but realism is one thing. Thinking about this, I feel like if I just become sufficiently good at realism, half of my art style struggles will be dealt with. It's difficult, but there seems to be a finite end.
As for the other half, there is no end to the possibilities of abstract styles. If I feel like I'm missing out until I've explored every one, I will always be missing out. That's what concerns me - that this phase of experimentation will last forever. But. Although there may be an infinite number of styles, there are a finite subset that I like the most. I do feel like I've been gravitating towards something in particular. So there is probably an end to this too eventually.
So there are two things I must do to develop a consistent style. Or even a small handful of consistent styles. That's okay too as long as there's something.
- 1) Become proficient at realism
- 2) Keep experimenting with abstract-heavy styles and wear out the phase, no matter how long it may be. Try to find general patterns of what I like and refine them.
Once I settle on something, I can still experiment sometimes if I want to. The goal is just to reach a point where I don't feel the need to do something new all the time.
Last issue! detail rendering.
...
I actually don't think there's much to say here. I need to look at references and practice.
It's important to look at references because it's impossible to draw something without knowing what it looks like. From drawing so much manga and cartooney stuff I know the basics of what a human looks like, for instance. But I don't know the smaller details. For those things, I still need reference until I can build a sufficiently large memory bank.
It also should be expected to take longer to render lots of details than to stop at the level of simpler forms. Sometimes I feel like I must be doing something wrong if I take too long. But with this, it's inevitable. Just be willing to spend more time to cover less ground.
How tedious.
But hey, if it was easy everyone would do it I guess.
.
.
Summary!
- Before you can get faster, you have to know what you're doing in the first place! You know nothing about shapes! Practice breaking things down into planes, and also lineless drawing!
- Art-style-wise, you seem to always be pulled in one of two directions - realistic or abstract! Become good at realism! Wear out the uncertainty regarding abstract styles with sheer volume of experimentation!
- Practice detail rendering! With references! Don't just try to draw something if you don't know how it looks, dummy!
Well, that was helpful.
I'll go practice now.
