Why do a lot of artists hate their own work?

[TheLemmaLlama]

Personally, it's just paranoid false modesty due to a fear of being seen as arrogant I only speak for myself tho

[Wishjacked]

oh praise'im, an artist who feels the same way about their art as me. thank you.

I used to be very shy about showing off my work, not because I thought it was bad, but because every other artist I knew hated their art and I figured something was wrong with me since I liked mine.

[bsienk90]

I never hated my work. I never bashed my work. I've always quite favored my work. Of course I have my moments of frustrations. Bc I can see where I can improve and sometimes I don't think I'm improving fast enough. But overall I like my work. I've meet a lot of artist that bash their work and honestly I don't know why.

[joannekwan]

I like my work 95% of the time. Sure sometimes I look back and see where I can improve, and I'm constantly marveling at other people's work that excel in areas I wish to be better in (ie. colors), but I find things in my work that I'm terribly proud of. I really like how I draw men for example. And then even looking back at my old work, I'm still very proud of 5% to10% of it. Surely artists like at least a small portion of their work, why else would they continue?

[cpodeswa]

Well said. That's the right way to look at it

[Aspie_Gamer]

I think its mostly because no matter how good our current piece looks, we will always have that little voice in the back of our heads telling us in a loud enough voice to either fix X or telling us we could have done X better.

[crow]

I was going to make, basically, this same comment. The (incredibly successful!) work of your peers seems effortless when you aren't the one making the effort, heh. Working for hours upon hours on one thing to only see a infinitely better version online somewhere is... yeah. We live in a bad time for artist self esteem.

[sarahrebecca58]

If drawing is anything like writing, after you edit to the upteenth time you get to the point of never wanting to see your work again.:/

[cheeznh]

What are you talking about? I'm EFFING amazeballs. Yea, that's right, I said it. I draw good.
I mean, if I didn't think it was good, why would I bother showing it to other people?

I put my stuff online because "hey, look at this cool stuff I made," not, "hey, I know I suck but give me pity compliments"

[kotaotan]

Artists, usually, are their own worst critics. I know when I do art I usually only see the mistakes. It's how it works most of the time.
That's not to say I'm not proud of a lot of the work I do. It just means that I think I can do better. The trick is to find your mistakes, work toward improving them, and never look back.

[Bluejay]

Well, isn't there the saying: 'The one most criticizing towards the art; is the artist himself." Or something like that along with what kataotan said. I feel like most artists live by that phrase; which doesn't have to be a bad thing. This way we all see our little mistakes and can do improvements. But, at the same time I also feel a lot of people are more of humble than 'hating'- towards their own work.

When someone compliments you, you usually don't answer with: "Yeah, I know." As it seems a little bit... boastful? For me; whenever someone praises my art I go a little bit stiff and deny it-- but inside I'm fluttering going: 'thank you thank you thank you.' Hahah, maybe it's just because we're all too shy showing our feelings.

[KrugosNavarro]

Who knows? It may be just insecurities, maybe by telling you their work is awful then you may be more forgiving. It can also be that artists know their weaknesses better than anyone, and may be under the false belief that others notice in their art every little detail they're convinced is not good enough.

I'm a very harsh critic of my own works, people often get the impression that I hate everything I do, but I don't, I just try hard to find everything that could have been better, so I can learn from it and improve my craft. When I read my finished works (in comics it may be a while, even years, between me finishing a script and an artist illustrating it) I'm always thinking how would I make it better if I was writing this today.

[ToonDoctor]

Not happy with my work either.

[Cielle]

I feel like "hate" is a really strong word. I would call it "dissatisfaction", but that's just me. That being said, I think it's a normal, human thing to be self-critical of your own work, be that art or a dish you've cooked. Even if you recognize "this is the best thing I've ever done" or "objectively, this isn't bad", as an artist you spend more time than anyone else looking at your work, so of course you're going to notice the flaws, no matter how tiny or insignificant they may be. At the same time, even if you think to yourself "this is an awesome picture that I'm proud of", generally speaking society discourages everyone from bragging. It varies from culture to culture, but it seems to me that denying compliments is a pretty typical reaction to praise.

[sarahrebecca58]

Have you ever noticed this after it's been about a year sense you wrote you last novel or drew your last illustration? It seems like I'm a lot pickier for what I create now.:/ Creativity is a curse.

[DruidPeter]

XD

Gotta love that confidence, man.