Why is it Hard to Improve as an Artist?

By: Michelle

Over the years I have learned to draw on my own. It takes so much time for me to improve, yet, throughout my experience, I still struggle to enhance my skill. It requires a lot of effort to push through the issues that hinder my further potential. There are a few reasons that I have noticed.

First, one of constant issues I kept facing is the lack of motivation. This may be the result of various causes. From what I’ve experienced it is due to tight schedules, homeworks, and other activities that took up all of my time. If these activities kept going, I'd temporarily forget about it. If I do remember, I wouldn’t feel like drawing anymore as I would think that I don’t have time to draw or I don’t feel like doing it anymore. The other cause is due to laziness. Constant procrastinating can distract my daily activities, making me late from doing something that I could’ve done earlier. My only solution is to stop whatever I’m doing instantly. It has to be an immediate stop. If not, I’d make an excuse; “5 more minutes”, or “10 more minutes”. Once I stop at once, I’d come to realise that I needed to be more productive; when it comes to my hobby.

The second reason is being too strict on myself or being a perfectionist; hyperfocusing on one artwork is not a good sign of improvement. Obsessing over your own work, leads to a never ending of unfinished works. My creativity was hindered, in which, I shouldn’t have been too strict to myself when it comes to producing artwork. Recently, I learned not to hyperfocus towards my own work. For any artist who is reading this, have you ever finished your artwork, take a look at it for a while, and then realize that your drawing looks odd? Or maybe you became more aware of the mistakes you’ve made? Well that often happens to me. My mistake is trying to fix the drawing that I claimed I’ve finished. The right thing to do is stop, let it go, and make another drawing while learning from the previous mistake.

Lastly, high expectations. It’s not uncommon when someone enjoys something they do, they have the tendency to compare themselves, and expect to improve a lot in one sitting. In reality, it takes forever to improve. One of the issues is being delusional, expecting myself to enhance my skill drastically isn’t healthy, while practice and patience has always been the key. When I look at artworks by another artist I either compare myself or feel motivated. The comparison is due to the age gap with other artists. When I see younger artists with greater skills, my confidence immediately shrink. I feel hopeless, I’ve seen 14-16 year olds doing better than me. If I were being dramatic, I would scrunched up then ripped my whole years of work, and lit up the whole stationary; however, I’m not THAT dramatic, that was simply in the back of my mind. At the end of the day, I shouldn’t focus on comparing but to focus on my own work. Life may not be fair, but it doesn’t mean we can’t improve and there’s no need to be ashamed because everyone starts somewhere.

In conclusion, I have been facing a few challenges as an artist who is still, to this day improving my skill. I have learned that it takes a lot of trial and error to improve, and there may be ups and downs where I struggle to have the same consistent result. Not to mention, trying to keep my motivation up with the issues that hinder my will to keep up is rather complicated. My whole point is that, as an artist I need more patience, take my own time, be more consistent when practicing, and try not to put so much pressure on myself. I wrote this in hopes of helping any other artists who may be facing the same struggle.