In need of advice.

[Basham]

Hey.

My name is Joseph Basham. I'm a sixteen year old kid from Maryland, and I've been drawing since I was twelve years old. I made this account a long time ago, and haven't posted on ConceptArt.Org in more than a year.

I used to really love drawing, but over the past year or two I have became so obsessed with improvement that I no longer enjoy it. I have been drawing roughly an hour every day, I draw from sites like Posemaniacs.com and Characterdesigns.com. I tend to put off drawing now, because I am almost constantly in something of an art block.
Sometimes I'll only feel like drawing once a week, sometimes only once a month. Even less often do I create something that I view as "passable", and those rare drawings usually look terrible to me the day after.

What should I do? I'd like to be an artist one day, but this obsession has actually slowed my progress to a crawl, and killed my sense of creativity. Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this? Does anyone have any advice?

Thank you for your time.

[Slothboy3000]

Take your time and don't force yourself to do things you don't want to do. It helps you remain creative and not treat it as some school subject.

[ZenitYerkes]

Same here.

I'd tell you to relax. Art is about to be creative, not to improve. So if you got really good ideas but draw like a 6-year-old boy, it's better that drawing like Rembrandt but having no ideas.

My father was hired by an art studio even though he hasn't got any Arts Degree neither draws good. But he got quite good ideas.

So my advice is to have an idea and develop it. Do rough sketches, then decide what you like the most and finally detail, ink and color it.

Improvement is good, but as we say here in Spain "If you need to go, go; but to go somewhere for nothing is useless"

[Basham]

I'm amazed at how fast I got responses. You guys are great, I'll really try to use your advice.

Slothboy, I looked at your sketchbook. Your level of technical skill is astounding.

ZenitYerkes, you are also far better than I am. The fact that you are a year younger than me makes this all the more humbling.

Thank you both very much for the advice.

[Amber Alexander]

I have found that sometimes I just get bored of working in a certain medium. Try something new; painting, watercolors, sculpting. You don't have to have the expensive brands to experiment either. The juice from squished strawberries works!

[Crass]

Damn, I wish I knew what to tell you. I felt the exact same way when I was that age and in the end I stopped drawing. Now that I've picked it up again I wonder every day why I didn't continue, I would have been so much further along now if I had. I knew all along that this is what I want to do, but somehow I didn't see the point in continuing. All I can say is don't give up man, everything has ups and downs, you will find the spirit again somewhere down the line and hopefully soon, in the meantime keep working even if it's not as fun as it used to be because those hours you put in will pay off big time later even if it doesn't feel like it right now.

[Basham]

Amber, I appreciate the advice. I have a few old watercolour and acrylic paints laying about, it's about time that I've played around with them.

Crass, your words are probably the most meaningful for me. Words from the wise. I wasn't going to give up art, but I will admit that my faith in my potential was shaken. I think I'll do some studies of some of the art I've seen in your sketchbook.

Thank you, both.

[Zazerzs]

Draw everyday, push through the blocks don't let them stop you.

Start a sketchbook here, its a great motivator.

there is always something you can work on that doesn't need to be necessarily creative.

So if you don't know what to do try practicing drawing cubes, work on perspective
study some anatomy, learn the 8 head proportions ect

Then when you go back to drawing freely you have all that stored information to draw upon and your creativity won't be so blocked.

also watch instructional vids and tuts , check out other peoples art work or anything else that will get you inspired to work harder and improve.