It’s absolutely okay to feel stuck in your art development.
Sometimes life gets the better of us, and we don’t have the mental or emotional energy to create. We have other priorities outside of artwork after all—priorities that are held more highly than sketching, painting, and being creative in general. Or sometimes we only create when a wave of inspiration strikes; and maybe this feeling hasn’t quite hit us yet.
It’s fine to be frustrated so long as you acknowledge that you are in control of the time you spend on you art. You have volition. If you truly wanted to improve, you can put in the time and energy to do so.
However, it’s one thing to feel frustrated over your art progress, and another to put your art down. These acts are not synonymous in any form, yet they are approached as such.
Baylee Jae recently published a YouTube video about how she perceives her art. She feels stagnant—as if she hasn’t improved in the past while.
What I’d say as a response to Baylee Jae, or anyone else in a similar position, is this:
You are in a great place right now. Why? Well, you’re stuck because you know you can be something greater. You know that you’re fully capable of improving, but you’re holding yourself back in some way, shape, or form.
You’re ready to break free—to take your growth a step further.
But you need to remember that to be able to look at your current artwork and know that improvement is eminent is exciting. You’re so close to it, you just need to make the time to take your art to the next level.
Also, and I say this with all of the care in the world, you should never put down your art. Whether you created a piece a decade age, or 10 minutes ago, and regardless of whether it was a “good” or “bad” art day. Every piece represents a journey; an attempt, and a step forward in learning and growing.
It breaks my heart to see people so openly insult their own creations as if it’s second nature. Instead, we should focus on fondly looking back—approaching our development, or lack of, with humor and care. To see that, in the moment, you were happy creating a piece 10 years ago. At the time, you loved it and added it to the list of your favorite pieces. I believe it’s essential to appreciate old artwork for the lessons it had taught you and the joy that it brought out, despite it poorly representing who you are as an artist today.
And if you look at one of your more recent pieces with disdain, keep in mind that you put in the time and effort to create, despite your heart not being in it. You powered through and gave your art an honest attempt. Seeing flaws in your work only shows how capable you are at creating something even better.
So my message to you is to embrace your old art,
appreciate your new art, and see the humor and growth that is inherent in anything that you have created or will create. Travelling through your art journey is meant to be exciting and rewarding, not exhausting and restrictive. Embrace the good, bad, and ugly of it all. Let yourself feel frustrated, but understand where your frustration is coming from. And then, once you’ve taken a moment to reflect, channel your frustration into improvement.
Baylee Jae’s video was sad to watch. I don’t agree with her outward discontentment with her art; however, I admire the fire in her. She wants to improve and is taking steps to do so. Baylee has retained her spark and is channeling said fire into creation.
Know what your priorities are. Be aware of where your time is going versus what you are hoping to achieve, and you will always come out of this battle victorious.
Best of luck,
Juli
A/N: I’d like you to keep in mind that I come from the perspective of someone who still considers herself fairly new at art. In all honesty, half of the artwork I create are pieces that I’m not entirely happy with. It stings when you feel like you’re capable of so much more but are unable to tap into this potential. Additionally, it’s difficult to admit that you’re not practicing as much as you should. But also note that I look back at my beginner artwork fondly. I laugh at some of my less impressive pieces, and I thank my current mediocre pieces for the practice that they’ve offered. Every piece of art that you create is a win in some way
And if you don’t believe me and think that this post is complete live-laugh-learn bull crap, take one of your old pieces and redraw it. Even if you just created it 15 minutes ago and you’re not happy with the result. You’ll learn that recreating a piece shows just how much you’ve learned and grown from its past rendition.
I loved my art once upon a time, i loved watching a piece grow on the sheet of paper, from an embryo through to completion and mostly I was happy doing pencil drawings. I loved showing my art to people and I used to believe people when they foolishly told me I could make a career out of my art, very foolish considering how stylised and cliched my pieces were.But that was then,now is now and i hate my art with a passion. I switched to prismacolor pencils in 2008 and threw myself headfirst into doing pieces that were beyond me I think, too elaborate, too busy, too intricate and since i work fulltime in a callm centre it was taking me on average a year to finish a piece and with that kind of slow pace it is not ideal if thinking of selling art, artist need to be turning out works regularly, 1 piece a year is never, ever going to cut it if you are having silly thoughts of an artistic career, !better stick to answring phone calls instead!!!. Instagram, deviant art and just about everry other art sight is a soul destroying excersice in futilility, after 24hrs i could see my submissions being pushed further and further back until they were virtually invisible as more and more submissions from other artists were uploaded, one site i could view my stats, ie, how many people viewed my art, how many peopl,e actually viewed the full size and not just the thumbnail and the results of that convinced me to abandon art altogether, to actually reject my art, reject whatever talent i have. The only destination for a finished artwork is my art folder and I have banished my folder to the garage where it can rot for all I care. Also I no longer like showing my art to people, I hate people looking at my art, compliments mean nothing to me anymore, another reason to throw in the towel. In short noone can cut off their nose to spite their face like I can, I am the master of it, noone can beat me there but i also like to spite my wife when she attempts to talk mabout my art, I cut her down, right down. My art is utter garbage even if it isn’t, there is not a single piece i am happy with and if i have to try and convice myself it is good, well that is indicative i have spent a yeart wasting my time on producing a piece of shit!
Hi cthulhu, sorry for the late response, I haven’t logged onto this site in a while. First off, thank you for sharing your story. Sorry to hear that your art journey ended on bad terms. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, especially if it was something that used to bring you so much joy 🙁 All I can really say is that I truly hope you find something that lights a fire under you. Best of luck with your next journey, whatever it may be. Wishing you well~