Buckle Up

hi um youre a great artist so i thought maybe you can help me. when i was younger i drew a lot, until i was like 16 and then kind of stopped (im 22 now). i really want to start drawing again because i dont have any other hobby and feel empty without it, but i just cant. i do like 2 strokes and erase them and think well this is ugly as shit i cant do it. sometimes i can do half a face or so but then i think it looks shit and stop. i know art is not a talent, you have to practice a lot, but how?

That’s because you want your art to look like someone else’s.

You’re supposed to be bad at art before you’re good at it. It doesn’t work the other way around. You’re supposed to make mistakes. You’re supposed to make garbage until you get better. It’s your right as a human being to make garbage and be allowed to learn. That’s why you feel empty, too—not because you aren’t drawing, but because you’re afraid of failing.

You’re going to hate everything you draw unless you can say, “I want my art to look like mine, even if it’s ugly beginner’s garbage.”

And that takes practice.

It takes as much practice to be willing to practice as it does to get good at art, you know? People forget to teach kids that, but it’s true. You have to practice liking what you do and finding value in yourself as much as you practice making marks on a piece of paper. It takes practice to be okay with making garbage.

Kids don’t care about making good art. They have no reason to be afraid of themselves. Every kid draws, and every kid draws whatever the fuck they want, spiders eating peanut butter sandwiches or whatever, and the only reason we stop drawing as kids is because the world teaches us that our value depends on other people—no, no, no, you can’t draw that because it’s not good, and it doesn’t look like this REAL TRUE art that someone else has already made. And that’s why we give up. 

But it’s a big fucking lie. You only have to be as good as yourself, not someone else. You can draw as many spiders eating as many peanut butter sandwiches as you want. Badly.

Practice liking your garbage. Put it in a frame. It’s just as valuable as your best because you need it to get where you want to go.