My (NSFW) Art Journey: One Year of (In)Consistent Progress
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It's been about a year since I really buckled down on learning to draw. For those that've read either my initial new hobby announcement or its update post, you know that I'd been taking a course on gesture drawing at my last check-in.
I'll knock out a TL;DR at the start here. This is a peek behind the curtain of how my art journey has been going. I'm proud of myself for the effort I've already put in, and excited to continue learning. If you're interested to know how it's going but do not have the bandwidth or desire to read all this, just scroll through the pictures. I won't even know. Seriously, no hard feelings. Life's tough enough without me getting butthurt over something I also do sometimes.
Up to this point, I played my progress pretty close to the vest. Apart from those two posts, I didn't really share my art publicly. I definitely didn't keep social media in the loop. Anything shared anywhere else online was already in bearblog posts, so what did it matter?
When I did want to share more incremental progress, it was with select people that I knew would give me the encouragement that I needed. Not that I was looking for empty praise, but I knew I'd be more likely to buckle with negative comments. I wanted to set myself up for success while I was still delicate. I listened for notes on specific things I did well. I rewatched lessons and practiced and rewatched lessons and practiced more.
I'm one year into what I hope is a life-long art journey and my progress is undeniable.
By the time I was willing to share progress in the form of my first art journey entry, I was already at a point where I was impressed with my progress. At least, to some degree. If you noticed that I drew in blue initially for gesture, it's because of the art lesson I started before gesture.
My first online art instructor talked about blue pencil being pretty much the standard for animators. Since it was already one of my favorite colors, it didn't take a lot of convincing to sell me on using light blue. It would make things easy later if I decided I wanted to do animations, too. I love a good future proof.
Then, my gesture instructor (who is incredible) used red in his demonstrations. When I started the lessons, I was still firmly set on blue. But as time went on, my color preference changed into the red I use to this day for gesture specifically.
I learned the parts of the body one at a time. Action lines for the shoulders and hips. Center line. Lower torso. Legs. That's all I was capable of at my last update. Sketches in the stage just before my last update looked like this:
From there, I learned how to draw feet, then the upper torso. I had to practice each extremity in close to isolation before adding them into full body gestures. I hadn't learned arms and hands yet, but when I see these early practices now, I notice things. Little hints of style. Parts I seem to emphasize in a similar way across multiple sketches.
I wonder how those kinds of things will develop over time. What style I'll develop.
But after all that time of following the program, it was hard to temper myself. To keep from jumping too far ahead. From assuming things or learning bad habits when the proper techniques were right around the corner.
The above gestures with soft, vague arms are evidence of my impulse control failing. I sketched an approximation of arms instead of a single line to show direction. I wanted to sate my own curiosity, but it just left me annoyed that they didn't look how I wanted. The two sets of sketches below are proper attempts after I'd watched the arms lesson.
I think I managed to avoid shooting myself in the foot on this one, luckily.
Once I added hands, I was too nervous to push forward onto the head and neck lesson. To complete the picture. It was a scary thought, to not have the fallback of the work being purposefully incomplete. But I needed to practice. To challenge myself. To keep myself engaged.
I kept seeing videos online of this person recreating extreme anime poses in real life. It was part of some trend I didn't really care about, but it gave me an idea. I started to screenshot a bunch of them to use for gesture practice without the time pressure associated with an attempt to draw similar poses in person.
The reference photo was taken in a public place, so the person obviously had clothes on. In that way, I knew I wouldn't be able to do the same degree of detail as I could with the lesson reference images since the model in the art class is nude. But even then, I thought the insane poses were an exciting challenge.
I'm glad I did this. I'm honestly so impressed with how well I did.
The reason this post is named Like That is because it didn't feel right to call my progress consistent, even though it was. Consistent progress can be achieved through inconsistency. Or, rather, what some might perceive as inconsistency.
I hold myself to an impossible standard, so I have to remind myself that I don't have to be on top of it all day, everyday. I don't have to live that #grindsetmindset (nor do I want to). For me, my progress was consistent because I always came back. I kept pushing forward, even when I wasn't ready. Especially when I wasn't ready. I made time, even when the amount wasn't long enough or as often as I wanted.
I have gone weeks at a time not touching the lessons.
Or even practicing. But even with that being true, I've also been so much more consistent overall. Gaps between practices aren't getting as long or as frequent. I've advanced in the curriculum. I started at a primary action line and advanced to everything from the shoulders down. I can't ignore my progress, it's undeniable. That's part of what's made it easy to always come back in this attempt. That, and Adderall.
I've removed some sketches from the batches shared in this post.
I think it's fair to protect my sanity. Just because I'm being vulnerable online doesn't mean I can't do it on my terms. It is my art journey, after all. That's why many of the gestures in this post have a 3rd sketch that's hidden because I wasn't as happy with the end result. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in love with every single sketch in this or anything. I'm just happy enough with all of these that I'm comfortable sharing them.
These aren't all of my attempts.
I still value the time spent on sketches I'll keep private. Even if I feel I could have done better, I still improved. I learned what I didn't like. What I could tweak. There were still things I did well that I was proud of. But also, no one will ever see 100% of another person's progress. So much is done mentally. So much practice is done behind closed doors.
If you're on the fence about learning a new skill or starting a hobby that interests but intimidates you, just start it. Stick your foot in the door. Starting it is the hardest part, so just get the ball rolling. I'm not good at forming habits, but I'm still here making progress.
After all, time marches on. One year from now will come and pass before you know it. You can be a year better or exactly where you're at now. Why not spend that time doing what you want?