How do I stop being a perfectionist with my artwork?
I consider myself a budding artist. I mostly draw animals, Pokemon or other non-human characters (mainly because I am not good at drawing humans). Usually what I do is draw something in my sketchbook, take a picture of it on my Nintendo 2DS, and then use a software called Colors 3D to trace the lineart and color it.
The main problem I'm facing is my perfectionism. If something in the drawing doesn't look right, say a paw of a Pokemon, then I erase it and keep redrawing it over and over again. Sometimes to the point where the paper starts to tear from all the erasing. (It's kind of pointless to do that because I'm going to go over it in Colors 3D anyway.) I know that my art doesn't have to be perfect, and that nobody is going to look at it closer than I am, but I just can't help it. I've tried listening to music, which helps a little bit. I've also tried looking at tutorials, which doesn't seem to help. It doesn't help that people have said my art is simplistic. I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing, but it still bothers me.
I'm at the point where I'm considering giving up drawing. What do I do?
(Hopefully this is in the right thread)
Aaaaaah I could have written this! I used to go hysteric, as a kid, if my rubber was nowhere in sight when I needed to erase an error, and it didn't get better until I got in my 20s. Now I can stand the mistake being on the paper for a couple of seconds until I find my rubber, but I still find it heavy to craft anything or draw anything, because of the ripercussions the end result might have on my self esteem. It scares me. I almost never finish my works for this reason. This problem is even worse with writing, and I'm fighting not to quit completely. I haven't been writing in... Omg, it's maybe 10 years or more. No matter what I write and how much positive feedback I get, even if I can't find anything that objectively I don't like in what I wrote, still I'm not satisfied, I'm never able to tell exactly why, but I feel more and more that my work is shallow, stupid, emotionless, badly written, worse and worse, until I start being repulsed by it and I don't even have the courage to look at the word doc's icon on my pc, and I have to hide it.
I'm seeing a psychiatrist to get a diagnosis and/or a treatment plan, and first thing she notices is that "I have an obsessive kind of thinking" ahahah
Things are improving little by little as I learn to handle other core issues I have, which, I think, are more trauma related. What I'm saying is that for me, this obsessive feelings and behaviors are just the tip of the iceberg, just consequences of deeper issues that condition my life in countless ways. The problem is not how do I stop erasing the left eye of my character's face. It's more "how happens that I can't accept my own mistakes at the slightest?" because I guess seeing them on the paper is what drives me crazy. Knowing that it could be done better, but my best ability is not (yet - but the concept of learning is hard to stick in my head-) nearly enough to reach that level. It burns, as if it scarred me, as if it was something that I'll never be able to change and that defines me, as if in every single performance there was no reason that could possibly allow me to contemplate failure. Never ever ever. And they ask me why I spend my day doing nothing. It's safer LOL less chance to do things wrong.
It can get better though.
I had to dig in myself to reach depths I didn't know I had, but things I though would never have changed are finally starting to move ^w^
@Pokefan46 Look it's hard to stop being a perfectionist and I get what you're dealing with. Don't think of art as it has to be perfect but as a way to express yourself, have fun with it.
I totally understand this, I am the same, so much so that I paint rather than draw, but my life changed when I got a putty rubber that lifts off the pencil without rubbing.
Listening - One Step At A Time!
