Feeling like I'm stagnating in art

[Vallium]

So I'be been drawing for the last something or other, I always carried around sketchbooks and filled them, trying to draw stuff from cartoons, from reality. Practicing poses, all that stuff. Most my "practice" was sporadic and mainly drawing just to draw, with a little bit of art knowlege consciously thrown in.

My improvement over time has been unconscious, most of it has been repetition and things "click" after awhile. That's not saying much though since after all this time I'm still very much an amateur.

So I tentatively "You know if I want to get better I should put more effort into practicing things"

 

My main focus is the technical mechanics. I hate how bad my art is and it's mainly because I can't use any digital programs right. My lines are trash, and every time I open up an art program to draw now I can't because I feel bad about that second step. I never was good at drawing lines. 

I'm also bad at shading, coloring, whatever. You name it 

 

The worst part is I also thought I wanted to pick up simple animating, but I can't even figure out how to work a pencil 2D or Krita animation software...much less a non animated 3D/blender software. Maybe I just don't have the patience to figure out what I'm doing wrong because I really want to make something but can't even understand how to make it.

Starting to feel like I should stop bothering trying to "get better" at digital art and keep doing what I was, draw just to draw.

 

 

This is mainly a rant and not an advice thread because for some particular stuff I already tried that and it didn't work that much.

[Wolflich]

You can't really wait for that to go away. It's what happens when your expectations exceed your ability, and the better you get the higher your standards will be. At some point you've just got to start making a conscious effort not to demand perfection—or even success at all—when you start to do something. It sounds like a weird thing to do when your aim is to improve but each success basically gets where it is by climbing up the bodies of past failures.

tl;dr: Set out to draw bad lines. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Caledonian]

When making art, only one thing is important: are you having fun? 

Do you enjoy holding that pencil and going for it? Go for it. Don't worry about the outcome, because it isn't about the outcome in the end. It's about the process. About just doing what you love for the sake of loving it.

Most people playing sports don't make it to be professional, and they know it because they just aren't good enough or do not feel like training 24/7, but they still enjoy being out of the field playing. Why would art be different. Why is there such a push to be "good" where at other hobbies this is less the case? 

Tldr:

Go draw you silly and don't worry about if it's good or not.

Ps: getting better will come. Just draw for drawing and look back in 2 years. Don't push yourself too hard, that doesn't work.

[Vae]

Art is a study.

If you're stagnating, it simply means you need to study and experiment more. Things won't immediately "click" in most instances. They almost never do.
Artistic skill isn't some kind of thing that just falls into your lap, like any study. You have to earn that shit.
I'm still earning that shit, and I've been doing this almost every day for 30 years.

Do new things. Try new things. If you're not absorbing anything from the material you're trying to study, maybe that particular format isn't for you. I work much better off of, say, 3D model and black and white sculptural studies than proportion diagrams and skeletons for instance.
There are other ways to go about that, than just discarding fundamentals entirely.

You said this isn't an advice thread, but the improvement is something you're capable of.
You just actually have to be willing to put in the effort to acquire it. That's kind of all there is to it.
And that shit ain't easy.

[Dr. Doggo]

The only real way to learn to draw is to do the boring bits of studying subject matter. trying to go off knowledge or that one tip you memorised doesn't really work because your memory of what something should really look like gets foggy to a point where you'll always be falling short. eventually you notice that you've fallen short and it feels bad, so that means its time to hit the books again.

just try not to be too hard on yourself to a point where you suck all the joy out of it or you'll be like me

see the fun in the boring part and you'll be better in no time

[Vallium]

Update: I don't know how long I'm gonna be in this "practice" frenzy since I do get busy and carried away with other life stuff to unfortunately not be able to do art more that way 

 

But I did shift directions, instead of practicing linework on my toony stuff I hit the books on "realism", or what could supposedly attempt to pass for such.

So I've been trying to attempt sketching from real life images again and painting....

 

I am incredibly terrible at painting but I did it anyways and I want to do a few more of them before I move on to greener pastures.I intentionally decided to do that because I know I'm terrible at it so it's all part of the experience to embrace the garbage art that comes forth.

 

Here's a sketch: I like sketches better:

The reference image:

 

....and the "painting"

 

I tried something a bit different, before the color I did a grayscale shading in black and white and then threw colors on top

 

It looks godawful but I actually did something different so this is progressive garbage \:3/

[Xaende]

Looks like you're doing pretty well. Sometimes, I even feel like I'm regressing in art.